2. The Mysteries of Naha Te (E)

[emattson]

Table of Contents
Previous chapter

By Graham Noble

In the 1980s, practitioners of Uechi Ryu believed that they had found the Chinese teacher of their founder, Kanbum Uechi: he was identified as a master of Tiger style boxing, Zhou Zi He (Chou Tzu prostitute). Whether that was true or not remains a matter of dispute but, possibly encouraged by this success, some Goju Ryu teachers also visited China to try and carry out research on the origins of their own style. However, if anything, the search for Kanryo Higaonna’s teacher was even more difficult than the search for the roots of Uechi Ryu: the obscurity of the history, lack of any documentation, geographical separation, and the many years that had passed meant that this was probably always going to be a futile quest.

As part of his historical research, Iken Tokashiki, the head of the Okinawan Gohakukai Association, made contacts with the Fuzhou Martial Arts Association but it was a year after his first visit to Fuzhou (in 1987, I think) that he received a letter from the Association saying that a possible identification of Ryu Ryu Ko had been made. He flew there to check out what had been found and was told that many people had been mobilised to do research aimed at finding the historical Ryu Ryu Ko , the same process that had been followed for the Uechi Ryu group, in fact. From all this work there came one significant piece of information: about a hundred years ago there had been a handicraft worker who was said to have been skilled in martial arts. He was born around 1852 and was called Ryujokyo; apparently Ryujokyo and Ryuryuko have similar pronunciations in the Fuzhou dialect. At one time one of this man’s pupils was a foreigner who was learning martial arts while working for him. It could not be confirmed, however, whether this student had been Kanryo Higaonna. Subsequently this teacher was identified as Xie Zhong Xiang, a teacher of Crane Boxing, Whooping Crane (Ming He Quan), to be specific, and it was announced that he was Ryu Ru Ko. The teacher of Kanryo Higaonna had been found, or rather, this was what was asserted. .

Some people were not convinced by this identification. Pat McCarthy told me that Li Yi Duan himself, the Secretary of the Fuzhou Wu Shu Assocation didn’t believe it, and back in Okinawa, nor did Akio Kinjo or Morio Higaonna. For what it’s worth, I never believed it myself.

One puzzling thing about the identification was that Xie was born in 1852, and that made him just a year older than Kanryo Higaonna. Although it was just from oral history, it had always been thought that Higaonna’s teacher was much older than him: Eichi Miyazato had referred to Ryu Ryu Ko as “Lao Shih” or “Old teacher”, and in his researches on the oral history of karate Akio Kinjo had picked up an old story that Kanryo Higaonna’s teacher had told him, shortly before Higaonna’s return to Okinawa, “I am so old that I cannot teach kung fu any longer.” Of course, the venerated karate teachers of legend are usually old men, so this may not mean anything; it is possible that Higaonna’s instructor could have been about the same age as he was, but it does strike a slightly jarring note.

According to this version of history the forms taught in Xie Zhong Xiang’s Ming He Quan included (Pat McCarthy listing): Happoren, Nepai, Doonquan, Roujin, and Qijing, and/or (Russ Smith listing): Ba Bu Lian (Eight Linked Steps, Happoren, I suppose), Er Shih Shi Ba (Twenty Eight Steps), Zhong Kuang , Rou Jian , Qi Jing. Russ lists other Ming He forms as San Chin (Three Advances) and Si Men, (Four Gates). He notes that in his training Ba Bu Lian was the third form taught.

But then, even if we accept this history, the question is: how did Fujian Crane Style so quickly and completely change into something like Okinawan Goju Ryu? Crane Boxing is not Naha-te, and this isn’t just a matter of minor variations: the two systems have a completely dfferent set of forms, techniques and principles. For the Xie/Higaonna connection to be a true history we have to believe that Kanryo Higaonna learned Crane style in Southern China for several years, trained intensively so that its techniques and principles become second nature to him – and then returned to Okinawa and within a short time began to teach something completely different. Why would anyone do that, and how would it work? How could those Higaonna kata have arisen out of Crane forms? What would be the mechanics of that change, kata by kata and movement by movement? And these supposed changes did not happen over a long period of time, but in historical terms almost immediately, so that they were there when Higaonna settled back in Okinawa and began to teach. If instead Higaonna simply chose to teach a completely different set of forms, where did they come from, and what does that say about his supposed study of Crane Boxing? None of this seems to make any sense at all.

The historical evidence for the identification of Ryuryuko as Xie Zhong Xiang, seems very thin, amounting to almost nothing, in fact. And one important factor in all this was the involvement of the mainland Chinese authorities, which meant that there was probably always going to be a good chance of identifying Ryu Ryu Ko – even if it wasn’t really the Ryu Ryu Ko of history, if he ever existed. The problems of finding Ryu were the same as with Kanbum Uechi and his supposed teacher Zhou Zi He, but worse, because the quest went even further back in time. Personally I never believed that Ryu Ryu Ko had been found, or in fact could be found. What had been done seemed almost impossible: to go back through so many years, and such a geographical distance, unsupported by any historical facts or documentation at all, and find the very person you were searching for – in a huge country like China.

On one of the web forums, (“Traditional Fighting Arts Forums”, 25 January 2011), “gojuka” (Russ Smith, apparently) posted this:

“In 2007 Eric Ling and I spent several hours interviewing Ruan Dong (who recently passed away) about the supposed ‘discovery’ that Xie was Higaonna’s ‘Ryuruko.’ The result of which was the story that the Fuzhou government thought it would be good for tourism if they could make some connection between Xie and Higaonna. According to Ruan Dong, he and the other masters present were essentially told to put Xie forward, along with the story that Higaonna was ‘remembered’ by Xie’s family.

“Take it for what it’s worth, but based on my limited experience training in Minghequan (and other Fuzhou based styles) as well as hearing this story from someone on the ‘inside’ of the event, I have personal doubts of any real linkage between the two styles.”

Following this, (26 January 2011), Russ also noted that he had failed to see enough convincing evidence of the identification of Xie Zhong Xiang, as Ryu Ryu Ko, adding: “What I see is the development of a theory, proposed and propagated by a group of people who have something to gain by its adoption, and proof that the acceptance of that theory is a boon for some who would be paid to travel to teach pieces of the supposed ‘precursor’ art.

“I’m quite certain I’m not alone in my belief that the very few facts available just don’t add up in such a way as to push the Xie ‘theory’ into the realm of Ryuruko ‘fact.’ “

Next chapter