2. The Mysteries of Naha Te (G)

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By Graham Noble

Chojun Miyagi always wanted to do further research on Chinese styles. He mentioned this to Nisaburo Miki in 1929 when Miki made his karate research trip to Okinawa. As Miki wrote:

“Sensei’s ideal Tode study plan is to press forward on research into Shina (Chinese), Taiwanese and Korean Kempo. Sensei explained the reasons for such a plan as follows: ‘The characteristic of Tode is a primary use of nigirikobushi (the closed fist). In Shina (China) Kempo, as a rule they use four-finger nukite. Other styles, for the most part, belong to the Shina Kempo category.’ “

Miyagi was just repeating the orthodoxy that while Okinawa karate uses the fist, Chinese kempo uses the fingers to strike, which makes you wonder what detailed knowledge of Chinese styles he actually had.

He had gone to China in 1915 but what he found there is really unclear. Doumentation on this visit is non-existent but it was mentioned in a short profile of Miyagi at the time of his 1934 visit to the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaiian newspaper “Yoen Jiho Sha”, in announcing Miyagi’s arrival stated that he had gone to China twice, “once in May 1915 and . . . in July 1917 and studied and made research on the Chinese art.” Presumably this information had come from Miyagi himself, though otherwise he seems to have said, or written, almost nothing about these visits. Akio Kinjo heard that the (1915?) visit was made in connection with business, so actually Miyagi may not have seen very much kempo at that time. No one else seems to mention a 1917 trip, but Morio Higaonna, in his history of Goju, states that Miyagi went to China sometime in the 1920s to research kempo. However, Higaonna cannot give a date for this or any details at all. The “Yoen Jiho Sha” article does not mention a 1920s date, so perhaps 1917 and the 1920s were getting confused here. In 1936 Miyagi again travelled to China, and there is some memory of this stay, however, this visit was to Shanghai, far away from Fujian Province: apart from some general knowledge of Chinese martial arts, it is very unlikely that Miyagi’s time in Shanghai could have provided any material on the history of Kanryo Higaonna in Southern China.

As was usually the case, Miyagi himself never wrote anything about his visits to China. In the 1936 meeting of Okinawan karate experts sponsored by the “Ryukyu Shimpo” he was asked by Chotei Oroku whether he had gone to China for the purpose of studying karate. The text for Miyagi’s response is a little unclear, but the gist of it seems to be that he had not gone to China for that sole purpose, but he “studied it as I had learned it was a superior kempo.” Again, this tells us hardly anything. As a matter of interest, to the question, “Did they have the traditional or native ‘Te’ in this prefecture?”, Miyagi replied, “In this prefecture, just as Judo, kendo and boxing , ‘Te’ has been progressed and improved,” which implies that the karate he was then teaching had been developed someway beyond the te that he had originally learned in Okinawa.

Eichi Miyazato, (“Okinawa-den Goju Ryu Karate Do”, 1978) wrote that in 1915 Miyagi travelled to Fuzhou with a Chinese friend, Wu Hsien Kuei (Go Ken Ki) but found that things were now different from the time that Kanryo Higaonna was there, which you could interpret as meaning that he could find no trace of Higaonna’s teaching. Miyazato might have got this information from Miyagi himself, or from his seniors, he doesn’t say.

When I met Morio Higaonna back in 1982 in Liverpool I asked him about Chojun Miyagi’s Chinese visits. He replied that the first two trips (1915 and 1920s presumably) had only been for a month or so. On these first two occasions Miyagi had not been able to pick up much information on specific styles, and at the time of the third visit there was a lot of tension between China and Japan and many experts were away. It sounded as if Miyagi’s researches hadn’t amounted to much.

Morio Higaonna did say, though, that on his first time in China Chojun Miyagi had met an old man who had trained in Tai Cho Kun (Tai Tsu Ch’uan, Great Ancestor Fist, presumably) and this old man had shown a form which was similar to the Goju Sanchin: similar in principle, with the same hand and elbow position (elbows in) and similar pushing-down hand movements. Higaonna also said at this time that he thought Sanchin testing was probably an Okinawan invention, like the makiwara. None of the books on Fujian styles, he said, showed Sanchin testing.

Later, in Volume 1 (1985) of his four-volume series, “Traditional Karatedo. Okinawa Goju Ryu”, Higaonna wrote that Chojun Miyagi went to China in the same year that Kanryo Higaonna died, (1915; but he did not say whether this was before or after Higaonna’s death. Eichi Miyazato gave the date as May 1915). Miyagi had found the site where Ryu Ryu Ko’s dojo had been and where Kanryo Hgaonna had once lived, but nothing remained except an outer wall. Somehow he “came across” an old man who had been a student of Ryuruko. This old man said that during the revolutionary war – presumably this was the Boxer Uprising of 1898 to 1900? - almost all of the martial artists in Fujian had fled to Singapore or Malaysia to escape persecution, and even after the troubles ended they did not return, or if they did they remained underground. According to Higaonna, Miyagi then showed his kata, a demonstration which impressed the old man.

Ten years later, in his “History of Karate, Goju Ryu” Higaonna expanded his account of Chojun Miyagi’s first Chinese visit. He wrote that Miyagi was accompanied on the trip by Eishin Nakamoto (1881 – 1945) and it was Nakamoto who introduced him to an old student of Ryu Ryu Ko. According to this version of events Miyagi demonstrated his kata for the old man, who said that his forms were “of the old martial arts,” adding that “Those with your power no longer exist in China.” Another detail was now added to the story: that Miyagi showed all the Goju kata except Sanseiru. The old man then said that one kata was missing – and he performed Sanseiru, the same kata that Kanryo Higaonna had taught.

The old man also showed Miyagi the ruins of Ryu Ryu Ko’s house, the temple in the mountains where Ryu Ru Ko had trained as a young man – that was in ruins too - and even Ryu Ryu Ko’s grave. According to Morio Higaonna, the grave was covered with details of Ryu Ryu Ko’s life, which Miyagi faithfully recorded.

All this later detail is unconvincing. Apart from his teacher Anichi Miyagi, Higaonna gives no sources for any of this information, and it’s hard to understand how these detailed stories of Miyagi in Fuzhou could have suddenly come to light after the passage of more than a century, or how conversations from such a distant time could be recalled all those years later. The detail about Miyagi missing out Sanseiru in his demonstration of kata and the old Chinese then performing it was added very late and seems to be based on a story of Juhatsu Kyoda learning this kata before Miyagi did and Miyagi’s supposed consequent dislike of the kata – for which there doesn’t seem to be any proof. Personally, I don’t believe any of it.

As far as we know Kanryo Higaonna said very little about his training in China, so where would Chojun Miyagi have begun his search in the large city of Fuzhou? What are the chances of him happening on a student of Ryu Ryu Ko? The story about Ryu Ryu Ko’s grave and the information on the headstone is very hard to believe.

Morio Higaonna asserted that that Miyagi wrote down all of the information he had discovered during his visit but these notes were all destroyed during the war. Of course, it’s convenient to say that material was lost in the war, and there are several such stories in karate history, but if Miyagi really did have that all that old historical material, why didn’t he use it in his pre-war writings, especially in his “Karate Do Gaisetsu”, which included a short historical section on the art? What he actually wrote in “Gaisetsu” was that virtually nothing was known about the history of karate or its different styles. Presumably Miyagi could also have told his friend Kenwa Mabuni about any findings he had made in China, but Mabuni too had nothing to say on all this.

Actually, Miyagi had an opportunity to learn Crane style kempo in Okinawa, from the Chinese tea trader Go Ken Ki (Wu Xiangui/Wu Hsien-Kuei, 1886 – 1940), who was actually from Fujian, and had learned Crane style there. Go had come to Okinawa around 1910 (1912?). At first he worked for another Chinese from Fuzhou, Gao Jian Jie, who had a tea business, the Senshun Kai, but then a couple of years later he set up his own tea-trading business, the Eiko Sako Company in Naha. Go would work there during the day and teach Crane style Kempo at night on the company premises.

His first student was Seisho Aniya, who had befriended hm at the Senshun kai, and who had moved with Go when he set up the Eiko Sako company. Later, on Aniya’s recommendation, three other students began training under Go: Yabe, Medorima, and Sagara. According to Shigeru Takamiyagi, who wrote about Go Ken Ki in the 1977 “Okinawa Karate-Do”, these were Go’s only students. The training consisted of conditioning and two forms: Sanchin and Crane Hand. There were no tuition fees, but the students would have to bring four or five eggs, which they would eat during training.

Go would sometimes show his Crane form at demonstrations and according to Takamiyagi, Chojun Miyagi was a great admirer of this form. It’s not clear when Go Ken Ki and Miyagi first met but Go was involved in the Karate Kenkyu Club with Miyagi in the mid-1920s, and when Miyagi went to Shanghai in 1936 he was looked after by Go’s pupil Seisho Aniya, who by then was running a business there. According to Takamiyagi, Go Ken Ki actually accompanied Miyagi on that Shanghai trip, although this is not mentioned by Morio Higaonna in his history of Goju. In his letter to Harry Cook, Seikichi Toguchi wrote: “About Chojun Miyagi and Go Ken Ki: Master Go lived near my house when I was a child. He married an Okinawan woman and had a tea store. Though the master did not have his (own) dojo to teach his martial art, he was renowned as an expert of the Chinese Crane system. Presently there are no disciples of his. Master Miyagi was not a student but a friend of his. And I am sure that they studied and exchanged their techniques. If my memory is correct, they were the same age.” (Go was a couple of years older than Miyagi).

Anyway, there was quite a long association, or friendship, between the two men – and yet we can’t discern any direct influence from Go and White Crane Boxing on Miyagi’s Goju Ryu. In contrast, Juhatsu Kyoda and Kenwa Mabuni quite possibly picked up their Nepai (Kyoda) and Nipaipo (Mabuni) kata from Go, these two kata being karate-ised copies of the Crane form ”Twenty Eight Steps.”

So considering his longstanding interest in Chinese Kempo, it is surprising that we cannot really see any direct Go Ken Ki or Crane style influence in Miyagi’s Goju Ryu. The most we can see – perhaps – is a possible Crane style influence in some of the Tensho blocking movements. It’s possible, or probable, that Miyagi would have discussed martial arts with Go, and so it seems odd that he didn’t take the opportunity of learning Crane style or incorporating some of its techniques into his teaching, but then by that time his own ideas on techniques and training may have been set and he didn’t see any need to incorporate Crane techniques.

Regarding his 1936 trip to China, in February of that year Miyagi set sail from Kyushu for Shanghai. Seisho Aniya, the Okinawan tea trader who had studied kempo with Gokenki, had helped with the arrangements. In 1928 Aniya had moved to Shanghai and had conducted a successful business there for several years.

Miyagi stayed at Aniya’s house in Shanghai for ten days and was introduced to the city’s Japanese community. With the support of the Japanese consulate a demonstration of karate was organised and approximately two hundred people gathered to see Miyagi perform at the Japanese centre in Shanghai. Aniya told Morio Higaonna that Miyagi had begun his demonstration with Sanchin and then performed two other kata. A party was held afterwards in his honour. According to Higaonna, Miyagi stayed in Shanghai for six weeks, being looked after by another, now unknown, person, (a worker for the city’s electricity company), after he left Aniya’s home.

Aniya also accompanied Miyagi to the famous Shanghai Ching Wu (Jingwu) Association, where he met the instructors and watched a demonstration of Ching Wu forms. No doubt this would have included the standard Ching Wu sets such as Tan Tui, Gung Li Quan, and various weapons sets. It would have been interesting for Miyagi in his general research into Chinese Kempo (quan fa/ch’uan fa) but because the Ching Wu syllabus was made up of Northern-style forms those demonstrations could not have been much help to him in researching the roots of Goju Ryu in far off Fujian province. After the demonstrations Miyagi and Aniya signed a friendship scroll with several of the Ching Wu officials and instructors. One notable name on the scroll was Chao Lian-prostitute, the head martial arts teacher of the Association. In his youth Chao had been a student of the Ching Wu’s famous first instructor, Huo Yuan-jia, and he had been with the school since 1911. He had developed or standardised several of the forms in the Association’s curriculum. The year after that friendship scroll was signed relations between China and Japan disintegrated and the Sino-Japanese war broke out in July 1937. In August Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese army.

Apparently Shosei Aniya bought some books on quan fa (kempo) for Miyagi. These books, along with most of Miyagi’s possessions, were (yet again) destroyed in the American invasion of Okinawa in 1945. The likelihood is that they were generally available books on Northern styles, and their loss would not have been of much significance: such works were widely available during the Republic and since the war there have been many reprints of books published during that time.

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