4. More on Miyagi (A)

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By Graham Noble

Years ago, in a letter to the American “Karate Illustrated” magazine, Anthony Mirakian wrote: “Master Chojun Myagi did not give exhibition matches on Okinawa nor did he allow his students to compete against each other. Many years ago a famous Japanese newsman visited Master Miyagi’s dojo and observed the training of the students. He was overwhelmed by the techniques he saw and said to the master ‘You have a very fine system of karate. You should give public demonstrations so that the Okinawans could see your system and it would become popular.’ Master Miyagi replied that his karate was not for show and if anyone wanted to see a show he should go to a theater. He also said that if a sincerely interested person came to his dojo and desired to learn the art of Goju Ryu karate, he would teach him.”

Miyagi wasn’t a showman and besides telling his students to always be alert and cautious he also advised them to be modest and not to try and stand out. As Genkai Nakaima, one of his early students, wrote: “As far as I know, Miyagi sensei never tried to show off karate. Therefore, we also never talked about karate either at school or outside school. We bore it firmly in mind that we should not show karate to other people in public.” Miyagi never seemed to try to establish a big following, either. In fact he had relatively few students, but he and his group did give demonstrations to promote knowledge of karate, both in Okinawa and mainland Japan. When Prince Takamatsu, the younger brother of Crown Prince Hirohito, visited Okinawa in Taisho 14, (1925), he asked if he could see a demonstration of karate. Tatsunori Sakiyama, then a young student of Chojun Miyagi, was actually in school when suddenly the schoolmaster told him, Keiju Azama and Genkei Nakaima to go to the Okinawa School for Teachers where they were to give a demonstration of karate for the prince.

“We tried to demonstrate bare chested,“ Sakiyama recalled, “but the authorities were concerned that it would be impolite to appear like that before the prince and they prohibited us from doing so. We responded by saying that we would not give the demonstration. They argued but we insisted and in the end they had to agree. Today, all people train in karategi but we used to train bare chested. We trained bare chested so that when he watched Miyagi Sensei could study the muscle movement and control, how to punch and kick with muscle control.”

Genkai Nakaima also referred to that same demonstration in a memoir he wrote over fifty years later for “Aioyumi” magazine: “When Prince Takamatsu no Miya visited Okinawa, Miyagi Sensei appointed me to show him Sanchin as a representative of Goju Ryu. I performed Sanchin only wearing a pair of pants just like a daily practice. Miyagi Sensei did not demonstrate karate.”

Sakiyama, Nakaima and Azama also took part in a demonstration for Jigoro Kano, the famous founder of Judo, when he and some of his seniors visited Okinawa. Genkai Nakaima and Tasunori Sakiyama recalled Kano’s visit as taking place in Tasisho 14, or 1925, although Takao Nakaya, an excellent historian, dates it to November 1926. Kano had come to Okinawa at the invitation of the Okinawan judo yudansaha’s association and during his visit he asked to see a demonstration of karate.

Once again, Sakiyama recalled, there was an urgent call from the schoolmaster to go and see Miyagi, this time at the Okinawa Hotel: “When we got there we found that the Mayor of Naha and other senior officials were already present. Miyagi Sensei gave an explanation of karate and Mr Azama, Genkei Nakaima and I demonstrated karate from the basics to high level before the distinguished people in Jigoro Kano’s group.” Afterwards, according to Nakaima, Miyagi visited Sochoku Nakachi, a teacher at Second Middle School, and asked him “How was the performance of karate by my students?"

They haven’t been recorded, but there may have been quite a few other demonstrations involving Chojun Miyagi and his students. Sakiyama recalled another time when, once again, he was called out of school to take part in a demonstration at a village called Kimbu-son. There had been a lot of emigration abroad from that village, to Hawaii, Peru or Argentina, and it was suffering from a shortage of young men. Chojun Miyagi had been asked to come and show karate to help build up the spirit of those who remained. Several karate experts were involved in the event and there were performances by Chomo Hanashiro, Ankichi Aragaki, Koki Shimoto of Tomari-te, and Miyagi’s students Sakiyama and Keiyo Madambashi. Sakiyama wrote that “I successfully demonstrated on behalf of Sensei Miyagi,” but did not mention whether Miyagi himself showed any kata; perhaps not. Sakiyama mentioned that Chomo Hanshiro was then fifty seven years old, which would date this event to 1926.

Eichi Miyazato remembered being part of a demonstration before “Japanese Royalty” in 1942. On that occasion Miyagi himself performed Tensho kata and Jinan Shinzato, his favourite pupil, did Seisan: “His performance was fabulous”, Miyazato said of Shinzato’s kata. Miyagi also, apparently performed kata for the Butokukai in Japan, but it seems from those accounts of early demonstrations by Nakaima and Sakiyama that he was often content for his students to show the karate technique while he oversaw the performance and gave explanations to his audience. However, in a 1956 “Gekkan Karate Do” article by Anshu Tokuda, Tokuda described a demonstration by Miyagi himself, shortly after the visit by Kano.

Tokuda explained that he had started training in Te with Chotoku Kyan as a young boy, in the late 1920s, but when he began attending junior high school, he began to lose interest in the art: he was attending Kenritsu Daini Junior High School in Naha, and that school did not have karate as part of its curriculum. However, his interest was sparked when he saw the Tode that was being practised n Naha. He had the impression that while Kyan’s Shuri style placed an emphasis on graceful performance of the kata, the Tode of Naha was “a realistic fierce fighting style.”

Tokuda recalled that a demonstration of Tode used to be held once a year at the Okinawa Butokuden, in front of the Okinawa prefectural office. “There,” he wrote, “I was stunned by the powerful fierceness of Sanchin Kata. The sound of the strong breathing was completely new to me. I had a couple of classmates who were studying Tode. I found them to be somewhat rude, with disrespectful attitudes. Those classmates of mine perhaps thought that they were obeying their teacher’s instruction to show a humble and modest attitude. However, that very attitude appeared to be a pretentious demonstration of some sort in other students’ eyes. For example, there was a student, Monshin Arakaki-kun, who was two years junior to me. Whenever he ran into the senior students, he acted overly polite. He bowed by taking off his hat. There was something odd about his attitude, it didn’t look genuine. It was like a yakuza with a hidden knife in his clothes greeting ordinary people with a smile. I lost my interest in Tode around that time due to such experiences. My separation from Tode also had to do with my resistance toward the fierce Goju Ryu.

“One of my classmates named Gansuke Yamakawa was studying Tode. He was attending Chojun Miyagi Sensei’s dojo in Wakasa-cho, Naha city. He was indeed a typical Tode student. Yamakawa was even doing the rough and hard training with the senior students in the graveyard in Tsujihara in the middle of the night. Just as in the old judo, kendo and other bujutsu, the students had the attitude of perfecting secret techniques in Tode. Yamakawa followed tradition and he rarely spoke about Tode in front of others . . . However, I had heard so much about Miyagi Sensei’s strict teaching and training from Yamakawa.

“Miyagi Sensei would get up at 5am every morning and practice two or three basic kata. Then he ran around the main street of Naha city, covering approximately 8 kilometers. As soon as he returned home, he continued his kata practice without a moment of rest. Then he poured a bucket of water over his body. Why did he maintain such a strict training regimen every morning? According to Miyagi Sensei, the last resort in Tode, when it came to combat, was to escape, to run away. Therefore, when you were cornered by the enemy and had to fight them off at the last moment, your physical shape was the deciding factor. Compared to the graceful Shuri style, Naha style Tode seemed realistic and calculated.

“Miyagi Sensei was from a wealthy family in Naha. It has been said that he spent his entire family fortune on his Tode. He visited mainland Japan and China for his Tode study. He went around and gathered as many plants and vegetation as he could find in the land of Okinawa and then made drinks out of them. He was one of the leading gourmets in Okinawa as well. All these efforts were made to enhance his physical ability and strength.

“I was able to understand the fierceness of Miyagi Sensei’s training from what I was told by one of his close friends, an older man.

“Sensei’s childhood name was ‘Machu’ (Matsu). In Taisho 13, (1924) Japan’s judo master Jigoro Kano visited Naha to give lectures. That older man and Miyagi Sensei observed Kano Sensei’s lecture and demonstration for two hours. Kano Shihan, despite his advancing age, (he would have been in hs mid-sixties) demonstrated various techniques such as Osotogari, Taiotoshi and so on against Nagaoka, 5th dan, and other high ranked students. After two hours he was not even breathing hard. The older man was quite impressed with Kano Shihan, and said to Miyagi Sensei, ‘Machu-kun, that was quite impressive. He threw those big men around left-and-right for two hours and he wasn’t even breathing hard. Kano Shihan is indeed an expert.’ However, Miyagi Sensei responded, ‘I can do that as well. Let me show you.’

“Miyagi Sensei then invited a local newspaper reporter as a witness. He demonstrated two hours of hard practice at his dojo. He bundled together ten or so Yanbaru bamboos, then struck the bundle and pulled out just one bamboo. He then bought 1-kan (eight pounds) of beef and tore off a handful of meat from it. Sensei gave a stick to the newspaper reporter and told him to strike his stomach. The reporter aimed at Sensei’s bare stomach as hard as he could. However, the stick bounced away from Sensei’s stomach. It was because of Sensei’s muscle control. He put chalk dust on the sole of his foot then jumped up with kiai and kicked the ceiling, leaving his foot mark on the ceiling. After two hours of such demonstrations, Sensei did not even look tired. The reporter apparently was quite shocked to see all this, from what I understood and heard. In the red light area of Tsuji Miyagi Sensei jumped from the second floor of a house to the stairs of the next house. There was a lintel in between but he avoided it effortlessly. There were actually witnesses to this superhuman feat. It was his dedicated training that made such an amazing feat possible. It is a sobering thought.”

Richard Kim used Tokuda’s article for a chapter of his 1974 book “Weaponless Warriors” but he made some Richard Kim additions, such as that Miyagi also tore the bark off a tree with his fingers and with a kick put his big toe through a kerosene can. Kim also put some of his own “Nothing is impossible” philosophy into Chojun Miyagi’s mouth, writing that after he had completed the demonstration Miyagi said “Any karate expert who trains properly can do all this. It is simply a matter of paying the price. Karate is a total commitment. I have not done anything that someone else cannot do, or for that matter, you. There is no halfway measure. Either you do it or you don’t. Nothing is impossible.” None of this material appears in the original Japanese text.

Tokuda did mention Chojun Miyagi tearing meat off a piece of beef. In his translation Kim wrote that Miyagi “stuck his hand into a slab of meat and tore off chunks” and that seemed to stick in people’s minds, although there were sceptics: “The skill of ‘tearing the flesh into a thousand pieces’ and ‘the ten year kill’ are nonsensical; they are not techniques which can be regarded as normal. Only when masters and experts are pushed to their limits do such techniques become feasible. Let me mention in passing one example of ’tearing the flesh into a thousand pieces” that I have heard about. Although there is the story that on one occasion Master Miyagi tore a bull’s flesh (a piece of beef presumably) into pieces, and it is a fact that he had the nickname “Ripper Miyagi”, this writer, with the limited information at his disposal, can not be sure of its authenticity. If the story is true then Master Miyagi was probably a special exception.”

Kuranosuke Kimura, in his “Karate Do Nyumon” (1978) mentioned that Chojun Miyagi’s gripping power was so strong that people called him “Niku Chigiri (Tear the Flesh) Miyagi”. Bunichi Ishikawa, in his “Ryukyu no Karate Monogatari” of 1979, told a well-known story of Miyagi getting the better of Choki Motobu with a wrist-hold and commented that “Chojun Miyagi’s grip strength was extraordinary. It was said that when Chojun grabbed and squeezed a chunk of beef with his hand, red meat got squeezed out between his fingers like earthworms. With his immense strength it would have been unbearable had he grabbed your wrist and twisted hard.”

Morio Higaonna wrote (1990) that “Miyagi was famous for his ability to tear raw meat into strips with his bare hands” and also (1995) that “a popular nickname” for him was “Nikitui (to tear meat) Bushi Magususku . . . which came from his habit of tearing raw meat into strips with his fingers before putting it into the frying pan to cook.” According to Anthony Mirakian, the American student of Meitoku Yagi, “It was said that he could put his hand on a four or five pound piece of raw meat and squeeze it into hamburger.”

In an interview with Scott Lenzi and Toshio Tamano, Seikichi Toguchi was asked about those stories of Miyagi tearing chunks off raw beef with his fingers and how he once “peeled a man’s forearm skin off just by grabbing him after being attacked.” Toguchi said that he had heard such stories but didn’t know if they were true. Toguchi did mention Miyagi sometimes being nicknamed “Nikoteri Magusku,” Nikoteri meaning to rip off meat and Magusku being Miyagi’s name in the Okinawan dialect. Toguchi thought that such stories were told to emphasize how strong Miyagi was. He did say he had heard that when Miyagi was in China one time he had dropped his wallet in a rickshaw and when he went back to get it the rickshaw driver refused to hand it over and tried to strike him. “Master Miyagi instantly grabbed the forearm of the driver and squeezed so hard that it paralyzed his arm, forcing the driver to give the wallet back.”

Morinobu Itoman, in his 1934 “Karate-jutsu no Kenkyu“, (translated by Mario Mckenna as “The Study of China Hand Techniques, 2012) wrote: “If you train your grip strength, you can bend a copper coin with your fingertips, crush young bamboo with two fingers, pulverize the tip of ripe bamboo, shred strips of beef, or suspend your entire body from the edge of a ceiling.”

“Tearing the flesh” . . . That’s the kind of mythical technique that attached to karate masters in the old days, and it features in that story told by Eizo Shimabuku of Kanryo Higaonna tearing the flesh from the bandit’s cheek. In Goju Ryu particularly you train your grip on the nigiri-game, chishi etc and there is the old tradition of training nukite by thrusting your fingers into sand and then, as they get stronger, into gravel or small stones. In a 1930 article, “Karate Den”, Hoan Kosugi wrote that Ankoh Azato, Gichin Funakoshi’s teacher, had once “thrust his hand, his fingers held together, into a freshly slaughtered pig, and it sank in half way.” Kosugi mentioned the old training methods to develop the grip and finger strength, and told stories about karate masters’ feats such as crushing bamboo and travelling round the rafters of a house by gripping onto them, (a pinch grip, I suppose). Kosugi thought that “If one were to be grabbed by such a man, the flesh would surely be ripped from the body, like a freshly pounded soft rice cake.”

Do these old stories make any sense, and is such a technique as “tearing the flesh” even possible? Hoan Kosugi was actually a student of Gichin Funakoshi, and in fact he designed the famous “Shotokan Tiger” symbol, but Funakoshi himself, although he sometimes told exaggerated stories about his teachers, generally disliked talk of super powers developed by karate and in his autobiographical “Karate Do Ichiro” he quoted with disapproval people who claimed that “The man who has strengthened his grip to the maximum . . . is easily capable of ripping the flesh of his adversary into strips.”

“What nonsense!” Funakoshi wrote. “One day such a man came to my dojo and offered to teach me the secret of ripping flesh into strips. I begged him to demonstrate on me but burst into laughter when, at last, he succeeded in pinching my skin a bit, without even causing a single black-and-blue mark.”

Nevertheless - in a 1935 article, “Speaking About Karate”, Funakoshi had also written about Azato and the strength of his fingers, and told the same story as Hoan Kosugi: “A master of nukite, Azato Sensei was well known for his strength and powerful fingers. Once, as an adolescent, he went to the local slaughterhouse and drove his fingers into the lifeless body of a pig using this technique.”

It would be interesting to see whether any karateka today, or any of the many strongmen who specialise in grip and finger strength – doing one finger pushups, closing those extra-strong hand grippers, rolling up frying pans, practising “The Farmers Walk” with over three hundred pounds in each hand, and so on - could tear meat in the way Miyagi was supposed to have done. In the section on “Training” in his 1978 “Okinawa Den Goju Ryu Karatedo”, Eichi Miyazato wrote: ”One day I asked Sensei, ‘I have heard that you are able to grip a piece of meat and squeeze it out between your fingers. Is it true?’ He stated that there was absolutely no truth to this story, and he told me: ’There are many instructors today who boast of heroic episodes to their students. They are not qualified to be instructors.’ “ Miyazato added that “Miyagi Sensei never once mentioned to any of his students tales of bravery.”

The practice of kata and development of the correct technique were fundamental, of course. Miyagi told one of his students, Genkai Nakaima, that “Goju is like a willow tree blown by a strong wind.” That was pretty standard teaching - you should be flexible and take advantage of the opponent’s strength - but at the same time he believed that students should have a good level of basic strength to use karate effectively.

Like most Okinawans of the time Chojun Miyagi was short, probably not much over five foot, and in fact in a photo of him standing beside Gichin Funakoshi he is not that much taller than Funakoshi, but he had a solid build and was regarded as physically very powerful. In the old photos of him as a young man with Juhatsu Kyoda he looks sturdy, and apparently he trained himself physically from his early days in karate, lifting heavy stones and working with the karate training implements such as the chishi and nigiri game. According to Morio Higaonna he had some other unusual personal training methods, such as performing Sanchin in the sea up to his neck in water; running in zig-zag fashion between two walls and hitting his body against each side in turn; throwing himself on stone pavements and then getting immediately back to his feet. Presumably the Sanchin in the sea was to improve the strength and stability of his kata and hitting the walls was to toughen the body against impact. The dropping to the ground and recovering is understandable preparatory training against being in a fight, perhaps with several attackers, and being thrown to the ground. Being physically robust was an important part of Miyagi’s teaching and he emphasized the constant practice of Sanchin kata and the use of the traditional training equipment to develop a karate-type of strength. Shuichi Aragaki, a student of Miyagi’s in the post war period recalled that sometimes after training they would go to the public baths and he would wash Miyagi’s back. “I remember my astonishment upon seeing the thickness of the skin on his back and shoulders,” Aragaki told Morio Higaonna. “It was like that of a bull.”

The story of Miyagi doing Sanchin in the sea, incidentally, may also appear in a slightly different form in Gogen Yamaguchi’s “Karate. Goju-Ryu by the Cat”. “In Okinawa,” wrote Yamaguchi, “Miyagi would go to the seashore at night and practice his breathing in the face of a typhoon storm-surf. He mastered the form of Sanchin lest he be thrown to the ground by the fierce winds.”

One of Miyagi’s earliest students, Keiyo Madambashi, had actually started learning karate with Gichin Funakoshi at the age of sixteen, practising only kata. After a couple of years training he began to feel confident in his ability and challenged a relative of his called Yara. However, in the encounter Madambashi was surprised by his relative’s strength and was thrown down easily. Yara explained that his strength came from the practice of Sanchin and said that Madambashi should go and learn from Chojun Miyagi, which he did. As an aside to this, Tatsunori Sakiyama, another Goju student, was in Tokyo when Miyagi went with him to visit Gichin Funakoshi. Sakiyama thought that Funakoshi, who belonged to the Shuri style, had excellent kata, but ”was not physically strong.”

Eiko Miyazato (1915 - 2003), had studied under both Miyagi and Juhatsu Kyoda, and he noted differences in their teaching, in Seisan kata, for example. Miyazato also commented that Miyagi would teach hojo undo in great detail and students would practice Sanchin kata constantly, reflecting his emphasis on fundamentals and strength building.

When Eiko Miyazato was drafted into the army he thought that his karate training had helped him get through the hard discipline he encountered there. At that time of his life, he told Morio Higaonna, he could curl a 40 kilo (88 pound) dumbbell to his shoulder with one arm and then raise it above his head twenty times. That was pretty good lifting and he gained a reputation for great strength. He went on to say, however, that he had often acted as Chojun Miyagi’s training partner, and that when the two practiced kakie together “it made no difference if I pushed or pulled, I could not move him . . . his strength was extraordinary, different from anyone else. I had confidence in my own strength and fancied myself as strong, but with Sensei I felt no more than a child. . . . I tried to push and pull, however I could not move Sensei. With everyone else I could throw them easily, but with Sensei I felt like a child.”

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“Miyagi would go to the seashore at night and practice his breathing in the face of a typhoon storm-surf. He mastered the form of Sanchin lest he be thrown to the ground by the fierce winds.”

I could never do that since I'm so lightweight. The storm winds would drag me to my death. The heavier man may laugh being able to stand strong facing the blasts--until he gets decapitated from a blown board, crushed from an uprooted tree, electrocuted from a lightning strike, impaled from a flying pole, drowned from an unexpected wave, on and on. His practices were extremely dangerous! Often, after a big windstorm, I'll take long walks in my neighborhood, looking at the huge tree branches lying on sidewalks I regularly use. Miyagi risked way too much for gaining so little value. He could've more easily hire a few people surrounding him, pushing him at random directions, random times while practicing Sanchin. Anyway, shoving more closely matches a real fight; at least two I saw were pushing.