3. Miyagi and Kyoda (F)

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By Graham Noble

Wherever the other Goju forms came from they are attractive and technically interesting kata. Saifa is quite a short, simple form of wrist releases, kicks and strikes, though in its first three movements it shares with Seiunchin an unusual zig-zag embusen which is not seen in any other karate kata. Seiunchin, which is also considered a basic form, contains the usual Goju mixture of open hand and closed fist techniques - but no kicks - and involves a lot of movement in shiko dachi. It also contains several forearm blocks, such as blocks reinforced with the hand, gedan barai, and the double level blocks (chudan and gedan) which are more typical of Itosu style karate.

As for the other three forms, Shisochin, Sepai and Kururunfa, they contain strikes and kicks, but also a number of interesting close-quarter grappling-type moves – throws using the hands, joint techniques, and techniques for breaking and reversing holds - and the various different movements of these kata are nicely put together too, giving them a distinctive, smooth and attractive appearance. They seem to come from a clever, subtle mind, but if they did not come from Higaonna then their origins are a total mystery.

The meanings of the kata movements seem to have been fairly well understood from early in Goju history since Mabuni showed some of the applications in his books of the 1930s. This clear understanding of the movements may indicate that the kata were developed relatively late. Some of those applcations are unique, such as the counter move and groin strike against an arm lock release (Sepai), and the defence against hagai-jime in Kururunfa which is shown in Mabuni’s 1938 “Karate Do Nyumon”. Hagai-jime is what we would call a standing full-nelson and the defence consists of breaking the hold with the arms and elbows while unbalancing the oponent and striking him wth a backward head butt. This is an unusual release and counter movement that can’t be found anywhere else.

The special nature of these reverse-hold and locking/throwing techniques was noted by Kenwa Mabuni in 1938. After commenting that only a part of karate - the striking part - had been introduced to Tokyo, and that therefore people assumed that holds and throws existed only in jujutsu or judo, Mabuni wrote that “Within the kata of the Gōjū Ryū is found an interesting variety of gyaku-waza and nage-waza of karate, which up to the present time were not introduced to Tōkyō. In addition, the representatives of this style do not fail to engage in research as regards these gyaku-waza and nage-waza. As in Gōjū Ryū a galore of study material is available, the students of karate should explore this style in detail.” (Andreas Quast blog, January 9, 2016.)

Nowadays there are numerous examples of Goju Ryu kata applications shown in books and videos. Often they are are rather unconvincing: either removed from the actual kata technique or difficult to use effectively, even in a demonstration, but still, they are usually pleasing to watch, and you wonder: where could these kata techniques have come from? You would imagine that such a knowledge of grappling movements, joint locks, counters and reverse-holds would have had to come from a special study of those techniques and a certain kind of body-feel developed by practice with a variety of partners, understanding the ways to respond to changes in the opponent’s body weight and use of force. This is the way that skill in ju-jutsu is built up, for example. Yet in Goju Ryu, somewhere back along the line, such techniques were formalised in kata – to preserve them, I suppose - and thus solo training became the normal method of practice. The emergence of these techniques, then, and their preservation in kata, is also a mystery.

The analysis into Cluster H and Cluster M is interesting and it makes sense, but the fact that there seem to be two separate streams of kata doesn’t necessarily mean that Kanryo Higaonna didn’t teach both. But if those other kata were taught by Higaonna, then why didn’t his other known students learn them? Takao Nakaya could see no reason why Juhatsu Kyoda would not have learned more than the four kata that he taught in his To-on Ryu. Nakaya posed the question “If Miyagi added some kata, when was it?” adding that “around 1932 there were ten Goju kata. If Miyagi learned these (additional) kata from somebody other than Kanryo Higaonna there is a serious question as to who his teacher was, but I have no idea how to find it right now.”

It’s a puzzle that these kata exist only in Miyagi’s Goju Ryu. Apart from the exception of Seiunchin, which is practised in Ryuei Ryu, there is no evidence of these forms, or anything like them, being practised in any other style of karate, and they contain many original techniques not seen in other kata. Nor do they look like any extant Chinese forms, and personally I think they must be Okinawan in origin. It’s possible that they were put together by Chojun Miyagi himself in his twenties or thirties, but then there would still be the mystery of where he learned the various releases and reverse holds contained in the kata, unless he devised them all himself. Meitoku Yagi said that it was Miyagi who created Saifa, the simplest of the additional kata, and if that is true then it’s possible that he put together Seiunchin too, considering that unusual zig-zag embusen at the start of each form. Personally, though, I’ve always found it hard to accept that Miyagi himself developed all the five additional kata found in Goju. This may be unfair, but the kata that we know he did create - a variation of Sanchin, (Sanchin Dai Ni) and the new kata Tensho and Gekisai - are quite basic, and rather unimaginative in the way they are put together. In Sanchin Dai Ni, Miyagi simply took out the turns and reduced the foot movements to a basic stepping forward and backward. Tensho consists of the repetition of a few simple hand movements performed in a stationary position, and Gekisai looks like it is based on an Itosu type of up-and-down embusen. Gekisai is meant to be a basic kata, but it still lacks the movement off at angles or neat transitions found in Kururunfa and Sepai, for example. It’s also possible of course that Miyagi learned the other kata from an unknown teacher; or learned some original forms and then developed them into the Goju kata, or maybe he did get them from Kanryo Higaonna. Seibun Nakamoto, an early 1900s student of Kanryo Higaonna, said that he had known Miyagi at Higaonna’s dojo, but that “later on, Kanryo Sensei would go to Chojun Miyagi’s house and teach him there.” According to Meitoku Yagi, “after his wife died Miyagi brought Higaonna Sensei to his home and cared for him in later years like a son.” I have no idea if that is true, but it’s possible that Higaonna could have given Miyagi additional teaching in private lessons, perhaps at that time, or even before. There are some interesting correspondences running through these Goju kata too. For example, in its first three moves Seiunchin has the wrist turn and counter spearhand technique seen later in Suparimpei, and it also has the rising thrust-back fist-low tettsui technique similar to the sequence found in Seisan . . . but then Seiunchin also contains many shiko dachi and forearm blocks similar to Itosu style karate. Kururunfa also has a characteristic Itosu-style embusen in its initial movements – a turn to the left, then the right, followed by a technique repeated three times going forward. Both Shisochin and Kururunfa have the front kick–vertical elbow technique which appears to come from Sanseru - although, from a comparison with the To-on Ryu kata it seems to have been Miyagi who added the front kick - and which is again seen in the more modern Gekisai kata. The type of blocking in Seiunchin, and the beginning Itosu-style format of Kururunfa could indicate an early Twentieth Century origin for these forms . . . . but that’s just idle speculation, with no proof at all. Such correspondences in the kata are intriguing, but it’s impossible to know what to make of them.

No Miyagi student ever asked about these kata, but since Goju Ryu was regarded as essentially the transmission of Higaonna’s Naha-te there was no reason to believe anything other than that they came directly from Kanryo Higaonna. The fact that Shigekazu Kanzaki also didn’t know anything about these forms also shows that the subject never came up during his training wth Kyoda . . . and now, of course, it is too late to ask.

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