1. West Higaonna (B)

[emattson]

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By Graham Noble

From early on Kanryo Higaonna’s style was regarded as a separate stream of karate teaching. In the 1940 article on his martial arts training, Chogi Yoshimura (1866 – 1945) recalled that people used to speak of the Uchinadi (Okinawa-te) of Matsumura and the Todi (Chinese Hand) of Higaonna. In his 1934 book “Karate Kempo Goshin Jutsu”, Kenwa Mabuni included Higaonna karate as one of the main schools of the art: “On Okinawa,” he wrote, “young people freely practice various systems such as Higaonna-ha, Itosu-ha, Maezato-ha, Shimabuku-ha, Ishimine-ha, Azato-ha etc.” Meitoku Yagi, who began training with Chojun Miyagi in the late 1920s recalled that “Nowadays people use the terms Naha-te, Shuri-te and Tomari-te for Karate, but back then we didn’t say Naha-te, we simply said Toudi.” However, as Te became more widely known people became aware of the differences in kata and technique between different teachers, and so the idea of styles or schools emerged. Te eventually came to be classified into the three styles, named after the areas in which they were practised, of Shuri-te, Naha-te, and Tomari-te. This classification, apparently, only came into existence in the 1920s, and although forms of Te had been practised in Naha well before Kanryo Higaonna, it was his style of karate which came to be identified as “Naha-te”, one of the major styles of Okinawan karate. Naha-te was then developed into Chojun Miyagi’s Goju Ryu and Juhatsu Kyoda’s To-on Ryu . . . . But what was the true nature of Higaonna’s Naha-te?

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[emattson]

Interesting how even back then people like to use different styles. With so many masters inventing new techniques it must get difficult to identify which style.