3. Miyagi and Kyoda (H)

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By Graham Noble

Miyagi’s post-war successors such as Seko Higa, Meitoku Yagi, Eichi Miyazato and Seikichi Toguchi also neglected jyu kumite and contests. It’s interesting in Miyazato’s case because he was a good judoka and took part in many judo competitions – he was said to be one of the strongest judoka in Okinawa – and yet he never stressed jyu kumite at his Jundokan karate dojo. I suppose he viewed karate and judo training as quite different things. Toguchi simply said that “It is reckless and useless to practise free fighting without having studied kata enough.”

In the 1978 discussion between Sadao Sakai, Meitoku Yagi and Gogen Yamaguchi, Sakai asked “I understand that Miyagi Sensei did not allow karate shiai (contest). That was a tradition in Okinawan Goju Ryu. Yagi Sensei, what is your opinion on the current karate on mainland Japan?”

Yagi’s response was that, in his opinion, the jyu kumite that was currently practised on the mainland was opposed to the principles of the original karate. He said that Miyagis’s view was that a shiai had to clearly show the winner to the people watching, as was the case for judo or kendo. “In terms of karate shiai,” he went on, “there was always a concern for injury, a possible injury to the children of good families and such. Therefore, considering the various factors, shiai should be avoided, or if it has to be done, I believe we should consider using bogu as Miyagi Sensei thought about more than fifty years ago. I do not believe we should take the shiai approach of today. The outcome of shiai sometimes depends on different judges and host countries. Many competitors blame the judges when they lose, complaining about the result and so forth. If we do shiai, it must be judged more efficiently and precisely. Therefore, jyu kumite is currently not incorporated in the Okinawa Renmei. I do not wish to watch shiai. Even if I do watch it, I am not impressed.

“Simply put, the difference between Okinawan Goju Ryu and mainland Japan Goju Ryu is that the Okinawa Renmei itself does not accept jyu kumite, although it is practised partially at some dojo. If you establish the shiai system, naturally people focus on winning. Our perspective is that instead of focusing on who beats who, we like to emphasize the preservation of kata.”

“ . . . We had a Gojukai committee members meeting in Kyoto some time ago. There, I talked about Karate Do and Bushido. When I told them about Bushido spirit, some people got into an argument stating that there was also a spirit of sportsmanship. Therefore, there was no significant difference between Bushido and sports in this respect. But from my perspective, karate is quite different from sports. . . . I do not consider the jyu kumite that is being practised on mainland Japan as an original karate.”

When he was asked whether there were any secret techniques or formula (gokui or hiden) in Goju Ryu, Yagi answered that there was no such thing as a secret formula in Goju Ryu. “There has been much talk about gokui or hiden in Goju Ryu,” he said. “ . . . My answer to those questions is ‘All such things are in kata.’ There was an Okinawan phrase, ‘Nanjiru Gokuden’, which means ‘Hard work and dedicated study’. What is essential is hard work and dedication. The accumulation of this hard work is in fact the secret formula or hiden.

“Ordinary people and experts see certain things differently. ‘Gokui’ was the understanding of techniques as a result of many years of dedicated training, overcoming many obstacles. This is not something described in the old budo books, for example, which were along the line of the technique for aiming at a vital area with a sword. Gokui is your own accumulation of efforts, what you learned from your sensei and how you trained. If you face an inferior opponent, everything you do would become gokui to him . . . When you face an inferior opponent, there is no need to use gokui. Use gokui when you face a serious attacker. In other words, the years of hard dedicated training prepare you to be able to fight a serious opponent with what we call gokui. Gokui therefore came from the accumulation of your training; there was nothing written for you to look up. There was no makimono (scroll) for that.”

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