3. Miyagi and Kyoda (E)

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By Graham Noble

But then, there is another historical puzzle in all of this. When you begin to compare To-on Ryu and Goju Ryu, there is one major difference: To-on Ryu has only the four so-called “Naha-te” forms: Sanchin, Sesan, Sanseru and Pechurin. Goju Ryu has five other traditional kata - Seiunchin, Saifa, Shisochin, Kururunfa, and Sepai – but according to To-on Ryu practitioners such as Kanzaki and Murakami, Kanryo Higaonna taught only the four “Naha” kata of their style. When Iken Tokashiki talked to Soke Ura, then a ninety six year old who had studied Higaonna’s Te back in 1912, Ura told him that “There are too many kata in modern Goju Ryu, in my opinion. When I was learning there were only three or four kata.” If that is true, where did the other five Goju kata come from?

I have no idea and I don’t thnk anyone else has either. In fact, this never even came up as an issue until we began to learn more about To-on Ryu and its kata. As Seishin Koyama said, in the Okinawan karate world since the 1930s it had been assumed that Miyagi’s Goju Ryu was the same as Kanryo Higaonna’s Te. Of course, by the 1930s Miyagi’s Goju Ryu was well established as the primary form of Naha-te and Kanryo Higaonna was long since dead, so this question of the discrepancy in kata never arose.

The Goju Ryu version of history is that Chojun Miyagi was an especially favoured student and the other kata – Seiunchin, Saifa, Shisochin, Sepai, and Kururunfa - did all come from Higaonna, and in fact from China originally. Mario McKenna did ask Shigekazu Kanzaki about the “additional” Goju kata and Kanazaki replied honestly, and fairly, that he didn’t know. He didn’t take a view one way or the other but simply replied that “I have no idea. Kyoda Sensei was transferred from time to time because he was a school teacher. MIyagi sensei could have learned those kata when Kyoda Sensei was not around. I really don’t know.” Apparently the whole issue of the additional Goju kata was just another one of those things that simply never came up in Kanzaki’s training with Kyoda.

If Soke Ura is reliable in saying that there were only three or four kata when he was training around 1912, then the implication is that the other forms were introduced sometime after that date. Joe Swift pointed out that apart from Seiunchin, (which Choki Motobu included in a list of kata in his 1926 book), the extra Goju forms were not mentioned in the literature until Kenwa Mabuni began writing his books in the 1930s. That may not mean too much because there was so little material printed on karate before that date and in addition the early books, by Funakoshi, Motobu and Nisaburo Miki, were Shuri-te and Tomari–te based and the authors’ knowledge of the kata of other styles such as Naha-te would have been limited. Still, it’s an interesting point. It has been said that one of the forms performed at the 1867 Ochayagoten demonstration, Chisaukiun, was actually what we know today as Shisochin, but this is pure speculation of recent times, presumably based on a rough similarity in the name; otherwise, there is no proof whatsoever of any connection. What is interesting, though is that the old, early 1900s photos of Kyoda and Miyagi appear to show applications of Saifa (separate blocks with both arms and a counter front kick) and Kururunfa (leg grab and takedown), although the the first photo might show an application of Sesan or the practice of a basic defence and counter technique, and the second could show an application of Sanseru.

Once again, there is very little in the historical record to help. Choki Motobu gave a list of kata practised in karate in his 1926 and 1932 books. It was not a full list, but it did include Sanchin, Seisan, Suparimpei (108) – and Seiunchin. He also gave the accepted view that “Ryukyu kempo karate originally came from China,” and that the forms Sanchin, Gojushiho, Seisan, Seiunchin and Suparimpei had been used there for a long time. A list of thirty two karate kata was also given by Gichin Funakoshi in his early (1922 and 1925) books. These were mainly Shuri and Tomari forms but Funakoshi did include Seisan, Sanseru and Suparimpei. The other kata of modern Goju Ryu did not, however, figure in his list.

Kenwa Mabuni was the first to show Naha-te kata in print. In his 1934 “Goshin Jutsu Karate Kempo”, he showed Sanchin and Seiunchin, and in “Sepai no Kenkyu” of the same year he showed Sepai. He regarded Sanchin as a kata for basic bodily training, but in the case of Seiunchin and Sepai he showed applications of the kata movements. His slightly later “Karate Do Nyumon” also shows the application of a couple of techniques taken from Kururunfa.

In “Karate Do Nyumon” Mabuni included a long list of karate kata, thirty six forms in all, which he categorised as coming from three teachers: Itosu (twenty three kata), Higaonna (ten kata) and Aragaki (three kata). Mabuni’s list of Higaonna kata, then, comprised the full (pre-Gekisai) set of Goju Ryu forms, including Tensho. Intriguingly, Mabuni listed “Sochin” kata rather than “Shisochin”. This was unlikely to have been a mistake since he also included a Sochin under the Aragaki forms, while noting that this was not the same as the Higaonna kata. And to cloud matters even further, in the 1934 book “Karate no Kenkyu” (translated into English by Mario McKenna as “The Study of China Hand Techniques”) Morinobu (Seishin) Itoman gave a list of kata currently practised, and he included both “Pichurin” and “Suparimpe”. Moreover, he listed both a Suparimpe “dai” and “sho”.

Dates . . . Takao Nakaya wrote that his teacher, Chozo Nakama (1899 – 1982) had learned Sanchin and Seiunchin from Kenwa Mabuni around 1920. In an interview with Paul Babladelis and Ernest Estrada, (“Inside Karate Series: Martial Arts Masters”, January 1993) Meitoku Yagi was quoted as saying that when he first started learning karate (mid-to-late 1920s) students studied only four kata: Sanchin, Seisan, Seiunchin and Tensho, and that Seisan and Seiunchin were regarded as the training forms of Goju Ryu. That sounds plausible – it seems like a set of four kata which Miyagi would regard as essential for a good grounding in Goju - but then in his autobiographical book “Otoku Meitokuno Jinseigekijo” Yagi said that before he started his military service, he taught the five kata Saifa, Sanseru, Sepai, Shisochin and Kururunfa to Seko Higa’s students, at Higa’s request. Takao Nakaya, who quotes Yagi, observes that this would have been around 1932, which means that there were ten Goju kata by that date (including Tensho).

One fact is that Kenwa Mabuni settled in Japan in 1928. After that it’s hard to say how much direct contact he had with Okinawan karate and Chojun Miyagi, but probably not much. This suggests that by the time Mabuni came to Japan he knew all of the Goju Ryu kata, and he knew them pretty well, because he was able to show not just the movements but in many cases their applications too. If that reasoning is correct then all the Goju kata were there by the late 1920s.

Mabuni probably learned almost all his Naha-te forms from Chojun Miyagi, but in his classification of kata under the three different teachers, he listed the ten Goju Ryu kata as coming from Kanryo Higaonna, even though he also wrote that Tensho was created by Miyagi. Mabuni stated that Miyagi “learned directly from Higaonna and was his successor,” so he may have had no reason to believe anything other than that Miyagi had learned all of his kata from Higaonna. Mabuni and Miyagi went back a long way, back to the early 1900s, and it is generally believed that it was Miyagi who introduced Mabuni to Higaonna.

The To-on Ryu history is interesting, but we still can’t be sure how many kata Kanryo Higaonna actually knew. However, researchers such as Mario McKenna, Fernando Camara, and Joe Swift have pointed out the different characteristics of the four core Naha-te kata (if we can call them that) - Sanchin, Sesan, Sanseru and Suparimpei - and their difference from the other five traditional Goju Ryu kata: Saifa, Seiunchin, Shisochin, Sepai and Kururunfa. In a 2007 article, “A Preliminary Analaysis of Goju-Ryu Kata Structure”, Mario and Fernando looked at the structure of Miyagi’s nine traditional kata, and they observed that three of the core Naha-te forms – Sesan, Sanseru, and Suparimpei - share a number of characteristics, in particular, three initial steps and punches in Sanchin stance, a four-directional (cross-shaped) embusen, and a predominant asymmetry in the techniques: that is, techniques done on one side of the body only. In the other kata, in contrast, the main techniques are mostly done on both sides, making them predominantly symmetrical. Mario and Fernando therefore separated the Goju kata into two groups: a Kanryo Higaonna cluster (“Cluster H”) containing Sanchin, Sesan, Sanseru and Suparimpei/Pechurin; and a Chojun Miyagi cluster (“Cluster M”) containing Saifa, Seiunchin, Shisochin, Sepai and Kururunfa. Bearing in mind the appearance of Sesan and Suparimpei at the 1867 Ochayagoten festival, the article further hypothesized that the four, thus classified, Kanryo Higaonna kata were practised on Okinawa before Higaonna “reportedly left for China” and so could be considered indigenous; that is, they “represent an Okinawan boxing method. Further corroborating evidence can be seen if we examine the curriculum of Kyoda’s To-on Ryu, which contains only four kata. Therefore we can speculate that cluster H may represent the original Naha-te kata, as argued by Kanzaki and Murakami.” The authors were unable to verify a source for the remaining (“Miyagi”) kata, but suggested that possibly they may “represent newer Chinese kata introduced by Miyagi after Higaonna’s death in 1915.”

The asymmetry mentioned in the article is particularly strong in Sanseru and Suparimpei (Pechurin). It may have been there from some time, because there is a strong degree of asymmetry too in the (possibly) related kata Sanseru of Uechi Ryu and Ryuei Ryu, and the Niseshi of several schools, (Ryuei Ryu, Shito Ryu, Okinawa Kempo, and in the version shown in the 1933 book “Karate Kempo” by Mizuho Takada).

That principle of concentrating practice on one side, then, seems to go back quite a long way. To see it so strongly emphasised, though, is a little surprising, because in many traditional kata techniques were performed on both sides, and there was a strong current of thought among many well-known teachers that you should train both sides of the body. Choki Motobu and Gichin Funakoshi both wrote, for example, that you should train both fists on the makiwara, and that in fact you should practise significantly more repetitions of punching on your weaker side to bring up its strength: Motobu taught that you should actually begin your daily makiwara practice on your weaker side. And although there is frequently a degree of asymmetry in many of the classical karate kata, the basic training kata developed in the modern era (from the 1930s) are consciously symmetrical.

By the early 20th century, then, the principle that you should train a technique on just on one side was rather unusual, but there is an argument for it. . . . which appears, not in a karate book, but in a wrestling book, “Wrestling is a Man’s Game”, by the Russian coach Sergei Preobrazhensky, (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1981). In the chapter “Working Out One’s Own Style”, a number of headings are set out, one of which is “To perfect your favourite action on both sides is a waste of time.” Under this heading, Preobrazhensky explains that “When going through the first freestyle wrestling study course or primary school, as we called it, a wrestler must perfect actions executing them on both sides. But this rule does not apply when the time arrives for perfecting one’s favourite action.

“. . . If wrestlers followed the principle of perfecting an action on both sides uniformly, they would have spent most of the time bringing up the lagging side. (But) No matter how hard you try to change inborn qualities, it is doubtful that you would succeed. There’s hardly a need for it. It is far more useful to spend your time on perfecting an action executing it on the side which brings best results. Then it will take less time to perfect it.

“One must perfect favourite actions only to the side best suitable for the wrestler.”

Preobrazhensky was writing about high-level wrestling competition, and the same advice could apply to karate competiton too. Historically, though, sporting competition came late to karate: previously it had always been an art of self defence, or, a little later, of physical education, and in those two areas, training both sides of the body seemed to make sense. And actually, the weaker side can be brought up to a high level of effectiveness as, for example, in a boxer’s left hook, or the left mawashi geri used in competitions in Kyokushinkai and its offshoots. In the end this all comes down to different circumstances, analysis and personal choice. Preobrazhensky, incidentally, also observed that “it is impossible to be continually successful with only one set of favourite actions.” He noted that techniques will lose their effectiveness over time as opponents take note and find ways of neutralising them. This is inevitable in open competition, but you can imagine that, in old Okinawan karate, it was yet another reason to keep your technique secret.

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