A while back I wrote a little about what I see as a common misinterpretation of one of the Kempo Hakku in the Bubishi. The more esoteric, for want of a better term, common translation seems to me to be both a translation made without proper context and, when that context is returned, far less obtuse than it appears. I situated this critique within the context of common Fujianese martial vocabulary, in particular the White Crane systems this quanpu, the Bubishi, is said to be based on. I said that Ho Go Ju Don To, usually translated as “The way of breathing is hard and soft” or something like that is probably better translated as something like “The rule is: projecting techniques are hard, absorbing techniques are soft”, which would make immediate, and more importantly practical, sense to anyone trained in most any Fujianese boxing system.

Of course the Bubishi doesn’t have a clear source or any supporting documentation so even though it is a southern Chinese quanpu, we don’t know what system it references or who wrote it, so I can’t know for sure if I am right. However, I have been working on translating Liu Yinshan’s 1983 Japanese language book on Feeding Crane, and I came across some interesting supporting evidence for this idea. As context, Feeding Crane as currently passed down in Taiwan was imported from Fujian in the early 20^th century. It is a straight Fujianese Crane system and has a linear transmission, keeping it’s content and context about as pure as is possible in any cultural artifact like a martial arts system. I am most definitely not suggesting it is the system the Bubishi comes from, but it is from within the same martial culture.

When speaking about similar concepts, Liu Yinshan, the 2^nd generation lineage holder in Taiwan, writes the following in the first part of the first chapter of the book, his overview of the system (slightly edited for brevity):

True hardness is the hardness that is generated through softness. Precise and appropriate movement can be achieved by combining this transition between hard and soft with the principles of “swallowing” and “spitting”. With softness you swallow the opponent’s power, you then “spit” to attack him. This attack is the hardness, the issuing of power.

So this is in essence the exact phrase from the Bubishi: the rule is projecting techniques are hard swallowing techniques are soft. The Bubishi line, hogojudonto, is essentially shorthand in a traditional 5 character format for this idea, that swallowing is soft/absorbing/taking in, spitting is hard/projecting/forcing out. If you look at the characters they are identical:  剛柔吞吐, hard soft swallow spit, which is not surprising as they are so common in this martial culture. This is not an esoteric set of statements, it is a reference to specific techniques, the power generation methods behind them, and their tactical use. In the context of both training and fighting it is a practical statement, not a philosophical one.

Interestingly enough, and as somewhat additional supporting evidence, he goes on to separate breathing from the swallowing/soft, spitting/hard concepts:

This spitting and swallowing is expressed in harmony with the breath. The breathing that accompanies this spitting and swallowing in Feeding Crane Boxing has a unique sound, but it isn’t like a kiai as it comes naturally as the breath is issued.  

Breathing is done in concert with the swallowing and spitting movements, but swallowing and spitting, 吞and 吐, are not terms used for breathing, as is implied by the more standard translations of the Bubishi. Instead breathing has it’s own separate vocabulary (in this case呼吸 , kokyu, a common term in Japanese for breathing) and these terms, these breathing techniques, must be attached to the swallowing and spitting techniques. The breathing is not the point of the terms, nor do those terms describe the breathing. Again, I think some confusion might have resulted from the Japanese use of 吞 to include smoking tobacco, drinking, and catching one’s breath, and the use of 吐 to include breathing out and vomiting. While some of the same ideas may also be included in mainstream Chinese use of the characters, and therefore in a standard dictionary, in the southern Chinese martial arts these terms have very common, very specific and very clear meanings and a standard dictionary translation just won’t cut it. Cross cultural semantics at work?¹

Anyway, this is not “proof” of this approach to the translation. There is no documentation beyond the White Crane content in the Bubishi connecting Feeding Crane to it, though the common cultural roots are obvious. Indeed, while the cultural context is shared in Fujian it may be that the Bubishi’s art dealt with these terms in a unique way, differently than the arts around it. There is no way to know at this point. However, that said this does add a little context to this translation, as in a related art, with written materials (the Liu family Bronze Man Book) transmitted at roughly the same time, the concepts are common and clear, part of an early introduction to the art, and connected to practical action. If this holds true for the art the Bubishi comes from then a translation much more in line with what I am suggesting than the traditional translation would perhaps be appropriate.

1. It may also have come from the practice of adding words to the text. For example, this phrase is often written Ho Wa Go Ju No Don To Su or Ho Wa Go Ju Wo Don To Shi. The Wa is a particle that references Ho, the No is a possive, like ‘s while the Wo would be a particle marking the direct object of a verb like an or the, and the Su could be the verb to breathe, as could Shi, or the Shi could be “is”. Regardless though all these are later additions to the text in an effort to explain a 5 character Chinese poem in a more coherent Japanese sentence. While they may represent a well informed and good faith effort to explain an obscure and gramatically incomplete phrase, the addition of particles and in particular verbs can substiantially change the original meaning. Traditionally these poems are a shorthand for those already in the know; the extra explaination would be unnessary to the initiated reader. ↩︎

A few years back I made the acquaintance of Hayasaka Yoshifumi sensei. I was interested in meeting him because he was a close student of Matayoshi sensei’s in the 1970s and 80s, and had spent a lot of private time with him working on kobudo and elements of the family karate system (Kingai Ryu) and the Go Kenki crane system. Just before the pandemic I arranged to visit his dojo in Ibaraki prefecture and had a very nice couple of days doing karate and kobudo. I also found out he is the current (7^th generation) Soke of the Negishi Ryu, the last remaining koryu bujutsu (classical Japanese warrior art) specializing in shuriken jutsu, the throwing and integrated use with other weapons of what are essentially metal spikes.[i] We did a little while I was there, but it was a few years before I was able to get back, in large part due to the pandemic. When I did, I realized I was enjoying the exposure to his understanding of our kobudo and karate, but I was finding the shuriken jutsu even more interesting. I asked him directly if he would be willing to teach me, and he said yes. It turns out it was time for something new.

We started with some basic techniques from the Shingetsu Ryu, a civilian system (or Ninjutsu system, depending on who is telling) currently held as a cognate discipline within Hayasaka sensei’s Negishi Ryu. He learned it from Saito Satoshi, his teacher, who learned it from Fujita Seiko[ii]. He felt it was a good introduction to shuriken, and also that both the technique and the weapon used were simpler. The weapon is more like a long nail or heavy needle than anything else. He gave me a couple and they were easy to replicate here. I introduced it to the dojo and a few members took to it quickly. I can’t say I am surprised- it is a lot of fun, and we’ve got a group of very dedicated practitioners, people interested in their practice and in learning new things.

I have been able to visit Hayasaka sensei a few times in the last couple of years, and on the visit following he introduced me to the Negishi Ryu more formally. Indeed both the technique and the weapon, in this case a purpose forged octagonal, off center diamond tapered iron dart that is hand wrapped on one end with layers of paper, cord, and glue to create proper grip and balance, were much more complicated. He noted that this was a samurai art, with a different approach to technique and training, including integrating it with weapons like the sword, and allowing for a weapon that was both more expensive (they are hand forged by a specialist) and time consuming to obtain. In any case, it is equally fascinating and my experience of the practice so far has been both enlightening and great fun.

First, it is something new. While that in and of itself isn’t necessarily valuable it is one way to add energy and enthusiasm to your practice. If you have the right personality it is fun to start something and be really bad at it. If you stick to it you get to experience that initial growth in skill development, see your efforts paying off, which is hard to do if you have been at something for decades. 

Second, it is fun. I mean that in part in the simplest sense: it is fun to take something sharp and throw it at a target and learn how to get it to stick, over time closer and closer to where you want it to. There seems to be something primal in that and since I was never that into any sport that used a ball I have had little experience with it before. So, fun both in the action and skill development (as well as in sharing this with friends). And finally it is fun, again for the right person, to see how something that initially seems pretty distant from our other practices is actually just another facet of them, lending a new perspective on certain elements of training- physical, mental, and tactical or theoretical.

It is this last bit that has been occupying some head space lately. This fairly simple (on the surface) practice is generating new insights into my existing arts. But how? After all, it is primarily standing (and eventually moving) and throwing a simple weapon at a target. Eventually that is integrated with various other weapons, but the practice pretty much remains solo (it is hard to throw sharp things at a training partner and have everyone keep training) and the scope of it remains fairly simple, albeit very difficult. So how does this art teach me about other elements of my training? Well, it is an ongoing process so these are just some initial thoughts, but I thought it might be interesting to share some of them here. In no particular order:

Fajing and telegraphing. Fajing is the term used in Feeding Crane and many Chinese arts for issuing short power. Striking with the shuriken (the systems both eschew the verbs for throwing, the reasons for which I am understanding more as I get more into the practice) requires using a very similar short power approach. This is tied very directly to not telegraphing one’s attack. These are not new ideas. Short power is common to many arts, and not telegraphing is a basic concept in every martial art and combat sport I have had exposure to. The sheer simplicity of the shuriken however highlights these twinned concepts. You cannot wind up, like throwing a baseball, if your opponent is fairly close and has a weapon. Telegraphing that strike gives the opponent an opportunity to close and cut you. But if you cannot strike with power and accuracy directly from your kamae your strike is useless anyway. In practice you need to be vigilant about making sure you are not telegraphing- not rocking back, not pulling the arm or hand back, not engaging your power chain in sections and adding internal wind up and therefore time to it, etc.. You also need to hit with some force. Doing both of these is directly related to how we are supposed to be moving and hitting in Goju, our Kobudo, and for me the most obviously right now Feeding Crane. It has been an interesting window on how fundamental to our tactics and strategy these two concepts are, and how assumptions around them are easily hidden, particularly in pre-arranged paired work.

Ma’ai and timing. Ma’ai is engagement range. We’ve all seen the data on how long it takes to get a weapon from its holster and engage. If I remember correctly about 26’ is the distance at which the weapon can be drawn on a charging attacker. Turns out people were figuring out what safe ranges for opponents with various weapons were hundreds of years ago too. These systems have concepts of what distances are appropriate for facing different weapons- unarmed, sword, spear, etc.- and what that translates to in regards to striking with the shuriken in that range. Again, much as doing say bo vs. sai paired work demonstrates the different ranges you need to move between more clearly than kicking vs. punching, this practice shows very simply the effect of range on time, and covers simple principles for managing that time/distance equation. It has been making me think a lot about distance and timing control in my other arts, as well as about how posture (mental as well as physical) and keeping the weapon, whatever it is, “live” affects this.

Concealment. I have mentioned this before in regards to the concealment built into the movement and techniques in both our kobudo and the empty hand arts we do. Here again it is in some ways simplified and highlit. The basic posture isn’t particularly sneaky, it is essentially a kenjutsu jodan kamae. However, if you are holding another weapon, or using your kamae in certain ways, the preparation of the strike, the shuriken kamae, and the following use of another weapon or drawing of another shuriken can be concealed by the movement itself, by your posture, or by the other weapon. Most of this is still above my pay grade, but I see how it is starting in the preparations and kamae and am looking forward to learning more. I am also finding how it is informing my other arts fascinating;  I have long taught how certain elements of our movement and techniques conceal other elements of both intent and further movement but again the simplicity, and difficulty, of this art is making me see these things in a different light.

Focus and/or zanshin, mushin, and fudoshin. These mental states, keeping one’s focus on the task at hand, not being distracted either externally or internally, and maintaining those mental states as various things happen to or around one are again both simpler and clearer in this practice, at least to some extent. For example, it is easy to get encouraged or discouraged by hitting or missing what you are aiming at, or to set arbitrary goals and be attached to reaching them. It is easy to relax mentally between strikes or between sets, or as you change between people or gather your shuriken. It is easy to lose your posture, or kamae. It is easy to talk or look for suggestions or encouragement between strikes or sets of strikes. It is easy to let feelings of success, anticipation, or failure effect your next strike. To plan the sequence of  your strikes. All these are true for any art, but the simpler format, and the really direct and immediate feedback it gives, can really highlight them. This feedback is both helpful and another potential mental hangup; you can see how well  you are doing but it is really easy to get attached to that and let the emotions that come with not doing as well affect your technique, to limit yourself to what you can already do so you maintain a sense of success, or to get too attached to the goals you are setting and let the emotions that come with nearly reaching them, or not, affect your technique or state of mind. The importance of mental state on the practice is remarkable, and a huge insight into what it means in my other arts, though it can be harder to see there.

Anyway, these are a few of the things that are currently occupying me as I look at how this practice is both giving me insight into what I have been doing for decades and expanding my martial experience a bit. There are more, and I think they will continue to percolate and change over time. But right now I am grateful to Hayasaka sensei for taking me as his student in this art, excited about the practice and learning more of it for both me and our group, and just having fun. That last bit is often underrated in the martial arts. Everyone takes themselves so seriously sometimes. And being engaged in a koryu bujutsu is a serious thing, I don’t want to understate that. But it is also fun, and keeping that in mind for all our training is something else this practice is reminding me to do.

[i] There are a number of other koryu that include shuriken in their syllabus. Negishi Ryu is the only one extant that specializes in it, not the only one that includes it. There are also newer arts, like Meifu Shinkage Ryu, founded in the 1970s, that practice various versions of shuriken jutsu.

[ii] Interestingly enough, Shingetsu Ryu has a long connection with Ryukyu Kobudo. Fujita Seiko taught it to Inoue Motokatzu, Taira Shinken’s student, and it is passed down in his Ryukyu Kobujutsu Hozon Shinkokai. And though it is unclear if it was a specific system or who taught him, I am told Matayoshi sensei was skilled with bo shuriken. He was also sklled at throwing various other weapons in our system- sai and nunti sai of course but also kama and the paidao used with the tinbe. Having had some training in all of these I can see the connection.

Not much really, or perhaps a lot? I don’t know, but a change here in the dojo is making me think about it. When Kimo sensei was here during what turned out to be his last visit, we got to talking about his legacy. It had come up before, but it seems timely in retrospect. He took care to tell me that he thought that his Kodokan would cease when he did. It was his, and so without him it wasn’t. Since he never appointed a successor, and his organization was always rather loosely structured, this makes sense. “I expect my students to continue and do their own things, the same way I did when I started Kodokan” was how he phrased it.

That is pretty practical, honest to the real world. I have seen very few organizations last beyond the passing of their founder or leader. Instead they usually break up, with someone holding on to the remnants of the original group or location but with other former members saying that person didn’t have the real knowledge, or skill, or rank, or lineage, or whatever and starting their own groups. It’s messy, and unnecessary, and recognizing a dojo or training group is really a temporary thing is probably the right way to go. The contention that can go along with multiple people claiming to be the “real successor” is pretty unpleasant, and pretty useless, in my opinion.

But of course inertia, or nostalgia, or a variety of other interests can push groups or people to maintain an existing structure. Speaking personally anyway, the social pressures are the real issue. For me that is at least in part because there are no financial or reputational pressures involved- I don’t make any money from teaching and I don’t have much of a presence in the larger martial arts community so those things don’t have any weight to them. But the feelings of the people I train with are important, and my attachments to my teachers and our dojo’s shared past are strong. So making changes can be difficult. You don’t want to lose or upset people, including yourself. And there is comfort in keeping things they way they have “always” been.

So it can take pressure of some sort to spark change. In my case one of them was, amusingly enough, grading. We don’t do much of it. Until last spring I had not, it turns out, run a grading test since before the pandemic. It is not a really important part of how I teach or run the dojo and for adults I don’t really think it is a useful motivator, or useful pedagogical tool. However, there comes a time… I have students that I should have tested for dan rank in the last few years and it was past time to take a closer look at them. And when I realized that, I also realized that if they were ready (which they were), and wanted a piece of paper to go with any change in rank, I wasn’t sure what that paper would say.

It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to give a Kodokan certificate. That was Kimo sensei’s organization and he is not here anymore. I could request Ryushikaikan rank for them, but then I’d have to bring everyone to Kagoshima to test; while I have rank there I have no formal shibu or anything like that and so no right to give it to anyone else. I certainly can’t do a Kokusai Goju Ryu Karate Kobudo Renmei / Shodokan rank, as though Gibo sensei and other seniors have been really generous to me over the last 30+ years and it is where I train when I am in Okinawa I have no rank in that organization. So where does that leave me? In the same position of many others over the generations. Rank, in my opinion, isn’t universal. It is pertinent only to the group you belong to. And Kimo sensei already told me what to do, I just wasn’t listening.

I gave the old dojo space a name when we opened it. Koshinkan, 廣心館 .  It very roughly translates as “open spirit hall’ (kan can also refer to a group, so aslo open spirit group). When Kimo sensei first founded his Kodokan with Matayoshi sensei’s blessing he used the name of Matayoshi sensei’s recently built dojo, Kodokan, 光道館、an enlightened path might be one way to translate it, though it is also a nod to his father Shinko and could be read “(Shin)Ko’s way. Later Kimo sensei changed the characters to sound the same but read something more like “the old way”, 古道館. We’ve used the Kodokan name since the dojo was founded in 1990, but really it no longer fits, and that Kodokan no longer exists. While I have a hard time imagining us with a different name, I also can’t see us using that one any more.

So, long story short, after 35 years we’re still trying to keep things moving forward. Right now, that means taking what was the name for our training space and making it the name for our group. The name has meaning to me- the sound, Koshinkan, references the Kodokan (s) that has been so fundamental to our history. The characters reference both the Ryushinkan and Shindokan, and, more importantly, the idea of an open mind and spirit, from the phrase Kimo sensei taught us so long ago and that has been our dojo motto for 35 years: Open Mind, Joyful Training. I’ll certainly miss the Kodokan name, it has been such a core part of my training life for so many years. And while I’ll bet at times I’ll wonder why I did it, I am very happy with it. It feels right for me, and for our group and the way we approach our practice and each other. To be honest, I probably should have done it ages ago. And while it will take a bit for this change to permeate through the website and other outward facing parts of the dojo I’m not too worried about that, everyone that really matters knows.

Anyway, what is in a name? Something, I guess, but not much at the same time. By any other name, as it were, it is our dojo, our practice, and the people we share it with that are the real things behind any name we choose. And, as our name says, keeping one’s mind open to what the future brings.

For many years now the Okinawan martial arts community has really emphasized how karate and kobudo promote the long and healthy lifespan the island is known for. This has been coupled with showing how physically powerful many of the “old masters” are today. In many ways this emphasis on the advanced age of many of the senior teachers and their competence, physical ability, and importance falls right into place with the Confucian ethos inherent in the island’s culture. This veneration of the elder members of the community is a strong point in the culture, at least as far as I am concerned.

However, there are always two sides to any coin. This central locus of the elders has a large impact on both the practice and its expression in the community. First, it can create an emphasis on the elements of practice that are more accessible to aging bodies (no matter how fit those bodies are). For example, with 70+ year olds held up as the epitome of what the art is, it is unlikely that epitome will emphasize jumping height. I’m not saying it should, I’m just saying what you measure is important. It determines what “best” is, and if the older members must be the best the presentation of the art may wind up emphasizing the things the elder members do well, while simultaneously de-emphasizing the things they don’t.

Second, it can also act as a conservative force on the community of practice as a whole. The only way to get knowledge (and rank, let’s not ignore that) is by gaining the support of your seniors. If you stray from the path they approve of that support is unlikely to be given. In many ways that is good- there are a lot of ways to stray from the path of our practice, and a major role of our seniors is to guide us away from the mistakes they made and help us keep true to the art.

But at the same time the power that comes with seniority and its social capital can also work to stifle progress and limit experimentation. It is hard for some people, and some groups, to create space for experimentation while also maintaining their dedication to their existing practice. It is also hard for some folks, or groups, to maintain authority while allowing room for experiment. I have seen cases of it being either/or- either you keep doing what we have been doing or you are breaking with the group and are no longer one of “us”. That can be traumatic if you have both a desire to grow your practice and a deep and abiding love of the existing practice and the seniors who have helped you grow into it.

When I look at the past masters of our practice though, one thing stands out to me. Today we are used to thinking of the senior members of the community as being quite old. These days dojo and style heads are often in their 70s, 80s, or older, as are many of the senior practitioners. But was that always the case? A cursory look at some of the folks who founded the systems or dojo that are around today shows something a little different.

As a partial list, here are the ages of a number of people when they founded their organization or dojo:

Taking another data point, at the well known 1936 “meeting of the masters” the masters called to the meeting were not so old:

These people were invited to a public meeting about changing the name of the art, and/or were respected enough to start a dojo or system that was accepted in the larger community. What I see here is that at least in the early 20^th century it was considered normal for someone to found a dojo or a “system” in their 30s. They could be considered a “master” by their 40s. In other words, one didn’t need 30 or 40 years of training under an older teacher, or need to be well past middle age, to run a dojo or school, or to be a luminary in the community. (As a corollary, it was also unusual for someone to start a dojo in their 20s. Clearly at least a decade or more training under a good teacher seemed necessary.)

I have a deep respect for my elders in the art, and their abilities. I also have a recognition that as I get well into my 50s my body has changed some. I should be training harder to keep my ability up, but even with intense focus no one is as physically capable in their 70s as they were in their 30s. For people teaching and passing on karate some recognition of this is important. We don’t want to pass on ‘old man’s’ karate. By this I mean we don’t want the art to overbalance in favor of the types of practice (or movement) that are easier to maintain, or more important for health and well being, as we age. I’ll let you think about what those types of practice might be, but I don’t only mean this in a physical way.

It can also have an impact developmentally. To gain the experience needed to have high level skills as one ages, and so to be able to pass that knowledge on, one has to go through various types of training over time. If this “life cycle” of training isn’t fully maintained, for example by training in your 20s or 30s like the seniors in their 70s, the next generation of seniors is going to be lacking in certain experiences and skills. These may be physical. They may also be social or conceptual. For example, Musashi became a hermit, focused on strategic thinking and personal development. in his final years. But to have the insight and gravitas to do that and be listened to he first had to establish himself, gaining a reputation as a hot headed killer in his youth, and then temper himself, taking on organizational and teaching responsibilities as he aged. He didn’t just start out as a highly skilled wise old man. And his training didn’t have that as a goal, that’s just where he ended up.

Starting a training group in your 30s probably means you are excited about growing and planning your own training, and sharing that with others. It may mean that you have a vision for your practice or are experimenting and wanting space to train a little differently than your elders; if you don’t want to do anything differently why would you start something new? I think this type of experimentation and growth is essential to the art, on both a personal and systemic level. It seems to me, based on the ages of people who were opening their dojo in the early-mid 20^th century, and the relationships they maintained (for example, even though he broke away at age 25 Shinjo Masanobu maintained relationships with his teacher Toguchi Seikichi, and his teacher’s teacher Higa Seiko) that at least at that time this was recognized and accepted. Encouraged even.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think being young and excited about your training is enough, you need good instruction and well developed skills. That younger members of the community founded dojo and were accepted by their peers and teachers tells me they didn’t just say “hey, I’m awesome, I’ll start a dojo!” but were considered good enough to do so by their seniors and peers. They were considered ready. And then that combination of skill and drive was not boxed in by them not being “old enough”, instead the community encouraged and supported it. Including the old masters. Remember this was a small and tight knit community. Everyone knew everyone else, regardless of style or teacher, so if you were not considered good enough word was going to spread fast. And the relationships they maintained left a forum for feedback both from seniors and from the community as a whole. When I look at it through that lens it seems possible that the old masters wanted to encourage the next generation, give them room to grow their arts, and take on leadership for the future.

It seems possible that while the importance of the elder members of the community hasn’t changed much the narrative around it has. That in the past the Okinawan martial arts were led more by those who were pushing forward in the art as opposed to those who were in it the longest or had the best established groups or organizations.[ii] That the gatekeeping was done differently. I don’t know if this is true. But there is a difference between “being the best” and being in the appropriate role at the appropriate time. I do know that without my seniors and teachers, some of whom have been both quite physically adept and quite advanced in age, I would not have had the learning opportunities I have in the arts. And at the same time, without the younger folks I trained with, my sempai, kohai, and doshi, I would not have most of the meager skills I do have. You need both. Fighting is a young man’s game. Teaching, and tempering, those young folks is more often an older person’s challenge.

So while the “old masters” are essential, they are only one wheel of the cart, to borrow an oft-used phrase, and I think the Okinawan martial arts community might be well advised to pay more attention to that. When I visit Okinawa now I mostly see a cadre of older teachers, groups of kids, and only a few Okinawan men and women, often family members or friends of the teachers, in the 20-40 age range.[iii] But if the art can’t nurture, support, and inspire people in the prime of their physical lives the way it used to it isn’t likely to thrive over time, at least in its native context. And that would be a real loss.

[i] If I have any of these ages off by a year or so my apologies. I did a quick look for any I didn’t know and any mistakes are entirely mine.

[ii] The absence of the organizations we have now may also be one reason founding a dojo was treated differently then. There was less organizational inertia, and no market share was threatened by a new dojo or system. There were also no ranks, which may have made it easier to judge skill and leadership ability while not offending “higher ranked” members of the community.

[iii] The same is true here, with far fewer people in their physical prime doing “traditional” arts like karate than doing things like MMA or Thai boxing these days. However, it seems even more pronounced in Okinawa in my experience. And even in Okinawa a good many of the people in this age range are foreigners- servicemen and women or people who have come to the island specifically to train- as opposed to native Okinawans.

A little while ago I posted a short piece on power generation. It came out of some thinking and training I have been doing moving back and forth between the “engines” of Goju, Feeding Crane, and Matayoshi lineage kobudo. In it I included a pretty standard power development method, rotation. However, I realized I had presented it incorrectly. I used the standard “body rotates around the spine” phraseology. But one of my students pointed out that I don’t actually teach rotation that way, at least in Goju or kobudo, and talking about it that way is essentially lazy, which makes it much harder to examine what we are doing.

It is difficult in text to describe some of this stuff, but I’ll give it a go. 

First, the spine is rarely the point you rotate around, or perhaps more properly, from. Certainly you can, and certainly we do (more often in Feeding Crane, but I digress). But most of the time rotating around the spine means that ½ or so of your energy is going away from the direction you are trying to send power. That isn’t really very efficient, is it? 

Let’s take a very simple example, a standard gyaku tsuki, like in geki sai. The rear leg pushes the rear hip. Connection with the lats, back, and abdominals ties the shoulder to the hip; through this set of connections, the “power chain”, the leg pushes the shoulder and from there the arm and finally hand. That rotation- the leg driving the shoulder- is what I am referring to. This is often described as the upper body rotating with the spine as the center axis. However, is it? If I look at the rotation that way, that would mean that the opposite hip moves backward, away from the direction the punch is moving. As I was taught, and as I teach, that is not the case.

Instead, that hip becomes the point of rotation, the pivot point. Think of the torso like a door, the “frame” we often talk about. If the pivot is in the center of the door, representing the spine, when you push on one side the door spins and as that side goes forward the other goes back. Now instead think about the door with the hinge on one side. The door opens with the hinge as the pivot point. This hinge is the opposite hip.

Instead of always rotating around the spine we can choose our pivot point.  In this example it is the opposite hip but it can be other places. Try it. It might come very naturally, or it might feel really weird. The movement goal for a basic gyaku tsuki would be to limit the rearward motion of the opposite hip while allowing for full extension of the rear leg and good penetration with the punch, all without twisting the torso (breaking the frame). For Goju folks, this is essentially one aspect of sanchin, where we punch without pulling the opposite hand/shoulder/hip away from the front….

The power generation goal is to dump all the momentum of the punch, not just ½ of it, into the target. That includes the mass behind it, not just ½ the mass. This is why the knee release on the front leg is important.

Try the punch again, slowly. If you don’t release your knee it is, for me anyway, harder to prevent that opposite (front) hip from moving backwards as the rear leg pushes, at least without adding a lot of tension to that leg to stabilize it or lock it in place. But if you release the front knee it allows that hip to remain open, and perhaps even move a little bit forward and/or down. I find this makes it easier for that hip to be used as the pivot point. We call this “emptying” the leg. In essence, when you hit that leg could just as easily be lifted off the ground for a split second, leaving that side totally unsupported. Empty. Then all the weight along with the pushing force is transmitted in a line from the rear heel to the end of the punch. (The same applies for a huge variety of other attacks, or motions in various planes, I’m just trying to stay focused on one example at the movement.)

I often see people pushing with that opposite leg, straightening the knee slightly and pushing the hip back. This can create a very snappy pivot around the spine, moving off a fixed and equally supported base. This can feel good, fast and powerful, as your whole body is engaging in the movement and you are well supported so don’t feel unbalanced. I don’t think it allows for a “unified body” energy transfer, with the entire weight of the frame behind the technique, but of course other results may vary.

Anyway, thinking about rotation a little differently might be helpful in your practice. Or it might not. But examining this part of your mechanics is likely to be helpful if you want to work on connecting the various elements of your practice to the roots of your system and the movement theories behind it. I don’t know about you, but to me this approach more closely resembles the fundamentals of the Goju engine, and its basic expressions in Sanchin, among other things.

There is a common understanding that the kata that make up modern Okinawan karate have been passed down for a long period of time essentially unchanged. There is also a common precept that “the kata must be preserved unchanged”, that they must be kept that way. The idea, of course, is that they contain knowledge that has been passed down intact and that if they are changed this knowledge will be lost.

Ok, that makes sense. The forms contain information for and about the systems they are a part of. Wouldn’t dream of arguing with that. The “unchanged” part, that might be a little more problematic. It is a nice idea. I’d like to think that we have little nuggets of ancient wisdom to draw on in our practice. In some systems that can be somewhat verified. Taking something like Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu, there is a very well documented 600 yearish line of continuous succession and written documentation to back up the physical practice (this includes records of changes made, but that’s a different conversation). The two person paradigm that the kata embodies is somewhat change-resistant, as is the highly conservative environment of the practice. However, to be honest, we have no video reference before the 20^th century, so we really have no idea what it used to look like. But the Okinawan arts have a very different cultural background, and solo kata a very different practice paradigm.

Focusing on the cultural background, I’d like to look a little more closely at what unchanged might mean. To do so, I’d like to look at one or two kata from the early 20^th century. We don’t have video reference from this period, so let’s really simplify and just look at kata names and who taught them.  Let’s start with Seisan. We know that Aragaki Seisho demonstrated a version in 1867, so it has a long history in Okinawa. About 60-70 years later, around 1930, there were at least 7 versions extant. They included:

There is evidence of other versions. Itoman (The Study of Karate Techniques, 1934) lists an Iha Seisan and Mike and Takada (Kenpo Gaisetsu 1930) an Oshiro Seisan, which Kinjo Hiroshi has said is actually a Tomari Seisan passed from Mastumora to Iha to Oshiro. (He also says there was no Shuri Seisan.) Others, including researchers like Patrick McCarthy, have said Matsumura passed down the Shuri Seisan. I haven’t spent much time looking at the Shuri/Tomari lineages and can’t speak to some of this, so I’m sticking with the ones above as they will make my point well enough. The possible existence of others, or more complicated lines of transmission, only reinforce it.

So around 1930 there were at least 6 and possibly as many as 10 or more (I wish I could document 13!) versions of a single kata on Okinawa, a kata that had already been around for at least 70 years. Probably more, but we can clearly document to 1867. And these 6-10+ versions were each passed on by a single teacher to only one or two people we know of; for example Kanyu Seisan went only to Kyoda Juhatsu. That says two things. One, that the only versions we know now were those passed to people that continued to teach and helped create the styles we know today. (As a corollary, with small groups and not every teacher having students that taught, there were likely versions that simply didn’t get passed on.) And two, that none of these versions were widespread, they were particular to a single teacher and a small group of students.

To put it a different way, every teacher that passed down Seisan passed down a different one, and passed it down to a few direct students only. They passed down their own version. Indeed, while they all bear close resemblance to each other no two teachers from the pre-war era passed down an identical Seisan. What does that say about a “root” kata, one unchanged? By whom? As of when?

I’ll bring another kata in to look at this a slightly different way, Passai. At the same time, the 30s ish, there are a number of different versions of Passai extant, at least according to the somewhat scant written record. At this point they have taken on the names of the folks who taught them. A list could include:

These are people’s names, plus a place name. Even with a fairly comfortable understanding of Japanese I often find a list of names like this somewhat inaccessible. So let’s rephrase it. If it were in English, the list would feel more like:

This isn’t a list of style specific kata or kata named for some long lost ancestor. It’s a list of kata, named for people in the current or recent generations. A list of individual variations of a common piece of material. If you are familiar with folk music think about the different versions of The Ballad of John Henry recorded in the 20^th century. Each artist considered it ok, in fact if you know musicians you’d realize they would consider it essential, to take the root material and “make it their own”. The same thing is happening with karate kata here.

There were no styles at the time. Each teacher had, essentially, his own style, made up of what he had learned from their various teachers and completed with his own personal research and development. None of these teachers had many students. They did however, have a community around them.

These guys all knew each other. They shared stuff- the kenkyukai is a perfect example. A bunch of folks from what would eventually become different systems got together and shared. They were interested in how their peers were training. It wasn’t radical, though like most groups made up of a bunch of leaders it didn’t last long.

Community is important. Looking at these kata variations it seems clear to me that each teacher took the themes that were current in the community, things like Seisan or Passai, and worked with them as they saw fit. This wasn’t considered transgressive.  To wit, in Miyagi Hisateru’s piece “Memories of a Karate Man” he writes that “Yabu (Kentsu) performed Kusanku, which combined Sho and Dai. In Yabu sensei’s version all the shuto-uke were replaced by tsuki-uke. I think this was Yabu sensei’s way of improving the kata and that it was a good idea. Researching and combining kata has its place. Using the fist is better as the usual shuto-uke runs the risk of having fingers broken, which is quite frightening.”

It seemed normal to Miyagi that Yabu sensei would combine and make changes to classical kata based on his own ideas. The variations of Seisan and Passai, and their names, indicate to me that this was a typical way of working with kata. If not, there wouldn’t be so many unique variations of Seisan, or Passai with different teachers’ names attached.

So I might suggest that we should look at any search for an “original” version of a kata in a different light. We can’t know what the kata actually looked like before video. We do know that teachers felt comfortable making changes to kata at least up until the war and the development of today’s karate styles. We also know that even after the formal styles were created and the idea of kata as unchangeable came into more prominence changes still happen. If they don’t why are there so many minor variations of Goju’s Seisan now? They all come from Miyagi. Maybe he taught it differently to each person that learned it, or taught with variations, in which case he started out precluding the idea of a “true” kata. Maybe each teacher made some minor tweaks that he thought were ok. Either way, in 2 generations, with video and a clear pressure to keep things the same, there are differences, albeit minor.  What does that imply for kata in an environment with no video record and a common acceptance of teachers making changes as they see fit?

Perhaps we could find an “original” version of a kata for whatever system we are researching as far back as say 1930. Maybe as early as the start of the 20^th century, if we have any way to prove the current version is unchanged since then. But before that? I dunno. Taking Seisan, they are all clearly variations on the same form, but which version is closest to the original? How would you know? There is no documentation about its creation. There doesn’t appear to be one that was more popular, at least in the early 20^th century. You might be able to tease out one that was from an older lineage, but how do you know where the other lineages got theirs, and how do you know what changes were made the generation before it was passed on as it is now? How do you know that other versions from the same period didn’t keep key elements that the teacher that passed down the “older” version didn’t like? And does it matter?

Kata are an essential part of Okinawan karate. They hold important elements of the systems they embody. But equally clearly, at least to me, their secrets are in their practice, the way they are done and how they were shaped to work within their systems, within current (at the time of the system’s founding) training methods and concepts, as much as in the sequences. Their embodiment of these particular concepts is what makes them valuable tools. Certainly they have been passed down to us and we should treat them with the respect they are due. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves that we have some unchanged piece of the ancient past to work with. Our karate ancestors were inspired men, not the kind of folks to blindly pass on something, but the kind of men who would make sure whatever they valued they worked with and shaped to be an active and creative part of the art they loved. Respect that, follow the goal, not the finger pointing at it, and don’t create a mystical artifact that, most likely, is just illusion.

Oh, and don’t change the kata.

Well, I’m definitely thinking about language and culture these days. Right now, it’s titles and ranks. These came up in a conversation I had recently. There is already a plethora of stuff written about how they are used incorrectly. On one level that makes sense to me. I find the western misuse of Japanese terminology endlessly frustrating. Honestly, it is pretty simple. In Japan and Okinawa one never refers to oneself using a title. You don’t say “Hi, I’m Bob sensei”, you say “Hi, I’m Bob.” And even the highest ranked teachers are called “sensei” when you are speaking to them (just like a school teacher or your GP), not hanshi, or shihan, or any other title. Sempai cannot be used as a title or rank, because one person’s sempai is another’s kohai. (At the same time, in the same conversation…) But these simple linguistic concepts get, or got, changed pretty quickly in their transition to the west. Some groups now refer to seniors with titles like kyoshi or renshi instead of sensei. I see sempai written on belts or used as a title. And don’t get me started on soke. At times it makes me, and people I know who have also lived in Japan, a little batty.¹

But why? So what? They are just words. And when I look closer, the only people that seem really invested in this are westerners who have lived in Japan for an extended period of time. Even many of the Okinawan teachers I know see how their western students use the terms and while they may laugh a little about it they don’t really seem to care. And I certainly know people who have been traveling to Okinawa or Japan for decades who use the terms very differently to how they are used in their native context but suffer no conflicts or consequences. So why is there an issue?

For a couple of reasons, I think. The first is simple: it is incorrect. To give some context, it sounds a little like someone saying “Hello Mr. Master’s Degree Frederick” to me. Really weird. The second is the way in which it is wrong. In Japanese it would sound arrogant (and a little insecure). Think “that’s right, I am more important than all of you and you better know your place” arrogant if you are using it about yourself, like “I’m Bob sensei”. And saying something like “good morning xxx hanshi” to someone, either comes off as sarcastic, implying you don’t think they deserve the rank, or it implies that the person you are speaking to is quite arrogant and demands being called by his or her titles and you are calling them out on that. Either way it is pretty much an insult. So I’d think that if you were really trying to show respect and be a part of an activity rooted in another culture you would want to get it right.

And yet….  I have friends and acquaintances who have spent a lot of time in Okinawa. They use titles in a variety of ways, depending on the American (or Canadian) groups they belong to. When they are in Okinawa however their teachers and fellow students never get upset about mis-used vocabulary or word choices that can come across as rude. Why not? Because it is really clear things are not meant that way. As the Okinawans are well aware they cannot speak English they recognize the effort. They see the desire to demonstrate respect and friendship, and to give credit to the teacher, the art, and the culture. Mistakes are not nearly as important as the spirit behind them.

But things are different when you are living in the culture. Okinawa is unusual, because you can conceivably live there for years and not really have to speak Japanese or Uchinaguchi much. But in virtually all the rest of the country if you are living and working there you live and work in Japanese. And while it can be over-stated, it is an in-group culture and a fairly formal one. There is a difference between someone visiting and someone who has taken on the responsibilities of an adult. If you have taken on these responsibilities not only is your intention important, your competency is as well. If you are in, you have to abide by the rules. That means understanding how to be polite and acting accordingly.

This is in part because your public behavior represents the group, whether you want it to or not. The costs for failing can at times be severe- ostracism and disrespect among them. There can also be consequences for any group you belong to; whether you think it is fair or not your behavior will reflect on those around you and they may pay a price for your actions, just as you may pay a price for theirs. That set of expectations carries across multiple areas of your life: work, the dojo, and friendships. The better your language and cultural skills get, and the closer your relationships get, the stronger the expectations get. This isn’t to say it is a harsh culture. My experience is the exact opposite. But there are expectations around following basic rules of conduct, just as there are here.

So after living in the culture for an extended period you wind up internalizing this, both because it is a part of your daily life and because most people want to be polite. And then when you hear things done incorrectly it really stands out. (In part because it can then reflect back on you, even if your only connection is that you are both gaijin.) That’s not surprising. If I were to hear someone say “Hello Mr. Master’s Degree Frederick” to me here I’d definitely wonder. Especially if that person had been involved in an American art form, say bluegrass banjo playing, for years and traveled here many times to study it. And even if my (hypothetical banjo player) business card were to have my degrees on it it’s clear we don’t say them when speaking to someone. It only takes a couple of first meetings to learn the “nice to meet you Mr. xxx” portion of a conversation. I’d wonder why they didn’t care enough to learn how to address people, or if they were too stupid to get it.

I’ve sat in dojo in Kagoshima and Okinawa with my teachers and guests who spoke very little Japanese. I’ve sat at work with new arrivals and my bosses. And in both situations I’ve seen the guests getting honest praise, repeated later when they were not around, for their use of the language while then being criticized myself for mistakes in gradients of formality between different members of the group. I’ve also been given a dressing down for other foreigners making mistakes- the fault was mine not theirs because I knew what was appropriate and they didn’t; even if they were refusing correction not being able to get them to accept it and be polite was my responsibility, though I had no authority over them. The expectations were just different.

It can be crazy-making! Why can she, whom you see every year or two but can’t discuss political economy with, get a pass on calling you a moron by mistake while you give me, who is here every week, cleaning the dojo, going to the enkai, and talking with you about how to deal with your chronically late employee, a dressing down for mixing up formal verb tenses when drunk? Shouldn’t everyone have to get it right? Especially when it has been made clear getting it wrong is disrespectful?  And why is their behavior my responsibility? Why do the actions of people I don’t even know reflect on me? For folks who have lived and worked in the culture this can result in some stress that comes out when non-Japanese use things like titles and such inappropriately. And if the locals don’t take any offense at visitors misusing their titles, I guess it doesn’t really matter and we should get over it. But having some responsibility, unwanted I assure you, for the actions of others whom I have no control over has reminded me of one thing: usually they are being let off the hook because they aren’t thought of as being fully on the team. They are not being treated as a responsible adult.

So while it is nice getting let off the hook, and comfortable (and cool?) creating your own traditions around titles, you might want to think about what that means, for you and for your group. You don’t have to get it right, but making the same mistakes over and over tells people that you don’t really care, or just don’t understand (or think your version is equally or more valid than the native one). And if they are letting you off the hook it may indicate a background assumption you are not really equals. Is that what you want? To be assumed to be less than? And really, there is no excuse. The butchering of Japanese titles here is a pretty poor showing. But no worse than this sign, so I guess it goes both ways. Can’t imagine that place getting much business in Boston though.  I know I’d go somewhere else.

1 I actually think this is in part due to the military background of so many of the first generations of Japanese martial arts instructors in the US. In the military a captain is a captain, a private is a private. Rank is not conditional. But in the dojo, a sempai is sometimes a kohai, and your sensei might be someone else’s kohai. it all depends on who you are talking to. That’s pretty different.

Culture, writing, language, training, they interact in interesting ways. The Water Margin translation I referenced in my last post reminded me of the Bubishi and the Kenpo Hakku, in particular the bit probably most connected to Goju Ryu’s history: 法剛柔吞吐; Ho Go Ju Don Tou. The characters directly translate something like- law/principle, hard, soft, swallow (in), spit (out). The form is a 5 character poem of a type common in Southern Chinese martial arts. They are sayings that elucidate elements of practice or the principles of the art.  They can be difficult to translate because they are written without punctuation or much in the way of context, often missing particles, verb conjugations, subject and object markers, and other elements of language that could make them clear. More pertinently here, they also often reference cultural ideas or common use phrases that are very clear to a native speaker (or to an initiate) but may be completely unintelligible to a non-native. Think “bums me out” being translated by someone who has never heard the phrase before. Without knowing it means “saddens me” one might wind up with an odd-seeming translation that involves multiple posteriors, and potentially a lot of mystery.

In this case, there have been a lot of translations over the years. They usually focus on breathing, as the terms 吞吐Don Tou use characters that can be read to imply inhaling and exhaling as well as swallowing and spitting. So, translations like: The way of breathing is both hard and soft. With this translation, it makes sense to examine what the phrase means for using the breath in a hard or soft fashion, and what this then means for both practice and combative use. This is probably the right way to go, after all it is how the poem has been understood for quite a while, both on Okinawa and in the West.

However, there might be another, simpler answer to what this phrase means, one dependent on the cultural context it comes from. The Bubishi is a Southern Chinese Boxing manual, in a format fairly common in the area and time. These arts all use versions of: 浮沉吞吐FouChunTunTou, or: float, sink, swallow, spit. These are four basic directions of power- swallowing is drawing towards yourself or absorbing, spitting is sending out or projecting, floating is lifting or raising, sinking is dropping down or weighting. Obviously we could go into a huge amount of detail and discussion about these energies, what they mean, and how they are used, but that’s the basic idea. It is a core concept in these arts, in particular the Crane systems.

It seems perfectly in keeping for a Southern Chinese training manual to reference these energies. Almost mandatory. And certainly immediately clear to someone reading it. But it doesn’t seem that this phrase made it into the Okinawan arts with quite the same weight. It may be the Okinawans were not as familiar with it, or that it wasn’t as central to how they conceptualized their arts, and so the folks who trained in China didn’t really pass it on. Therefore, except to those who had trained in China and spoke the language, the very common meaning behind it may not have been apparent. This goes even more so for Western students working on translating from Japanese, as the Japanese is actually Chinese and not only is the phrase in another language, but it is actually a standard reference to something they may have had no context for and so didn’t recognize.

In short, Westerners (and possibly Okinawans?) may have been dictionary-translating a text that is structurally obscure without the key cultural context that could change it from something that seems esoteric into something simple. Indeed the phrase itself, instead of being an esoteric statement, could be a means of simplifying the Hard/Soft dichotomy that is so often used, giving it concrete examples as opposed to a more philosophical meaning. 

If we look at it through this lens, instead of a commentary on breathing, you get a simple examination of two of the four directions of energy:

Rule (Ho) Hard (Go) Soft (Ju) Project/Spit (Don) Absorb/Swallow (Tou), just as before. But if instead of drawing connections to breathing through Don and Tou we think of them as common use terms for two of the four basic energies, the translation might be different.  

Perhaps: The rule is projecting is hard, absorbing is soft. Or: be soft when absorbing, be hard when projecting. Or: When bringing in be soft, when forcing out be hard. Or: absorbing techniques are done softly, projecting techniques are done hard. Or: absorbing is a soft concept, projecting is a hard concept.

My experience in Feeding Crane, and limited exposure to a number of other Southern Chinese arts, tells me that these would all make immediate sense to someone who was trained in these systems, as these ideas- absorbing as soft, projecting as hard; connecting various energies to concepts of hardness and softness and then categorizing techniques based on them- are very common in these systems. Sometimes they are categorized  something like: Swallowing is soft is pulling, defense, retreat, slow movement, reactive; Spitting is hard is pushing, striking, attack, advance, fast movement, aggressive. All ideas that can be easily connected to both training and use, are fairly concrete in meaning, and can be clearly linked to specific techniques.

Of course I can’t know if this is correct or not. I certainly am not about to dismiss the efforts in translation and understanding that have gone before me. But it does fit with the context the Bubishi is supposed to have come from. It also takes a lot of the woo-woo out of this portion of the poem, which I kinda like. Either way, it gives some context for what is often a very obscure section of text. If we are going to try to examine the connections between the Chinese and Okinawan arts we need to understand the context of both. Without context we are far more likely to be making things up as we go, which is cool, and can be fun, but perhaps isn’t the point?

Karate is full of myths. Origins, connections to past traditions, mysterious teachers, hidden techniques, the list goes on. This isn’t surprising, in fact it is in keeping with the arts related to it, both in Japan and China. Sometimes, however, the myths can take on a little too much historical weight. That is certainly true in the Chinese arts, where things like the Southern Shaolin Temple, which in all likelihood never existed, and the legends surrounding its destruction and the diaspora of its surviving monks form the basis of the foundation myths of a number of Southern Chinese arts.

These legends seem, when scholars examine them, to be based at least in part on the stories told in The Water Margin, also called Outlaws of the Marsh, or All Men Are Brothers. This novel, which can be dated to at least 1524, is a treasure trove of martial arts tropes, as well as being quite a fun read. It has everything: monks fleeing burnt temples, masters hiding from the government, secret symbols and hidden training, mystical and magical martial skills, numerology, and so on.

Many of these tropes are also seen in the stories around karate in Okinawa. Mysterious teachers, hidden techniques, fighting back against an oppressive government, hidden meaning in the names of kata, these sound familiar, no? These go along with the stories of direct transmission from a mysterious Chinese teacher and secret or ancient Chinese knowledge. A lot of Chinese stuff, really, for an island more directly influenced by Japanese culture and political hegemony. A little background in Okinawan culture makes at least some of the reasons for this emphasis on Chinese knowledge obvious. There is an immense amount of cultural capital to be gained in traditional Okinawan culture through connection to Chinese knowledge or learning. More than from Japanese, regardless of the actual historical weight of the two.

When looking for the connections to the Chinese cultural impact on the Okinawan martial arts however, the emphasis is usually on trade, or the sapposhi, the Ryukyukan or Kumemura; on contact with the martial arts directly. But questions remain. Where did the founders learn their arts? Why are their teachers unknown? What exactly was Chinese and what Okinawan? And the stories also seem, familiar? Fleeing conscription in Okinawa or leaving on a quest for martial knowledge, becoming a disciple of a local master after helping him or his family, learning deeply and in secret, being the best student even if you were an outcast of some sort , fleeing having accidentally killed someone in China. Good stuff, if rather unoriginal. But while these stories are occasionally examined, looking at some of the larger Chinese cultural impact on the Okinawan martial arts is ofttimes ignored. How did music, the classics, or dance impact those learning martial arts? And what impact did literature or legend have?

This last occurred to me most recently when I was visiting the Museum of Fine Arts here in Boston a few months back. Amusingly enough, I was in the company of one of my teachers, a senior in the Jigen Ryu from Kagoshima who was visiting. He wanted to see an Ukiyo e exhibit that was on. He was somewhat amused that the MFA has such a huge collection, known in Japan as well as here for being one of the best, and it was indeed a wonderful exhibit. Amongst the many works of art, the one that really jumped out at me was this: an 1830s reprint of an 1805 translation of The Water Margin illustrated by Hokusai. This was, at the time, a huge success and inspired a “Water Margin” craze. An 1827 reprint with art by Kuniyoshi jumpstarted his career and inspired a nationwide craze for whole body multi-color tattoos (as well as inspiring the reprint of the 1805 printing that had inspired Kuniyoshi). I hadn’t realized how popular, and persistent this book was in Japan. Somehow, I’d segregated the Chinese and Japanese cultural spheres, while in reality they merge a great deal.

As I said, this work had a huge impact on the founding myths of many of the southern arts. These arts in turn had some influence on the development of karate as we know it today.  These martial arts cannot be separated from the legends that surround them (nor would I want to!). But in part because of the strength of these stories their actual history is often hard to discover. Powerful stuff indeed. And in looking at the influence of Chinese culture on the Okinawan martial arts it might behoove us to think a little more holistically. If we think about these stories as coming from multiple sources, filtered through multiple cultures, it might be another window into their influence.  In reality it isn’t just from whatever direct transmission of technique or information that happened that this influence is felt.

And therefore it isn’t just from Chinese sources that Chinese culture can enter the arts. In this case, a set of foundational stories that was hugely influential in China, and to the arts that then influenced the Okinawan arts, was also very popular in translation, with editions being published periodically and remaining popular through the Edo (from at least 1757 on) and Meiji periods. These would be known to any Okinawan martial artist who could read, and most likely, since they were so popular, even to those who couldn’t. So they would be part of the background of the art from both ends, as it were. Both through the direct transmission from Chinese sources, who would certainly have been familiar with the tales (and likely practiced arts that incorporated them into their own myths) and from the popular culture around the Okinawans.

So what Chinese influence then? Not just technique, but also myth and story. A multi variate influence. Happening at different times and through different media. Coming from variant cultural loci, and with accompanying variant levels of cultural capital, but regardless thereby being somewhat self-reinforcing. And much like the Chinese before them, it seems like not too much of a stretch to see the Okinawans also incorporating these stories into their own, particularly since they were getting them from all sides, as it were. Perhaps unconsciously, perhaps on purpose, but that is how myth and fact get intermingled. When, as humans do, we take what we are given and make ourselves the main characters of our own story.