Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Histoire Du Karate-Do - L’ecole Shito-ryu

My translation from Kenji Tokitsu's work.

 II – The Shito-ryu school

The Shito-ryu school was founded by Kenwa Mabuni, friend of Chojun Miyagi.

1 – Kenwa Mabuni  (1889 – 1952), founder of Shito-ryu

Kenwa Mabuna was born the 14th of November 1889 in Shuri to an ancient family of officers of the king of Ryukyu.  Following a change of regime, his father had taken the profession of a pastry cook. Infant, Kenwa Mabuni, was of very fragile health and sought the means to become stronger.  He was initiated to karage at the approximate age of 10 years by a servant of his house, Matayoshi.

The celebrated master Anko Itosu also lived in Shuri. At 13 years, Kenwa Mabuni, was introduced by one of his friends, and became his student; he remained faithful to him for the rest of his life. According to the custom of the time, he ahd to obtain, to be admitted, the recommendation of a trustworthy person who would vouch for him.  He persevered in his training under the direction of A. Itosu, without ever missing a single day, not even a day of typhoon, according to his son Kenei Mabuni.

In 1902 he entered the Okinawa high school where karate was not a subject of study. IN 1905,  following from a strike at the high schools, in which he took an important part, he had to change from his school and entered a maritime school. He then terminated his studies after 3 years, at the age of 19.

He began to work as a free lance teacher at the primary school in Naha. I was in this period that he struck up a friendship with Chojun Miyagi, who then presented him to his own master k. Higaonna. The recommendation of Miyagi provided him with the precious opportunity to learn Naha-te directly. But, at the end of two years (of training), he had to leave for military service. On is return, in 1912, on the counsel of Miyagi, he entered the Okinawan school of police. In 1914, he became an inspector of police, he was 25 years old and remained in the police during ten years.

His function with the police facilitated his travels in  the island of Okinawa, and his encounters with masters of the art of combat.  He thus collected many kata of karate. He studied. He studied, morever, classic arts of the island called Ryu-kyu kobujutsu. Thus he learned Bo-jutsu (the art of the stick) from Master Aragaki and from Master  Soeishi and the sai-jutsu (the art of the sai) from Master Tawada.  Learning these arts in this epoch (time period) was difficult where esotericism (?) was the rule.  Remark here rather than later, when K. Mabuni founded his Shito-ryu school the richness of this register will become at times an advantage and a burden for those who practice this school.

The two masters A. Itosu and K. Higaonna died the same year, in 1915: Kenwa Mabuni was then twenty six years.  He was very young to continue (alone?) in the way of Karate.  He consulted Miyagi who was only a year older than him and they decided to constitute (ensemble) a group for the  research and practice of karate.  This group grew and in 1918 the majority of known karate experts formed part of it. We found there, after C. Miyagi and K. Mabuni, the principal figures of the history of modern karate; K. Yabu, C. Hanashiro, C. Chibana, A. Tokuda, S. Gusukuma, C. Oshiro, S. Tokumura, S. Ishikawa and G. Funakoshi.

But this group didn’t have the use of a dojo and the members did not go very far in practical collaboration.  It is only in 1924 that K. Mabuni constructed a dojo in his garden. The new group whoch worked with him was directed by the masters; C. Miyagi, J. Kyoda, C. Motobu, C. Hanshiro, C. Oshiro, C. Chinaba and K. Go (Chinese).

Kenei Mabuni, son of Kenwa Mabuni rembers this from this period:
Before the construction of the dojo, my father trained with his students in the garden, at night, under the light of an electric lightbulb.  The most of the students were with nude torso’s, I had rarely seen students dressed in judo or kendo kimonos… During my infancy, my home was always frequented by some karate-kas, and I had grown up watching their training.  Sometimes the visitors gave me some cakes when I showed them the katas that I had learnt… In October 1924 my father had constructed a dojo which he had returned since a long time. He installed all sorts of instruments destined to reinforce the body for karate. It was an ideal dojo.”

When in 1926, jigoro kano, a very grand figure of Japanese budo of the period, visited Okinawa and demanded from the prefect a presentation of karate, it was this group that took the initiative of the demonstrations. The explication of Shuri-te was made by Mabuni, that of Nata-te by Miyagi.  The Okinawan karate-ka of this period saw them of equal importance, vital for the ulterior development of karate.

At the issue of this presentation, J. Kano said to K. Mabuni and to C. Miyagi:
I think that the from the point of view of physical and moral education the Okinawan art of combat must be developed to a large scale in the future.  When it (karate)  has made a certain degree of diffusion on Hondo (principle island of Japan) it would naturally have a chance to be integrated into the Butokukai.   I would like you to hold in account this question and that you consider your art from the global point of view of Japan.”

It was from this discussion with J. Kano that K. Mabuni decided to leave Okinawa. In 1928 he left alone for Tokyo and returned the visit to J. Kano.  G. Funakoshi was already installed in Tokyo for several years accompanied him.  J. Kano, member of a commission of the International Olympic Committee, had left the same year to assist the Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

K. Mabuni established himself in Osaka in 1929 with his family, he was 40 years old. He called his school Mabuni-ryu, and when Mabuni founded the Goju-ryu school in 1935, he joined him and called his school Goju-ryu. But their formations were different. C. Miyagi is the pure successor of K. Higaonna. K. Mabuni was the heritage of the last and also of A. Itosu. It is why in 1938, in his first book entitled “Karate-do Nyumon (the initation to karate-do)”, he named his school Shito-ryu, after the name of his two masters. In Japanese the name of Itosu was written with two ideograms ‘Ito’ and ‘su’, and that of higaonna with the three ideograms ‘Higa’, ‘on’ and ‘na’.  In Japanese the same ideogram couldbe pronounced in several manners: ‘Ito’ could be prounced ‘shi’, and ‘higa’ could be pronounced ‘to’.  Then the combination of the first ideograms of the name of his two masters formed the word “Shito”. Shito-ryu signifies then, “the school issued from the two masters, Itosu and Higaonna.”.

 K. Mabuni, before becoming a student of A. Itosu had been initiated into karate by Matayoshi, one of the servants of his family and had been taught by him the classical kata Naifanchi.  This kata differed from the kata Naifanchi of today that was reformed by A. Itosu.  Later Mabuni had shown to Itosu the kata Naifanchi, that he had studied from Matayoshi, he said to him: ‘It is the ancient Naifanchi. That which I have shown you is the kata which I have renovated (reformed).”

Matayoshi had learned this kata from a Chinese named Channan who lived in a hut at the side of the cemetery of Tomari.  But today this kata is not managed (taught?); in effect K. mabuni, became the student of A. Itosu and faithfully transmitted the  kata which had been renovated (reformed). This, from a historical point of view, is very damaging, for we don’t have a means to compare the ancient form to the renovated form.  Seen from today, the innovations of Itsou were not all positive, since he often replaced subtle and effective attack gestures with parry gestures more simply assimilated, or by symbolic gestures.  Today, these passages present some ambiguities and some difficulties in application.  Morever, in spite of their recent origin,  differences in form exist between contemporary schools in their manner of executing these kata. Indeed the application of a technique of combat is concrete and precise, same as when one opens multiple possibilities, but the ambiguity installs itself if the reference is the more symbolic techniques.  In his karate, A. Itosu had intentionally wanted to avoid attaching too much importance to combat efficiency because he wished to create a discipline for physical education. Being that he managed at a very high level of efficiency, his state of spirit undoubtedly towards the end of his life detached from research where effectiveness largely dominated and was directed towards more educational preoccupations.  It is a trajectory that I have constantly found in the study of the life of Budo masters who have arrived at advanced age.  On the contrary, Higaonna and Miyagi had founded their schools  when they were very young and at a very precocious phase of their trajectory. It is there the essential difference between the realized innovations of A. Itosu and of theirs, for they wished to institute a combat art and thought the educative value was included in the formation of combat and in the research of its efficiency.

 The art of combat isn’t sometimes transmitted more faithfully when the transmission corresponds to the period of maturity of the master rather that it overtook the master of his art.  The counterpart could be the brutality of methods from apprenticeship that he passed to the generation that follows to polish.

In 1939, K. Mabuni  registered his school at the Butokukai under the name of Shito-ryu, and presented himself to the examination of Master in budo.  He obtained the title of Renshi, master of third category in budo. A the same session, G. Funakoshi obtained the same title.

2 – The kata of Shito-ryu

The Shito-ryu school is today thath which counts the highest number of kata.   To the dozen kata of Goju-ryu, there are 37 additional kata.:

The kata of the Shoto-ryu school are classified in the following manner:

  1. The kata coming from the teachings of Kanryu Higaonna and Chojun Miyagi (Naha-te). There are12: Sanchin, the two Gekisai, Saifa, Seenchin, Shisochin, Sesan, Sepai, Sanseru, Kururunfa, Suparinpei, Tensho.
  2. The kata coming from the teaching of Anko Itosu (Shuri-te). There are 23: Naifanchi : shodan, nidan, sandan
Pinan: shodan, nidan, sandan, yodan and godan
Jitte, Jion, Jiin, Rohai: 1,2 and 3, Kosokun-dai, Kosokun-sho, Shiho-Kosokun, Passai-dai, Passai-sho, Chinto, Chintei, Wanshu, Gojushiho.
  1. Several other  kata, there are 10:
Niseshi, Unshu, Sochin, Wankan, Matsumora-Rohai, Matsumura-Passai, Ishimine-passai, Tomari-Passai, Nipaipo, Shinpa.
  1. The four kata composed by Kenwa Mabuni:  Aoyagi, Juroku, Myojo, Matsukaze

In this way Kenwa Mabuni transmitted 49 kata total in the school Shito-ryu.  No other school taught such a large number of kata.  Certain masters of the contemporary Shito-ryu school count more than 60 kata in the register of their practice, for some other kata were introduced more than which Kenwa Mabuni had transmitted. This number is surprising, if one gets closer to the method of Kanbun Uechi, who, in nearly the same time period, founded the school Uechi-ryu with only three kata: Sanchin, Sesan and Sanseryu.

No other school teaches such a great number of kata: it is the register of technical knowledge constituted by the personal research of Kenwa Mabuni.  His work is much more remarkable in that he received these kata from different origins in a period where the dominate attitude of adepts was to appreciate only their own kata.  In this period of Okinawa, most adepts considered the knowledge of the number of kata wasn’t as important or comparable with the research in the profundity of the kata.  Certain masters openly scorned ostensibly those who desired to know in a limited time several kata.  It was necessary, for K. Mabuni, not only the advantage that conferred to him his situation of a local police officer, but especially with a passion for his research.

During the years 1930, the karate schools were not also compartmentalized as today and several masters, for example G. Funakoshi, H. otsuka, Y. Konishi, had consulted K. Mabuni to have some details on the kata that they were next to teach.

Today if we compare the Pinan kata or the Heian from four schools: Shotokan, Shorin-ryu, Shito-ryu and Wado-ryu, the kata of the last three are closer between them than are those of the first.  However, h. Otsuka, founder of Wado-ryu, was the student of G. Funakoshi, but he revised the kata that he had taken from his master after those of K. Mabuni.  G. Funakoshi, equally made certain revisions with K. Mabuni, for both of them were students of A. Itosu.  There are the schools of Shorin-ryu which have continued to teachings of the master with the greatest fidelity. The same source of knowledge had then been personalized by the experience and the qualities of each master to constitue the register of kata of the different schools. If the kata of the Shotokan school are particular, it is principally because the transformation effected within Shotokan from the 1940’s.

3 – The characterstics of the practice of Shito-ryu

The multiplicity of kata.

There are more than 40 to 50 kata in the contemporary Shito-ryu school:  certain ones tell of more than 60. Is this an advantage or disadvantage?

Is it certainly an advantage because of the possibility of making a comparison of form and of the significance that has to the interior of the gesturers of karate kata which constitutes a particular grammar of body signs.  For a work of research, it is useful and at the same time indispensable to have a sufficient symbolic repertoire of sequences to decode, to for a comparison,  the hidden sense of the kata.  This repertoire facilitates then the critical examination of kata that one practices, and reflection on the mode of transmission of the kata.

However, an elevated number of kata doesn’t signify obligatory superiority for the practice of the art.  A whole of 12 kata, like in the Goju-ryu school, is largely sufficient to perpetuate a school.  Mastery of 12 kata and their profoundness is very difficult and few reach that point. In all the schools of karate, each adept concentrates in general, following a cycle which can go from a few months to several years, their efforts on a certain kata that they can choose to go into particularly deeper study.  Until the beginning of the century (1900) few masters knew more than 3 or 4 kata, each kata giving them profound work and new ideas. Today, how can an ordinary adept could know ten times the kata and, in the same time, research their quality.  It is undeniable that there exists a risk of losing onself in the quantity and of stopping at a superficial level.

Well that K. Mabuni, had joined a moment the Goju-ryu school founded by his colleague Miyagi,  when we observe today the manner of practice, the difference is very clear between the two schools, Goju-ryu and Shito-ryu.  An qualified expert in karate could not miss noticing the differences in execution of a kata in their common repertoire.  In my opinion, the gestures of Shito-ryu are more elegant, more flowing, but it misses something essential compared to Goju-ryu; it’s like a cheese not refined of aspect, perhaps more proper, but also missing the creamy part. [translator note: perhaps the cheese reference is essential to the French audience?]  At the time of the exercise of a kata, the followers of the Goju-ryu school, seek to acquire a viscosity or elasticity with each technical movement.  They call it “muchimi” the subtlety of the delicate movements, which is the source of technique efficiency.  Becoming capable in expressing the “mumichi” in each gesture is the principle objective of the training for the adepts of the Goju-ryu school. The training made in this goal isn’t compatible for those with the practice of a large number of kata. The fundamental difference between the kata of these two schools consists in the practical notion of “mumichi”.

These particularities of Shito-ryu could be explained by the difficulty of integrating two tendancies also divergent as those of Hiagonna and those of Itosu. A first reason brings up the thought that in amalgamating the best of the two masters, the mest of their period, it is possible to come up with a larger mastery. This would be true if the difference between the two masters consisted in the repertory of techniques,  but it relates to the conception of the body.  And, the same if on understands the two conceptions of the body, it isn’t easy to make cohabitation in a same body the two manners of feeling and of acting.  It is also difficult, for a person, to have spontaneously two different manners.

Therefore, in Shito-ryu, it is the method issued from Itosu which predominates. The two heritages are present, but the kata common with Goju-ryu are executed in the manner following Itosu; therefore, the quality of Naha-te  is not real as such (would be?).  it’s what often occurs when one tests from mixing karate with the Chinese art of combat, while proceeding by juxtaposition. By example, when when the karate-ka practices Taiji Quan (Tai Chi Chaun) there is a risk there of being simply the movements of slowed down karate.  And when the follower of Taiji Quan practices karate, it is often difficult to realize the sensation of kime.   The complimentary cannot be effective and succeed to an enrichment at this level that if one gives rise to the movements and then a direction (sense?), it is said the conception of the body, and there is a convergence at this level.  The art of combat could not be developed to leave a mosaic of movements, the human body, alive, expressing its resistnace.  Thus, the Shito-ryu school is found its unity in the predominance of the association with Itosu. Significance is made that one of the disciples
of Mabuni, R. Sakagami has named his school Itosu-ryu,  which still it practices the total ensemble of the Shito-ryu heritage including the dozen kata of Goju-ryu.

The Technique


The technique of the Shito-ryu school is marked by its subtlety.  Compartive to the others, it could miss sometimes, the expression of power, but it compensates for it with speed and subtle techniques. The adepts of this excellent school are often in the techniques that call on the mobility of the base, the displacement of the body, and the techniques of deviation of the attacks.  At the time of university meetings, the currents of Shito-ryu and Wado-ryu  often  obtain the best results. The habitual technique of Shito-ryu is often qualified as superificial by the adepts of Shotokan who cherish the efficiency by the lower positions.

4 – The importance of K. Mabuni to modern karate

One of the most important contributions of k. Mabuni would be the enlargement of karate.  He knew to gather together the knowledge and techniques scattered and guarded more or less secret of his age.  He had an attitude very open on the future.  Thus, he had with his students studied the utility, for combat and training, the protection of kendo (Japanese Sword) and that of sports coming from Europe, then that G. Funakoshi was himself acutely opposed to his students during the same period they had studied the utility of protections (body armor?) for combat.

The writings of K. Mabuni on karate are very precise than those of his contemporaries and he assembled and transmitted the most elaborate knowledge on karate of this period. In these works, the relative technical parts  had an elaboration of methods of combat while approaching the subtle aspects of them.

            Forgetting All,
            I row,
            Towards the islet of the martial arts,
            It’s that which is my ultimate joy.

He died the 23rd of May 1952, at the age of 63 years. His eldest son , Kenei Mabuni, was who succeeded him to the direction of the principle school of Shito-ryu.  This was written in his work : “Le Karate-do, Shito-ryu”:

Being his eldest son, it is me, Kenei Mabuni, who succeeded him in the direction of the central school of Shito-ryu….
 Born the 13th of February 1918 at Shuri in Okinawa the eldest son of  Kenwa Mabuni, I have learnt during my infancy the different sorts of karate.  A large number of karate-ka frequented the hoiuse and I learned karate naturally.  It was my father who taught me karate and jujutsu and it  was master Konishi who taught me kendo.  I was able to hear from master Seiko Fujiata that of ninjutsu and I had also studied the other classic martial arts.  I was actually the advisor of the Federation of Karate-do in Japan and am in the commission of the Federation of the town of Osaka. I have taught in different dojo of university karate-do and between others at “Yoshu-kan dojo”.  In 1962, responding to an invitation, I went to teach in Mexico and since I have taught in Central and Latin America, in different countries in Asia and in Europe.”

In the course of his life, Kenei Mabuni could augment the register of kata that he had received from his father in meeting the following karate masters:
            Chojun Miyagi (1888-19530, the founder of Goju-ryu
            Ginchin Funakoshi (196801957), Shotokan
            Choki Motobu (1870-1942), Motobu-ryu
            Kanbun Uechi 91877-1948), Uechi-ryu
            Seiko Fujita 9born in 1899(, Konga-ryu Ninjutsu, 14th secessor
            Hironori Otsuka (1892-1982), Wado-ryu
            Yasuhiro Konishi 91893019830, Shinto-Jinen-ryu

Like the Goju-ryu school, the Shito-ryu school is developing principally in the region of Kansai, in south-west Japan.





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