We are so fortunate to have footage preserved by the Ryukyu Kobudo Hozon Shinkokai showing Taira Shinken performing the kata Hama Higa No Tonfa.
There is no doubt some version of this was the form originally taught.
But the footage we have of Shimabuku Tatsuo from 1966 shows an abbreviated version of this form.
This makes for debate, doesn’t it?
Did he forget the form?
Was he simply tired from travel to the States in 1966?
Was this a form that he was modifying?
I don't have simple answers to these questions. You are free to believe what you wish.
Today practitioners use versions of the original and /or the film version in practice. It keeps most of the original elements. In Bushi No Te Isshinryu we use the film version. Mr. Lewis didn’t study it on Okinawa in his time there and later it wasn’t part of Mr. Murray’s studies in Agena. We use the name for the form Chia Fa as the film indicates to not confuse it with the other versions.
2 comments:
Andy Sloane Sensei, "Chiefa" is a misspelling of the mis-translation of "tsuifa". Even still, the word wouldn't be separated as "Chie Fa" even if it wasn't a misspelling.
Minobu Miki was Tatsuo Sensei's translator during his 1966 visit to Sensei Steve Armstrong's dojo. It was Miki-san who wrote the Japanese (and perhaps the English as well) on the name placards for the kata on the film. Miki-san wrote "tsuifa" (ツィファー) in katakana, but Tatsuo Sensei was known to call the weapon "tuifa" (トゥイファー), which is the main Okinawan-language pronunciation of the weapon. Had Tatsuo Sensei been the one to write the name placards, he wouldn't have written the katakana incorrectly. Obviously, Tatsuo did not write the English words.
Part of the problem with this kata for many in Isshin-ryu is that most don't seem to realize that Tatsuo Sensei made his own shortened version of the longer Hamahiga nu Tuifa that he'd learned from Taira Sensei. Since there was only the one kata for the weapon, he simply called the kata "tuifa" as well. When he would tell the students to do "tuifa", they knew what he meant. (It was the same thing as when there was originally only one bo kata and only one sai kata in Isshin-ryu prior to 1958-59. Tatsuo merely called those kata "boo" and "saya" and the students knew to perform Tokumine nu Kun or Chan nu Sai without him having to say their formal names.)
Andy continues -
On the 1966 film, Tatsuo Sensei was not attempting to perform the longer version that Taira Sensei had taught him, he was attempting to do the version that he'd created from Taira's version. He was just out of practice with the kata and, unfortunately, did make a few errors. However, you can clearly see him work through those errors and do the moves that he was satisfied with and then nod and give a "thumbs up" at the end of it as if to say, "Yeah, that's right -- that's how it goes." (A large part of this confusion could have been avoided had Sensei Armstrong asked Tatsuo Sensei to do the kata over again until there were no errors in it.)
Nevertheless, when compared to the Taira version, you can see that Tatsuo Sensei's version has all the signature movements (some of which he reversed the order of the sequences on) of the original and that Tatsuo Sensei merely cut out what he deemed to be superfluous movement.
Some claim to do the Hamahiga nu Tuifa that Tatsuo Sensei taught, and some genuinely think they are doing the version that Tatsuo Sensei taught. Yet, in reality, they are actually doing the version that Taira Sensei left in his Ryukyu Kobudo syllabus whether they realize it or not. I believe those who do this are doing Isshin-ryu a disservice as the two kata are not the same as one another. It would make absolutely ZERO sense for Tatsuo Sensei to have made changes to all the other kata that he included in Isshin-ryu but for him to have left Hamahiga just as he had learned it from Taira Sensei. No, the overwhelming evidence indicates that he tweaked everything that he wanted to include in his own style to his satisfaction, which makes Isshin-ryu a truly unique system.
It is interesting that Sensei Lewis and Sensei Armstrong (and others who were here with them) did not learn the tuifa kata while here on Okinawa 1959-60, but that Sensei Ed Johnson and Mr. Bill Blond both did. They all trained here at the same time, though Sensei Lewis and Sensei Armstrong were a few months senior to them.
Sensei Lewis and Sensei Armstrong both left Okinawa in October 1960, and Sensei Johnson left Okinawa in February 1961.
Mr. Blond got out of the Marine Corps in September 1959 and stayed here as a civilian government employee until July 1967. He knew this tuifa kata as well, but, as it was not his favorite weapon to perform, he let it fall by the wayside. When I asked him about it, he said that he would have learned the same kata that Ed Johnson did. Mr. Blond started training with Tatsuo Sensei 9 days before Sensei Johnson did in December 1959 and they trained together daily.
Likewise, Uezu Sensei also seems to have learned the kata as well, but by the time he started learning it, in about 1964 or so, Tatsuo Sensei could have made further modifications to it. However, films of Uezu Sensei performing the kata are very similar to the kata Sensei Johnson was required to learn prior to making 1st Dan in 1960.
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