A defense from the Bubishi

 

The writing on the illustration says:

青龍出抓手勝 qinglong chu zhuashou sheng

Blue Dragon sends out his claws (lit. grabbing hand) and wins

丹鳳朝陽手敗 danfeng zhaoyangshou bai
Cinnabar (=red) Phoenix [uses the] Sun-Facing Hand (=an upwards going attack) and loses

This martial manual, Bubishi, was created by Ryukyuans who trained in Fuzhou City, Fujian, in the late 19th century. “Blue Dragon sends out his claws” and “Cinnabar Phoenix [uses the] Sun-Facing Hand” are names of techniques.

In 1936 though Miyagi Sendai did say: In the meantime, there is the only opinion we can trust. It is as follows: In 1828 (Qing or Ching dynasty in China), our ancestors inherited a kungfu style of Fujian province in China. They continued their studies and formed Goju-Ryu karate. Even today, there still exists an orthodox group which inherited genuine and authentic Goju-Ryu karate."

 

 

The picture introduced above reminded me of a similar “looking” photo from 1922. It shows G. Funakoshi (1868–1957) with a technique that he calls “Pressing the throat” (“nodo-osae” 咽抑). This is, of course, a Japanese appellation and certainly not “flowery”. In the description accompanying the photo he describes the attack with the simple Japanese verb “thrusting into” (“tsuki-komu” 突き込む). So, again he uses no “flowery” wording. I’m not trying to say that this photo or the technique described is directly related to your picture of the coloured “Bubishi”. It “looks” similar; however, the language used is different (“flowery” vs. “technically”). I marked the three main spots which are similar in both pictures, yet show some differences, too.

Henning Wittwer