Toudi Kempo

As Joe Swift had described his translation effort to me a while ago, in 'Toudi Kempo" he just referred to it as Seishan, which is the English spelling used in Funakoshi's 'Karate Jutsu'.

While John Sells described Itosu's Seisan as Oshiro Seisan I'm unaware of any other source using that name.

It's both interesting and quite sad so much was written in the early 20's and 30's and so little of it is available in English. I think those works will eventually have a huge impact oin our understanding of the sources.

I have a copy of 'Toudi Kempo', having paid a pretty penny for it, but only to look at the pictures. Of course they're good pictures.

victor

Yes I remember the drawings and some partial translation appeared on different websites.

He was showing inside blocks were move against grabs etc and also arm locks if I remember correctly. He saw with avid clarity what many of us think the moves are for today. Shotokan in its early days did not really teach kata explanation other than what Funakoshi wrote about. Egami said point blank that they did not what the kata moves were for in the early days. My old teacher Tanaka who trained in Shotokan in the mid 1930s told me the same thing back in `69.

Gigo experimented with a small group on Saturday afternoons which Tanaka was a junior member and he did work with the kata explanations. Tanaka said "He did not know either and that is where we all met to find out" .

Tanakai was also in a group that studied under Mabuni but he told me that group was not always directly under Mabuni and he would have a senior student go over things as well. I am going on memory here so things might be a but hazy but he did say that Mabuni and his student never taught kata explanation to the shotokan guys when he was there.

Pat Zalewski


Found on my blog

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2015/10/reflections-on-mutsu-mizuhos-toudi-kenpo.html

http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2011/07/there-is-no-first-strike-in-karate.html