12-17-2005
Joe,
Although I know you wrote your post tongue-in-cheek, I'm going to respond on a more serious note.
Since we, the American descendants of TS, never had the benefit of an assurance of full transmission of the style (for many reasons but foremost the lack of language, culture and cultural/contextual history in the generations of Americans who studied with him during his lifetime), I think it's hard to say whether TS invention of a kata was a good thing or a bad thing.
On the good thing side:
Let's give TS the benefit of the doubt and say that he was a great
master who had a thorough understanding of his arts. Then a kata like Sunsu might be seen as his definitive summation of his understanding of his art. The kata could then be treated and studied from this point of view: a completely broad and deep statement, encompassing the full conception of "isshin" in its Buddhist meaning of "universal".
On the bad thing side:
Let's imagine that TS was not a great master, not even a noteworthy one (as they go on Okinawa), maybe not even anything other than a jumped up black belt who decided to start his own style. (We've all known lots of men like that.) Sunsu might then be considered in a very different and considerably more negative light. One might say that TS had no global understanding of his art. He made up a kata out of some
of his favorite drills and kata parts much like a green or brown belt in any one of our schools might. Sunsu would be trivial.
The problem for us in the post-TS world is that we don't - I would suggest we cannot - know for sure. Based on the evidence of the early American students, we would have to settle for "the bad thing side". Most of them taught themselves or each other everything they knew other than the basic elements of the kata and some trivial applications. TS passed on to them no global system or comprehensive knowledge base.
But then when we consider the lack of equipment for study that the early American students brought to the table, we could cast doubt on "the bad thing side" based on the students' inability to receive the transmission even if it were being offered without reservation. In other words, there might have been great things there and they just didn't have what it took to receive them.
As the years have gone on and more practitioners have emerged who have language, cultural and contextual skills, a sort of neo-classical construction/deconstruction potential has appeared that allows later generations of Isshinryu to appreciate and understand things about Isshinryu that were irrevocably denied to first generation students. Thus the rise of the argument in favor of "the good thing side".
So the question related to "do what Tatsuo did, and take the bits & pieces of other kata" is an interesting but fundamentally unanswerable one. How one chooses to regard the issue determines whether one will consider Isshinryu trivial or deep.
Regards,
Jim Keenan
Dotokushin-kai
Isshinryu Karate
Hi Jim,
Joe certainly started an interesting question and your reply is
provoking too.
Starting with Joe's point, "Simply was SunNuSu just a cut and paste?"
Your analysis fits many questions I've been asking myself. Let me start with your point "I think it's hard to say whether TS invention of a kata was a good thing or a bad thing."
As far as I've seen the trend on Okinawa the past 100 or so years has not necessarily been much in the way of dynamic innovation concerning kata, rather that of theme variation.
I can only speak from a logical analysis which we first recognize is not proof of anything. But except for 'basic' type kata, nobody else seems to have done much in karate [omitting Taira S.'s kobudo creations) to create anything as new as Shimabuku Sensei did.
It's not we can't say a great deal about Shimabuku Tatsuo, rather we can't say much about anything substantive about Okinawa for the past 100 years either.
You have karate, which we have no clear understanding why it developed on Okinawa pre 1900. For sake of discussion I can only discuss what I can research and others can publicly address too. If there is reference to the big WHY, I haven't seen it.
So we know karate training shifted over to the 1% or so of the kids who attended secondary school around 1915. We know karate in some shape and form was exported to Japan in the 1920's and 1930's,
I've not seen any record of how many were actually training in the 20's or 30's on Okinawa, or how frequently they trained or any referennce how good they actually were.
What is the standard for true excellence on Okinawa? It wasn't who you knocked around. Was it just how well you moved? Is it simply living a long time? They have the longest lifespans in the world.
Shimabuku Zenpo once explained to me on Okinawa nobody would train with a ni-dan. They all wanted to train with the eldest instructors. Practical in one sense, they may know the most.
Was that the standard for being good, hanging around a long time? We know they didn't contest their skills in any comprehensive contesting manner. They didn't use rank or awards, or even promote people to instructorship.
Was excellence only from demonstrated movement? If the oral history is right they didn't spend much time exploring application of technique, but then oral history isn't necessarily true, its just for a non-literate art such as karate, you don't have much more to go on.
So with no real 'standard template', kata flux was the norm. Did that bother the Okinawans, apparently not enough to actually stop changing things. [So in that context, Shimabuku Sensei may have not been much different, or only a little more so, than all the rest. Much of his innovations can be found in the available reference of his instructors teachings too.]
Now there may well be other factors why there wasn't much true kata innovation on Okinawa. What was the impact on Okinawa of the Japanese preparing for war in the 1930's? Did that impact the available pool of karate-ka? How much did the world wide depression affect the available pool of karate-ka? We know Soken for one left for South America to work.
These factors may have allowed less time for training, family survival taking precedence. I haven't seen any reference to what actually was happening, nor to I believe Okinawa will provide such material in the future. I think their actual history is too personal for our access.
So what was the actual state of karate pre WWII?
Then the big War, destroyed many karate-ka and seniors. People didn't have time to train, just survive.
We know in the 1950's with so many of the seniors depleted many of the arts began adopting new traditions, rank, uniforms, organizations to draw together, etc. Everyone seems to have accepted new standards, or at least many changes to the 'way'. Except for people banding together to 'authorize' the right way, there seems to be no universal standard. Heck Taira Shinken created a kobudo research society and seemed to have recognized everyone who supported him, reference his referring to Shimabuku Sensei as a master in his kobudo text in the early 60's. Is he a credible reference to Shimabuku Sensei's worth? If not why not? Is his word better or worse than others?
So Shimabuku Sensei went his own way, is it more so than a variation of the standard theme? His largest fall from grace was training the Americans. From the outside it looks like his students just walked. was the fact he was changing the technique the reason? Even when he allowed both old and new, people kept leaving?
Of course the obvious reason was smell, well documented you smell what you eat. The Americans didn't eat Okinawan, so they smelled different. That must be why they left [sure I'm zinging the story, but the smell issue is also real even if nobody has raised in in connection with Okinawa, the Japanese used to have great difficulty dealing with Westerners because of the smell from dietary difference too. and speculating why leave any stone unturned.]
Now if Shimabuku really did a cut and paste just to be the new red belt on the block, obviously he was a failure. The Okinwans he trained didn't stay around. It's also obvious he didn't do it to impress the Americans, anything he did would have been enough after all. As you've suggested they had no context say anything was bad or good.
Logic would suggest to me he did it to please himself. A rational
reason to do anything.
Personally I don't think SunNuSu is a simple cut and paste. It does incorporate Patsai and Gojushiho with other Isshinryu kata themes, but the ending includes technique I haven't seen elsewhere in Okinawan training. Sure looks like original thinking to me.
Technically I come down on the side if you can drop somebody with it, its fine. The possible sources for the 'cut and paste' are
interesting, but the effort is more suggestive, again IMVHO, of
personal focus.
And for whether Isshinryu is shallow or deep, well it depends on one's prejudices after all. Isshinryu is simply movement. You can find depth in a single expression of movement. Some will stop there. you can find depth in one set of patterns, or a different set of patterns.
It's more what one makes of it by one's own efforts that defines the depth of the study.
Really, we each decide these things personally. What I consider good trainning, you may consider a waste of time, and of course the reverse.
I consider thinking about the underlying context most important.
Victor
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