The Way of Karate Beyond Technique - Shigeru Engami

Japan and Karate are not often popular with Okinawan stylists. Today many decry the different ways those arts differed.

 

But there is a remarkable work by one of Funakoshi’s original Japanese students, that asked many of the same questions we still ask today. And he acted on those questions, making choices based on what he found on Okinawa. While we might agree or disagree with his choices, or those of each other, we can still recognize the quest that drove him. For that reason alone he is well worth the time to study what he wrote.

 

In my beginning years there was little writing about Isshinryu or karate itself available in the book stores. There were magazines like Black Belt and others. But there was little of depth.

 

I knew there were differences between different systems but did not understand what those differences were. When I began my study I had a brother in the Jhoon  Ree system of  TKD, a brother studying a Chinese system in NH and a younger brother and sister in Shotokan in York Pa.

 

We did not live near each other and did not discuss our training.  Of all of them I was the only one who kept training.

 

When I began my training my father presented me his copy of Nakayama’s “Dynamic Karate”,  a superior book in its own right but as I was studying  Isshinryu it did show something of Shotokan it also didn’t mean a great deal to me.

 

Our study of Isshinryu was not from books (which came later) but that of sweat equity on the dojo floor. Several years later my wife bought me Funakoshi’s “Karate Do Koyan” for Christmas. Again a great book I would appreciate more as the decades passed.

 

 

But in 1976 I purchased a new book, my first, Engami Shigeru’s “The Way of Karate Beyond Technique.” As I read it I recognized it was something different. Did not exactly know what the difference was, but as the years passed it said more and more to me.

 

Now at the time the book was written in Japan, he was in his 40 year in karat (coincidently I am there myself as I write this).

 

The karate he studied was different from what the JKA had become, for many reasons.  Karate had changed (as it probably always did, even on Okinawa). For one thing the Karate-do that concerned Funakoshi did not seem to resonate within the younger man. He began to understand why some changes were made.

 

For one thing the original version of Knuckle Toe Kicks (one of many Okinawan variations on toe kicking) was discontinued because of the pain from training. He too (as many still do) traveled to Okinawa to understand what was being done there for his own reasons. Then he acted on those answers he experienced and changed the way he did karate. He also followed his own logic making other changes. Trying holding to the original traditions he studied from Funakoshi.

 

To seriously understand the difference from what Funakoshi originally taught, seeing his own observations of Okinawa, and then seeing what that knowledge did to his karate, and the reason for those choices, I recommend this book.

 

It was later reissued as “The Heart of Karate” perhaps slightly different but still the same book.

 

 

 

Shigeru Egami was a pioneering Japanese master of Shotokan karate who founded the Shōtōkai style. He was a student of Gichin Funakoshi, who is widely recognized as the founder of modern karate.

o   

Wikipedia

o    Born: Dec 07, 1912 · Omuta, Japan

o    Died: Jan 08, 1981 · Tokyo, Japan

o    Education: Waseda University

o    Written works: The Heart of Karate-Do · The way of karate

Timeline

1912: Egami was born on December 7, 1912, in Ōmuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan.

1949: On May 27, 1949, he helped establish the Japan Karate Association under Funakoshi.

1957: Following Funakoshi's death in 1957, Egami began trying to change karate's poor reputation as a 'deadly martial art,' something Funakoshi had tried to do all his life.

1981: Egami died at 7:00 PM on January 8, 1981, in Tokyo.

 

Skill

 

I don’t see any difference between older and newer kata. When you analyze any movement for it’s potential it is always large,

 

Back in 1990 I was working 50 applications for the opening movements for Isshinryu’s Seisan kata, and documented them. A few years later I was past 75 applications. Today I see quite a few more.

 

If it is a different version there are still applications, Perhaps some of the same answer  I saw, perhaps new ones.

 

The mission, whatever version you use, is still how to insert the technique into an attack and make it work.

 

It is interesting historically what the versions original intentions were, but not the end all of training.

 

All movement can be applied. The goal is to understand how to apply the move to an infinite number of attacks, and make them work.

 

Of course the entire range of subsidiary training,such as hojo undo, makiwara, kobudo training for decades as a force multiplier all must be considered as part of the form, You can’t break training into pieces without losing pieces of the puzzle. Also this is what make this such a long study.

 

Time is the key, there is no shortcut in skill development. The ultimate force enhancement, time in training.

 

This knowledge can keep increasing while in time you grow weaker. Knowledge to maintain increasing ability while time ages you.

Shimabukuro Zenpo and George Donahue

 

 

 

Shimabukuru Zempo

 

Not having been to Okinawa myself I tend to listen to those with that experience.

 

Once during a discussion with George Donahue (a Kishaba Juku Shorin Ryu) stylist who was raised in Japan, was a youth Japanese TV star, and did train on Okinawa, he remarked about a point Shimabuku Zempo made to me in 1974.  At that time he was the Martial Arts editor for Tuttle Publicans, then the best publishing house of Martial Literature IMO.

 

A host in Central Pennsylvania was having a clinic with Shimabuku Zempo in 1984, I had never seen that type of Shorin Ryu in my area and was interested. It proved to be subtly different from what I knew. At the party afterwards I had the chance to talk to him. He had lived in the US prior to that time, for a while, and knew Isshinryu karate-ka there. He was quite personal, telling me the best American practices on Okinawa were the beer and the chesese. LOL

 

Then he made a statement to me.”“That on Okinawa there were maybe a hundred Shorin dojo, maybe 30 Goju dojo and 3 Isshin dojo”. I believe he was making a gentle point about Isshinryu.

 

I was explaining this to George when George inserted then “and if you got to those hundred  Shorin dojo, you will find each of them are doing a different version of Shorin karate:

 

I found that an interesting observation.

 

George Donhue

 



Ice on Not

Ice Breaking is often seen as a side show for martial exhibitions.

 Now an ice break can be real, or the ice can be prepared cutting the planks salting them and letting them refreeze so that none can see the difference. You are left on faith how real it can be.

This was before my time. I heard it from a friend who was a Pai student and used to stack the ice for those demos’

In the 70’s  Daniel Pai was teaching first goju and later a family style of Chinese art, in the Conn., Pa, W.Va raea. One of the first to openly teach the Chinese arts. The way I heard it he was the first giving demos with Ice Breaks, and there were karate-ka who derided those demonstrations. When he moved away from those demo’s he did one final break.

He took a woman from the crowd, placed her on a chair. Had her hold her palm over the ice. Then he lectured those in attendance on Ice Breaks. Some of them were his main detractors. Finally he finished and went to leave the stage, then realizing he wasn’t done, turned and faced the woman, tapped her on the head, causing her hand to fall, and the ice broke.

 Believe is or not, one of the more original stories I ever heard.

 Later George Dillman picked up the stunt and started breaking ice.

But as this photo shows he used his elbow for the break.

 

Some of my seniors in Isshinryu under Lewis Sensei

Howard Jackson vs. Charles Murray 1974

 

 

Bob Nenow and Charles fighting in 1978 at Dillman's tournament at the time I was his student.

 

 

 

 

Judy and Reese Rigby in former days

 

Karate - A Purpose

Karate was never created for sport fighting.   Only rarely did adepts challenge each other, never enough for a clear record of which instruction made a difference. Karate was a means to retain a group cohesion within am Okinawan Samurai society, an upper class. One you had to be recommended for then work to obtain permission to train within.

 

Your training depended on your instructors whim. Which does not mean it was not whimsical,  just it was dependant on what the instructor chose. It was not standardized and could change as the instructor wished for whatever reason he felt was needed.

 

When it was introduced as a school activity it went further changes. Those training in the group may of may not have followed the public curriculum.  Then more changes. Karate-ka began sharing training openly (it certainly happen before, but in more private settings, consistent with earlier karate tradition. The public curriculums began to enter the group practice.

 

The War happened. Many seniors were lost. After the was the surviving karate-ka took their training and forged newer traditions, and karate kept changing. Then the disporia occurred and the world took over with different traditions. Each claiming they were the older tradition.

 

Karate changes made many assumptions. For one thing explanations for movements became a new tradition. ‘Bunkai’ became formalized. Not enough trained long enough. What were simple answers for beginners, became the standard. Not enough time was spent understand how individuals learned.

 

Kata is after all just a template. The possible interpretations are incalculable.  Buy when they became a fixed practice, the mind started to accept that was the answer. Most stopped at that point having an answer for the movement. This was a very different potential.

 

People forgot the purpose of kata study was acquiring skill, without developing those skills in movement you could not make those bunkai work. Then perfectly reasonable answers looked as they would not work.  In turn individuals choose to look at different answers that would work,  and not often enough would the root execution be seen as the answer.

 

Of course there were different answers, many times good ones.

 

However, the fact that it takes on the average 10 years of practice to gain adequate execution of one kata movement (and only adequate at that), and another 10 years on each subsequent kata does one recognize the true picture. The reason isn’t magic, rather after a decade or so the performer relaxes during execution. Then the muscles being relaxed cause one’s center to drop and the power during execution to increase. Power.

 

Along with subsidiary training , also in decades, adding power and skill.

 

Only at that time does the study of applications become critical. Where each move can be used in many different ways. Incorporating various mechanical force enhancers. Does Kara the infinite become understandable. It is a truly vast body of knowledge, but one with a specific purpose. To increase understanding to understand the underlying principals.

 

Which cannot be read, but must be experienced. Over and over. Whether the number of kata be few or be many matters not. The unending practice and study is the matter. Not to understand every movement in each kata, that is but a surface study. Rather to understand how to make any movement work no matter the attack it faces.

 

This science of entering any attack and selling whichever movement you choose and make it work. This is what the goal is. This understanding is not prone to shortcut study. You need to prepare the body and mind through your training to be controlled through your intent or spirit.

 

Many means exist for vastly shorter training for the sport of karate or other endeavors. They are what they are, hardly karate.

 

Karate was originally a way to set a class apart from others. A binding force to improve life, not to fight, but to live.

 

Karate correctly done, still is.

Karate for Kids by Tom Lewis