The Shito-ryu school was founded by Kenwa Mabuni, friend of
Chojun Miyagi.
1 – Kenwa Mabuni
(1889 – 1952), founder of Shito-ryu
Kenwa Mabuna was born the 14th of November 1889
in Shuri to an ancient family of officers of the king of Ryukyu. Following a change of regime, his father had
taken the profession of a pastry cook. Infant, Kenwa Mabuni, was of very
fragile health and sought the means to become stronger. He was initiated to karage at the approximate
age of 10 years by a servant of his house, Matayoshi.
The celebrated master Anko Itosu also lived in Shuri. At 13
years, Kenwa Mabuni, was introduced by one of his friends, and became his
student; he remained faithful to him for the rest of his life. According to the
custom of the time, he ahd to obtain, to be admitted, the recommendation of a
trustworthy person who would vouch for him.
He persevered in his training under the direction of A. Itosu, without
ever missing a single day, not even a day of typhoon, according to his son
Kenei Mabuni.
In 1902 he entered the Okinawa high school where karate was
not a subject of study. IN 1905,
following from a strike at the high schools, in which he took an
important part, he had to change from his school and entered a maritime school.
He then terminated his studies after 3 years, at the age of 19.
He began to work as a free lance teacher at the primary
school in Naha. I was in this period that he struck up a friendship with Chojun
Miyagi, who then presented him to his own master k. Higaonna. The
recommendation of Miyagi provided him with the precious opportunity to learn
Naha-te directly. But, at the end of two years (of training), he had to leave
for military service. On is return, in 1912, on the counsel of Miyagi, he
entered the Okinawan school of police. In 1914, he became an inspector of
police, he was 25 years old and remained in the police during ten years.
His function with the police facilitated his travels in the island of Okinawa, and his encounters
with masters of the art of combat. He
thus collected many kata of karate. He studied. He studied, morever, classic
arts of the island called Ryu-kyu kobujutsu. Thus he learned Bo-jutsu (the art
of the stick) from Master Aragaki and from Master Soeishi and the sai-jutsu (the art of the
sai) from Master Tawada. Learning these
arts in this epoch (time period) was difficult where esotericism (?) was the
rule. Remark here rather than later,
when K. Mabuni founded his Shito-ryu school the richness of this register will
become at times an advantage and a burden for those who practice this school.
The two masters A. Itosu and K. Higaonna died the same year,
in 1915: Kenwa Mabuni was then twenty six years. He was very young to continue (alone?) in the
way of Karate. He consulted Miyagi who
was only a year older than him and they decided to constitute (ensemble) a
group for the research and practice of
karate. This group grew and in 1918 the
majority of known karate experts formed part of it. We found there, after C.
Miyagi and K. Mabuni, the principal figures of the history of modern karate; K.
Yabu, C. Hanashiro, C. Chibana, A. Tokuda, S. Gusukuma, C. Oshiro, S. Tokumura,
S. Ishikawa and G. Funakoshi.
But this group didn’t have the use of a dojo and the members
did not go very far in practical collaboration.
It is only in 1924 that K. Mabuni constructed a dojo in his garden. The
new group whoch worked with him was directed by the masters; C. Miyagi, J.
Kyoda, C. Motobu, C. Hanshiro, C. Oshiro, C. Chinaba and K. Go (Chinese).
Kenei Mabuni, son of Kenwa Mabuni rembers this from this
period:
“Before the construction of the dojo, my father trained
with his students in the garden, at night, under the light of an electric
lightbulb. The most of the students were
with nude torso’s, I had rarely seen students dressed in judo or kendo kimonos…
During my infancy, my home was always frequented by some karate-kas, and I had
grown up watching their training.
Sometimes the visitors gave me some cakes when I showed them the katas
that I had learnt… In October 1924 my father had constructed a dojo which he
had returned since a long time. He installed all sorts of instruments destined
to reinforce the body for karate. It was an ideal dojo.”
When in 1926, jigoro kano, a very grand figure of Japanese
budo of the period, visited Okinawa and demanded from the prefect a
presentation of karate, it was this group that took the initiative of the
demonstrations. The explication of Shuri-te was made by Mabuni, that of Nata-te
by Miyagi. The Okinawan karate-ka of
this period saw them of equal importance, vital for the ulterior development of
karate.
At the issue of this presentation, J. Kano said to K. Mabuni
and to C. Miyagi:
“I think that the from the point of view of physical and
moral education the Okinawan art of combat must be developed to a large scale
in the future. When it (karate) has made a certain degree of diffusion on
Hondo (principle island of Japan) it would naturally have a chance to be
integrated into the Butokukai. I would
like you to hold in account this question and that you consider your art from
the global point of view of Japan.”
K. Mabuni, before
becoming a student of A. Itosu had been initiated into karate by Matayoshi, one
of the servants of his family and had been taught by him the classical kata
Naifanchi. This kata differed from the
kata Naifanchi of today that was reformed by A. Itosu. Later Mabuni had shown to Itosu the kata
Naifanchi, that he had studied from Matayoshi, he said to him: ‘It is the
ancient Naifanchi. That which I have shown you is the kata which I have
renovated (reformed).”
Matayoshi had learned this kata from a Chinese named Channan
who lived in a hut at the side of the cemetery of Tomari. But today this kata is not managed (taught?);
in effect K. mabuni, became the student of A. Itosu and faithfully transmitted
the kata which had been renovated
(reformed). This, from a historical point of view, is very damaging, for we
don’t have a means to compare the ancient form to the renovated form. Seen from today, the innovations of Itsou
were not all positive, since he often replaced subtle and effective attack
gestures with parry gestures more simply assimilated, or by symbolic
gestures. Today, these passages present
some ambiguities and some difficulties in application. Morever, in spite of their recent origin, differences in form exist between
contemporary schools in their manner of executing these kata. Indeed the application
of a technique of combat is concrete and precise, same as when one opens
multiple possibilities, but the ambiguity installs itself if the reference is
the more symbolic techniques. In his
karate, A. Itosu had intentionally wanted to avoid attaching too much
importance to combat efficiency because he wished to create a discipline for
physical education. Being that he managed at a very high level of efficiency,
his state of spirit undoubtedly towards the end of his life detached from
research where effectiveness largely dominated and was directed towards more
educational preoccupations. It is a
trajectory that I have constantly found in the study of the life of Budo
masters who have arrived at advanced age.
On the contrary, Higaonna and Miyagi had founded their schools when they were very young and at a very
precocious phase of their trajectory. It is there the essential difference
between the realized innovations of A. Itosu and of theirs, for they wished to
institute a combat art and thought the educative value was included in the
formation of combat and in the research of its efficiency.
The art of combat
isn’t sometimes transmitted more faithfully when the transmission corresponds
to the period of maturity of the master rather that it overtook the master of
his art. The counterpart could be the
brutality of methods from apprenticeship that he passed to the generation that
follows to polish.
In 1939, K. Mabuni
registered his school at the Butokukai under the name of Shito-ryu, and
presented himself to the examination of Master in budo. He obtained the title of Renshi, master of
third category in budo. A the same session, G. Funakoshi obtained the same
title.
2 – The kata of Shito-ryu
The Shito-ryu school is today thath which counts the highest
number of kata. To the dozen kata of
Goju-ryu, there are 37 additional kata.:
The kata of the Shoto-ryu school are classified in the
following manner:
- The kata coming from the teachings of Kanryu Higaonna and Chojun Miyagi (Naha-te). There are12: Sanchin, the two Gekisai, Saifa, Seenchin, Shisochin, Sesan, Sepai, Sanseru, Kururunfa, Suparinpei, Tensho.
- The kata coming from the teaching of Anko Itosu (Shuri-te). There are 23: Naifanchi : shodan, nidan, sandan
Pinan: shodan,
nidan, sandan, yodan and godan
Jitte, Jion, Jiin, Rohai: 1,2 and
3, Kosokun-dai, Kosokun-sho, Shiho-Kosokun, Passai-dai, Passai-sho, Chinto,
Chintei, Wanshu, Gojushiho.
- Several other kata, there are 10:
Niseshi, Unshu, Sochin, Wankan,
Matsumora-Rohai, Matsumura-Passai, Ishimine-passai, Tomari-Passai, Nipaipo,
Shinpa.
- The four kata composed by Kenwa Mabuni: Aoyagi, Juroku, Myojo, Matsukaze
In this way Kenwa Mabuni transmitted 49 kata total in the
school Shito-ryu. No other school taught
such a large number of kata. Certain masters
of the contemporary Shito-ryu school count more than 60 kata in the register of
their practice, for some other kata were introduced more than which Kenwa
Mabuni had transmitted. This number is surprising, if one gets closer to the
method of Kanbun Uechi, who, in nearly the same time period, founded the school
Uechi-ryu with only three kata: Sanchin, Sesan and Sanseryu.
No other school teaches such a great number of kata: it is
the register of technical knowledge constituted by the personal research of
Kenwa Mabuni. His work is much more
remarkable in that he received these kata from different origins in a period
where the dominate attitude of adepts was to appreciate only their own kata. In this period of Okinawa, most adepts
considered the knowledge of the number of kata wasn’t as important or
comparable with the research in the profundity of the kata. Certain masters openly scorned ostensibly
those who desired to know in a limited time several kata. It was necessary, for K. Mabuni, not only the
advantage that conferred to him his situation of a local police officer, but
especially with a passion for his research.
During the years 1930, the karate schools were not also
compartmentalized as today and several masters, for example G. Funakoshi, H. otsuka,
Y. Konishi, had consulted K. Mabuni to have some details on the kata that they
were next to teach.
Today if we compare the Pinan kata or the Heian from four
schools: Shotokan, Shorin-ryu, Shito-ryu and Wado-ryu, the kata of the last
three are closer between them than are those of the first. However, h. Otsuka, founder of Wado-ryu, was
the student of G. Funakoshi, but he revised the kata that he had taken from his
master after those of K. Mabuni. G.
Funakoshi, equally made certain revisions with K. Mabuni, for both of them were
students of A. Itosu. There are the
schools of Shorin-ryu which have continued to teachings of the master with the
greatest fidelity. The same source of knowledge had then been personalized by
the experience and the qualities of each master to constitue the register of
kata of the different schools. If the kata of the Shotokan school are
particular, it is principally because the transformation effected within
Shotokan from the 1940’s.
3 – The characterstics of the practice of Shito-ryu
The multiplicity of kata.
There are more than 40 to 50 kata in the contemporary
Shito-ryu school: certain ones tell of
more than 60. Is this an advantage or disadvantage?
Is it certainly an advantage because of the possibility of
making a comparison of form and of the significance that has to the interior of
the gesturers of karate kata which constitutes a particular grammar of body
signs. For a work of research, it is
useful and at the same time indispensable to have a sufficient symbolic repertoire
of sequences to decode, to for a comparison,
the hidden sense of the kata.
This repertoire facilitates then the critical examination of kata that
one practices, and reflection on the mode of transmission of the kata.
However, an elevated number of kata doesn’t signify
obligatory superiority for the practice of the art. A whole of 12 kata, like in the Goju-ryu
school, is largely sufficient to perpetuate a school. Mastery of 12 kata and their profoundness is
very difficult and few reach that point. In all the schools of karate, each
adept concentrates in general, following a cycle which can go from a few months
to several years, their efforts on a certain kata that they can choose to go
into particularly deeper study. Until
the beginning of the century (1900) few masters knew more than 3 or 4 kata,
each kata giving them profound work and new ideas. Today, how can an ordinary
adept could know ten times the kata and, in the same time, research their
quality. It is undeniable that there
exists a risk of losing onself in the quantity and of stopping at a superficial
level.
Well that K. Mabuni, had joined a moment the Goju-ryu school
founded by his colleague Miyagi, when we
observe today the manner of practice, the difference is very clear between the
two schools, Goju-ryu and Shito-ryu. An
qualified expert in karate could not miss noticing the differences in execution
of a kata in their common repertoire. In
my opinion, the gestures of Shito-ryu are more elegant, more flowing, but it
misses something essential compared to Goju-ryu; it’s like a cheese not refined
of aspect, perhaps more proper, but also missing the creamy part. [translator
note: perhaps the cheese reference is essential to the French audience?] At the time of the exercise of a kata, the
followers of the Goju-ryu school, seek to acquire a viscosity or elasticity
with each technical movement. They call
it “muchimi” the subtlety of the delicate movements, which is the source of
technique efficiency. Becoming capable
in expressing the “mumichi” in each gesture is the principle objective of the
training for the adepts of the Goju-ryu school. The training made in this goal
isn’t compatible for those with the practice of a large number of kata. The
fundamental difference between the kata of these two schools consists in the
practical notion of “mumichi”.
These particularities of Shito-ryu could be explained by the
difficulty of integrating two tendancies also divergent as those of Hiagonna
and those of Itosu. A first reason brings up the thought that in amalgamating
the best of the two masters, the mest of their period, it is possible to come
up with a larger mastery. This would be true if the difference between the two
masters consisted in the repertory of techniques, but it relates to the conception of the
body. And, the same if on understands
the two conceptions of the body, it isn’t easy to make cohabitation in a same
body the two manners of feeling and of acting.
It is also difficult, for a person, to have spontaneously two different
manners.
Therefore, in Shito-ryu, it is the method issued from Itosu
which predominates. The two heritages are present, but the kata common with
Goju-ryu are executed in the manner following Itosu; therefore, the quality of
Naha-te is not real as such (would be?). it’s what often occurs when one tests from
mixing karate with the Chinese art of combat, while proceeding by
juxtaposition. By example, when when the karate-ka practices Taiji Quan (Tai
Chi Chaun) there is a risk there of being simply the movements of slowed
down karate. And when the follower of
Taiji Quan practices karate, it is often difficult to realize the sensation of
kime. The complimentary cannot be effective
and succeed to an enrichment at this level that if one gives rise to the movements
and then a direction (sense?), it is said the conception of the body, and there
is a convergence at this level. The art
of combat could not be developed to leave a mosaic of movements, the human
body, alive, expressing its resistnace.
Thus, the Shito-ryu school is found its unity in the predominance of the
association with Itosu. Significance is made that one of the disciples
of Mabuni, R. Sakagami has named his school Itosu-ryu, which still it practices the total ensemble
of the Shito-ryu heritage including the dozen kata of Goju-ryu.
The Technique
The technique of the Shito-ryu school is marked by its
subtlety. Compartive to the others, it
could miss sometimes, the expression of power, but it compensates for it with
speed and subtle techniques. The adepts of this excellent school are often in
the techniques that call on the mobility of the base, the displacement of the
body, and the techniques of deviation of the attacks. At the time of university meetings, the
currents of Shito-ryu and Wado-ryu
often obtain the best results.
The habitual technique of Shito-ryu is often qualified as superificial by the
adepts of Shotokan who cherish the efficiency by the lower positions.
4 – The importance of K. Mabuni to modern karate
One of the most important contributions of k. Mabuni would
be the enlargement of karate. He knew to
gather together the knowledge and techniques scattered and guarded more or less
secret of his age. He had an attitude
very open on the future. Thus, he had
with his students studied the utility, for combat and training, the protection
of kendo (Japanese Sword) and that of sports coming from Europe, then that G.
Funakoshi was himself acutely opposed to his students during the same period
they had studied the utility of protections (body armor?) for combat.
The writings of K. Mabuni on karate are very precise than
those of his contemporaries and he assembled and transmitted the most elaborate
knowledge on karate of this period. In these works, the relative technical
parts had an elaboration of methods of
combat while approaching the subtle aspects of them.
Forgetting
All,
I row,
Towards the islet of the martial
arts,
It’s that
which is my ultimate joy.
He died the 23rd of May 1952, at the age of 63
years. His eldest son , Kenei Mabuni, was who succeeded him to the direction of
the principle school of Shito-ryu. This
was written in his work : “Le Karate-do, Shito-ryu”:
“Being his eldest son, it is me, Kenei Mabuni, who
succeeded him in the direction of the central school of Shito-ryu….
Born the 13th
of February 1918 at Shuri in Okinawa the eldest son of Kenwa Mabuni, I have learnt during my infancy
the different sorts of karate. A large
number of karate-ka frequented the hoiuse and I learned karate naturally. It was my father who taught me karate and
jujutsu and it was master Konishi who
taught me kendo. I was able to hear from
master Seiko Fujiata that of ninjutsu and I had also studied the other classic
martial arts. I was actually the advisor
of the Federation of Karate-do in Japan and am in the commission of the
Federation of the town of Osaka. I have taught in different dojo of university
karate-do and between others at “Yoshu-kan dojo”. In 1962, responding to an invitation, I went
to teach in Mexico and since I have taught in Central and Latin America, in
different countries in Asia and in Europe.”
In the course of his life, Kenei Mabuni could augment the
register of kata that he had received from his father in meeting the following
karate masters:
Chojun Miyagi
(1888-19530, the founder of Goju-ryu
Ginchin
Funakoshi (196801957), Shotokan
Choki
Motobu (1870-1942), Motobu-ryu
Kanbun
Uechi 91877-1948), Uechi-ryu
Seiko
Fujita 9born in 1899(, Konga-ryu Ninjutsu, 14th secessor
Hironori
Otsuka (1892-1982), Wado-ryu
Yasuhiro
Konishi 91893019830, Shinto-Jinen-ryu
Like the Goju-ryu school, the Shito-ryu school is developing
principally in the region of Kansai, in south-west Japan.
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