Tuesday, May 21, 2019

At the beginning of School Karate Gymnastics




 

 
The year is 1904, and whatever Japan proper thought of Okinawans, Japan was an ordered society.

Okinawan schools, as a part of the Japanese school system, were controlled by the Japanese Misistry of Education. Local autonomy by the local school boards was not an option. , the martial arts were deemed inappropriate to teach in the school's Department of Education over twice, "the Gymnastics Report" (1884), "The School Hygiene Advisory Council Report" (1896). At that time, the Ministry of Education regarded the martial arts inferior from the physiological viewpoint compared with the gymnastics by irrational.  A part of the "Ordinance for enforcement of the Junior high School Decree" was granted by the Ministry of Education Ordinance No. 26 of Meiji 44 (1911), "gymnastics ha bashing (the military practice) and gymnastics.

 

To get the new idea of public karate instruction into the Okinawan schools some slight of hand was employed.
There already was a full time instructor who taught the soldier type Gymnastics (later bashing) and the physical education.

 

A kind of military training was done by the flexible gymnastics of the military type gymnastics, and it was a type of the army in the normal school though it was a core. At that time, there seemed to be a problem of the re-employment of the sergeants after it discharged, and sending them who discharged it to each school and having done military training was a stone in respect of the re-employment of the rich country soldier and soldiers. (2) There was no place in the current proscribed curriculum for any thing like karate. The order of Tatrei, REI, preparatory gymnastics, basic operation (foot, reversal, thrust, kick), form exercise, assembly manual exercise, adjustment gymnastics, seat REI, dissolution, in the method learned in the former army Ministry teacher (2)

 

By 1905 Iteshima Yasuyasu was the advisor at the Okinawa Prefecture Normal School, apparently instrumental in developing the curriculum of what appears to have been karate gymnastics. The concerns of the local group that sponsored the idea were that many of the more martial practices would be removed, to make sure what was being offered would not be seen as other than promoting health and well being.

 

“Then, why was the (karate?) adopted? This is the author's guess. Perhaps Dr. Yasuhisa Itoshima, etc., would have contacted the Okinawa Prefectural Academic Affairs Section about the possibility of adopting the shoshu of the Tang hand. At that time, the Academic affairs section, "because there is a national policy, Tang is impossible to employ as a martial art, but it is possible as a gymnastics," I think there was an answer.

 

“This does not violate the policy of the Ministry of Education. There is a form to practice by one person named "type" Fortunately, and it is a kind of Deconstructo law act. If it is "gymnastics", it is possible to make excuses even if it is found in the country if it is strong. However, there is an excuse that it is not truly a martial art when there are a lot of attack techniques such as thrust kick. It is also difficult for students to be used to fight outside the school by promoting their struggle. If it becomes a newspaper, the head of the Student Affairs Section staff might fly.

 

“So, in accordance with the request of the Academic Affairs section, I think that Mr. Iteshima did the creation modification of Pinann and existing type so as to dilute the aggression as much as possible.

 
“If such a change was temporary, and the Chinese hand was formally adopted as a martial art, Mr. Iteshima might have intended to return it to the original type. The reason is that "it is not necessary to save as it is and to add the moist color" to "Itasu ten lesson" because there is a wording.


 “However, before the policy of the Ministry of Education changed, Mr. Iteshima lay on the sickbed, and died before long. On the other hand, it did not teach these types in the normal school after Mr. Iteshima was deceased because it was not interested in Pinann and the alteration type from the beginning. It might have been thought that it was likely to disappear naturally before long even if it left it. However, students who were taught the modified type from Mr. Iteshima, without knowing the circumstances that have been modified, and then spread the modified type, largely replaced by the existing type, the circumstances that have been altered before long I have forgotten.

 

So the original thoughts were what survived and other instructors carried forward, and likely made changes as well. New experiences would suggest changes to something that was so new an idea.

 

It time what was brought into the Okinawan Schools influenced other instructors. Karate came to be offered to the population of Okinawa. Some instructors adopted the Pinan kata to teach their new students.

  

But it was the fact the Okinawan’s pulled some wool over the Japanese Ministry of Educations eyes that made so much that followed possible.

 

In 1908, Itosu wrote the influential “Ten Precepts (Tode Jukun) of Karate,” to draw the attention of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of War in Japan, reaching beyond Okinawa to Japan.”(1)

 
I am indebted to these sites which I have used to draw information from for this article.
 



 
I take full responsibility for any incorrect assumptions
on my part.

 

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