If you're interested in what Okinawan
Sumo tradition really is, outside of a chapter in Nagamine's book go to You
Tube and you can watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjVY9JQhpC8
The other day I shared a link with OkinawanBBTV that
containa a link to an Okinawan Sumo competition.
I'm not sure whether anyone has taken the time to look
at it or not, but I shared it because it is an extremely valuable link to the
past and the development of Okinawan Karate, IMO.
I was unaware of this Uchinadi Sumo tradition until I
read Nagamine Shoshin's "Tales of Okinawa's Great Masters" and
discovered an entire chapter on this wrestling tradition. From that description
this streaming video seems directly out of their past (with perhaps the
uniforms being updated to a modern martial concept). Certainly more discrete
from the Japanese Sumo tradition satorially speaking.
Where this ties together is if we take a brief trip
back say 150 years in Okinawa's past. It was about that time a very private
tradition that became karate seems to have jelled (based on the 'histories' we
read), but there is only oral history and a few concrete facts to draw on.
Nobody has really intimated that Okinawa was a
dangerous place in those days. Sure kids goofing, and waterfront bars existed,
but from what I've seen there is no evidence that Okinawa needed a street
fighting solution.
In turn, in those days Karate developed, not for the
masses, but more for some of the elite.
It didn't develop for martial purposes. The rapid
Japanese defete of Okinawa's guard about 400 years ago seems to have eliminated
a military art tradition.
But the common folk, had their Sumo wrestling
tradition, or the larger martial tradition of the island. Sumo for the hearty,
and note how the larger in the streaming video seem to defeat the smaller (no
surprise at that is there).
About whether the Motobu tradition of Ti developed for
the King's body guards (which were likely not really needed either). This tradition may or may not have had an
influence on the developing karate after all.
Of course our own Joe-san has contributed to give us
some insight to the modern Ti traditions with his translation of Soken's
"The Secret Royal martial Arts of Ryukyu". And for some there are
videos of those traditions too.
So against a background of some ti tradition, and of a
common wrestling tradition (which every society on the world has had), karate
found a nitch and began its ongoing development.
I think this is exciting to reflect upon, and might
help us understand why karate developed as it did.
But an even more insightful glimpse can be found in
the writings of Motobu Chokoi. I've only
started thinking about this, but the techniques he demonstrates do appear to be
more counters against grappling.
In Sumo they begin both people holding each other, but
in reality they would first go to grab. And that action is very similar to the
attacks Motobu is demonstrating against.
[There are various versions of Motobu's books, such as Patrick
McCarthy's translation "Motobu Choki Karate My Art', and even Japanese
versions of his books showing the techniques (as well as his son's video
tapes).
I think there might be some interesting research there
to be done.
But even more interesting is where do we find our own
answers to those grappling attacks in our kata.
I'm sensitive to some answers from my study with
Harrill Sensei. Motobu shows an Patsai
answer (found in SunNuSU), and there are various ansers throughout the
Isshinryu kata, as well as other Okinawan kata too.
No doubt the developers of Karate knew this grappling
existed (and may have experienced it themselves as Nagamine seems to reference
it as a common youth activity, like today's little league).
So there is no question the kata they developed has
uses against those Sumo techniques too, again IMVHO.
Folks, I'm only making suggestions, but I think there
is aline of inquiry to follow that many might find factinating. By using the
sources that are slowly being developed we can think about all karate's origins
a little more focused.
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