Miyagi Chojun History

 

Miyagi Chojun was born in Naha on April 25, 1888. His name at birth was Matsu (松: pine).

 

The Miyagi family belonged to the Okinawan aristocracy. They lived in Higashi-machi, a Naha neighborhood between the Kokuba River and the village of Kume. At 3 or 4 years old he is adopted by his uncle Miyagi Chōsho, wealthy owner of two ships with which he imported, among other things, medicines from China. His new family calls him Chojun and he was the third child of the marriage.

 

At that time, the Meiji Restoration was beginning to have devastating effects on Japan's economy.

 

Miyagi's mother thought that only a mentally healthy and physically strong man could face the difficult times ahead. Chojun, would be the one who, after the death of his older brother in 1893, would remain as heir to the family.

 

When he was 11 years old (1899), his mother took him to a Tōde teacher named Aragaki Ryuko (1875-1961). At the Aragaki sensei dojo, Miyagi learned about working with makiwara, nigiri game, and chi ishi.

 

When he turned 14, Aragaki sensei introduced him to his friend Higashionna Kanryo (1853-1915), who accepted him as a disciple, only after observing for some time his behavior and interest in learning karate.

 

Young Miyagi cleaned and tidied the Higashionna dojo, tidied up the garden, cut firewood and carried the buckets with water, with great enthusiasm and seeing all this, Kanryo accepted him as a student and began to teach him the secrets of Naha-Te.

 

The training Higashionna imparted to her students was very severe, however Miyagi begins to stand out quickly in the group.

 

For him, physical activity was not limited to work in the dojo. Every morning he ran to and from school to strengthen his legs or went to the beach to lift heavy stones, thus strengthening his arms. Then in the afternoon, he trained in his teacher's dojo for hours. The Master observed the dedication that Chojun put into learning, and soon became convinced that his young apprentice would be able to honor the teachings that he had received.

 

Historians cannot agree on certain data about Miyagi sensei's refinement.

 

The teacher Mas Oyama in his book This Is Karate tells that, after two years of intense training, Kanryo Higashionna sensei sends Miyagi to China, to the town of Fukien, to practice Ngochokun kenpo:

 

After two years on the mainland, he returned to Okinawa in 1904, having developed a very effective set of breathing techniques and spiritual training in Zen, and at the age of 16 he was already an expert and had no opponents in all of Okinawa. "

 

However, if the young Miyagi is introduced to Kanryo sensei in 1902, it is hard to believe that Higashionna had sent him on such an important journey as just a young initiate teenager. On the other hand, Miyagi was not the only Higashionna student, nor the oldest in those days. In fact the oldest student was Yoshimura Chōki. Yoshimura Aji Choki (義 村 按 司 朝 義, whose Chinese name was Sho-Meitoku (向 明德), was the 4th generation of the Yoshimura Udun family, descendants of the founder of the Sho dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom. He was the second son of Yoshimura Udun Chōmei In 1897, when his father Yoshimura Udun Chomei and his older brother Yoshimura Aji Chōshin renounced their aristocratic titles and went into exile in China, Chōki assumed his place as head of the family clan while retaining the title of Udun.

 

Another Kanryo student was Kyoda Juhatsu, who had even started training a few months before Miyagi.

 

This does not deny the trip, which could well have been done by family businesses, years later, it only gives us a better perspective on who would have chosen to send Kanryo to such a transcendent mission if they had the need to do so.

 

The young Miyagi does not finish high school because he assumes the responsibility of taking over the family business. He leaves school in the fourth year.

 

In 1908 he married who will be his companion for the rest of his life, Makato. Her first daughter was Kiyoko (1909-1937). then would come: Turuko (Yasuko) (1912-1987), Tsuneko (1914-1945), Shigeko (1916-1945), the first male Takashi (Kei) (1919-2008), a second male son Kin (1921-?) , Toshiko a girl who dies at two years of age (1923-1925), the third male son Jun (1927-1944), Michiko (1929-?) And her fourth male child Ken (1931-?).

 

Between 1909 and 1911 he fulfills his military service on the island of Kyushu, which separates him from the daily practice of karate, but brings him closer to Judo. While serving in a military hospital, Miyagi joined the Judo club at the base and there he learned the elementary techniques of this art, staying active.

 

Upon returning to Okinawa, he begins to think about the possibility of traveling to Hawaii in order to establish a fishing business. On those Pacific islands a colony of Okinawan immigrants had been established. However his teacher Higashionna convinced him e to study more deeply the art of Chinese combat.

 

In November 1914, he traveled to Fuzhou, Fujian province, China, probably for commercial reasons. His stay lasts a few months, during which time he met the Ngochukun Kempo and took the opportunity to find parallels between the teachings of his teacher and the origins of art.

 

Seiko Higa relates in Mr. Saburo's article "Omoide no Higa Seiko sensei" ("Karate Denshinroku", Akio Kinjo, Okinawa Tosho Center 1999) that: "... it seems that Chojun Miyagi went to Fuzhou, China, not to study martial arts but to attend to minor matters. Upon returning to Okinawa he asked his teacher:

-In China I saw that they made a sound like huu, huu, haa, haa, like the roar of a very large snake when they practiced Sanchin, what do you think of this, Master?

Higashionna replied:

-His is genuine. Ours is genuine too. What I have taught you so far is authentic. Everything matures slowly. Internal training is genuine. You are full of youthful vigor. "

 

At the end of 1914, the failing health of Kanryo Higashionna's wife worsened and he died suddenly, accelerating the return of China from the young Miyagi who took over the funeral. A short time later, forced for health reasons to leave the school where Tote Jitsu taught, Grandmaster Kanryo Higashionna also died of an asthma attack.

 

In 1916, Miyagi returned to China, with the purpose of gathering literature on the origins of the combat arts.

 

The political friction between Japan, China and Russia became increasingly evident in a world attentive to the First War. However, Okinawa was still a "insignificant fishing island" for the main protagonists of the war conflicts in the east and west.

 

A few years earlier, Miyagi befriended Wu Xian Kuei (1886-1940), a Chinese merchant who had lived in Naha since 1912 and sold tea in his own shop called Eiko Cha Ko. GoKenki, as he was known on the island, was married. with an Okinawan and was a master of White Crane Scream boxing, an art he had learned during his youth in Fuzhou.

 

Two years older than Miyagi, Gokenki may have met Xie Zhong Xiang in China, or perhaps in Okinawa, where he probably served diplomatic duties.

 

GoKenki would be a true influence on the development of Miyagi's karate and it is he who introduces him to the study of BUBISHI. It is no less the fact that the trip to China of the founder of the Goju Ryu, between 1916 and 1917, was in the company of his friend and adviser.

 

Once in China, they contact Kanjū Tōnda, a renowned disciple of WaiXinxian. The latter had died a long time ago (Miyagi tells of having found a grave with his name on that trip).

 

Let us not forget that during the Chinese civil war of 1911, many of the chuan-fa teachers were forced to flee to Singapore or Malaysia and at the end of the war many of them did not return while those who did, tried to remain anonymous. There are accounts that WaiXinxian was in the Ryukyu Islands as a military or diplomatic attaché. This is not a minor fact if we consider the speech that Miyagi would give at the famous teachers' meeting in 1936, it also exempts us from supposing that Higashionna traveled to China since, he may well have learned the rudiments of his art, being in Okinawa.

 

In any case, we could speculate that Miyagi, on one of his trips to Fukien in search of roots, unable to contact his Master's teachers, decides to study the systems he finds there.

 

Let's remember that Miyagi had studied 11 years together with Higashionna and two with Gogenki and by 1917 he knew four kata:

 

1.     SANCHIN
2. SESAN
3. NEPAI
4. PAIPUREN (Suparumpei)

 

SANSERU, does not learn it directly from Higashionna. Some investigations assume that this was because at the time, Miyagi was affected by military service for two years and distanced himself from the practice.

Now, Miyagi's passage through the militia was true, although this was hardly the cause of not learning SANSERU. On the other hand, Kyoda Juhatsu does learn SANSERU from Higashionna

 

To understand these differences we must position ourselves in the idiosyncrasy of the 19th century teachers who only taught a few kata and in particular, only those who believed were better adapted to the characteristics of the student.

So how do the rest of the kata appear with which Miyagi completes his style?