8 Poems of the Fist

Andre Quast wrote this piece from his own research on the Bubishi.

 

 

It adds more meaning as this formed Shimabuku Tatsuo's Isshinryu Code of Karate.

I put something together on the "eight poems of the fist. I used the following sources:

- Miyazato Ei'ichi: Okinawa-den Gôjû Ryû Karate-dô. Jitsugyô no Sekaisha Kan, 1953, p.35:
- McCarthy, Patrick: Bubishi. The Bible of Karate. Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, Japan, 1995.
- Ôtsuka Tadahiko (transl.): Okinawa-den Bubishi. Tôkyô, Bêsubôru Magajin-sha 1991.
- Ôtsuka Tadahiko (transl.): Chûgoku Ryûkyû Bugeishi. Tôkyô, Bêsubôru magajin-sha 1998, pp. 278 and 318 (identical).



When Miyagi Chôjun's disciple, the late Shinzato Jin'an, participated at the Meiji Shrine Taikai in the year 1930, Shinzato performed a Karate Enbu. When at this occasion he was asked about his styles name, he had problems to answer the question. So he reported the incident to Miyagi Chôjun. Thereafter the styles name "Gôjû-ryû" was chosen. Why and how Miyagi Chôjun Sensei chose this antagonistic term as the name of the style from the Chinese book called Wbèizhì, read as Bubishi in Japanese? This book represented the written tradition of the southern Chinese branch of Shaolin-boxing called White Crane Gate (J.: Nan-ha Shôrin-ken Hakutsuru-mon. Ch.: Nánpài Shàolínquán Báihèmén),  from Fujian-province in S.E. China, which had been transmitted to Okinawa.


Respecting the Chinese language in which it was originally written, Wbèizhì basically means "Account of Military Preparation," but the more subtle possible meanings in the Chinese language would also allow reading it as "Account of preparing defenses" or – quite fitting - "Account of preparing the boxing skill".


This Book contained the "Eight Sentences on the Main Points of Chinese Boxing," or "Eight Poems of the Fist." The Gôjû of the styles name stems from the third phrase, which reads Hô Gôjû donto, with Gôjû being the philosophic principles of the martial art per se. Gô and Jû are inseparability and constitute one body. It represents the cosmic dual forces of Yin and Yang, and thus all things in nature, within this world. The styles name Gôjû is truly appropriate and should be considered. The eight sentences are the following (translated by from McCarthy, Bubishi, 1995, p. 159-160):


1. The human mind is one with heaven and earth.
2. Our blood circulation parallels the solar and lunar cycles of each day.
3. Inhaling represents softness while exhaling characterizes hardness.
4. Adapt to changing conditions.
5. Response must result without conscious thought.
6. Distancing and posture dictates the outcome of the meeting.
7. See what is unseeable.
8. Expect what is unexpected.

 

Andreas Quast
Goju-ryu/Ryukyu Kobudo
Mudansha
Duesseldorf, Germany

While this translation is a bit different from the Isshinryu Code of Karate, it is close enough to add a bit of texture.