Nakama Do Shukokai Karate Club

Shukokai Karate – A History

 Introduction

 Please note that the following information is only a general outline of some of the influences that have helped to shape the Shukokai style of Karate that we practise today. It is important to bear in mind that the information presented here should not be taken as 100% correct. It would be an impossible task for me to attempt to map out the exact path of the Shukokai style, as there are many issues, such as language barriers, poorly documented history, environmental, personal and sociological variations that hinder this process. I would encourage you to use this information only as a guide.

Shukokai has evolved over centuries, innovations have been made by our instructors and their instructors, consequently the Shukokai style has been refined, and although we do not study the exact techniques that were studied hundreds of years ago, we are however, directly influenced by them.

The roots of Shukokai include some of the greatest names in the history of Karate and the Martial Arts, and therefore, understanding this history and understanding where we came from may help us to understand where we are going.

                                                            Domo arigato (jap’)

(Thank you)

The Story Of Okinawa

A small string of islands linking the main islands of Southern Japan to the Chinese offshore island of Taiwan can be accredited as the birthplace of Karate. The Japanese call these islands the Ryukyu Islands. The largest island of the chain is Okinawa, which is also the capital.

It is thought that the earliest inhabitants of Okinawa came not only from China, but from the northern Japanese islands and from South Asia. Archaeology has shown that cultural penetration of China has continued from at least 300 BC.

The people of Okinawa lived a simple life, supported by agriculture and sea fishing. However, during the sixth and ninth centuries AD, successive invasions by the Japanese galvanised the native people into large village groupings presided over by chieftains (known as Shoguns).

By 1340 Okinawa had become divided into 3 rival kingdoms, and by 1350 the largest of these kingdoms entered into a formal, tributary relationship with China, which was ratified by the Chinese Emperor in 1372.

As part of this relationship, the Okinawans, like almost all of China’s neighbours except for Japan, sent annual delegations to China bearing tribute for the Emperor. A few nobles from these delegations were permitted to travel to the Imperial Court. Some princes even enrolled in the schools set up for foreigners in Peking, where they would study Chinese culture, arts and sciences before returning home. In this way, many important Okinawans became familiar with the city and court life of China, as well as its traditions and learning.

 By 1429, after some internal skirmishes, Okinawa was united under one King and the first (Sho) dynasty was established. This set the stage for the golden era of Okinawan history. The people took to trading, and steadily established a network of trade links. Okinawan sailors and merchants visited not only China and Japan, but all the great ports of South and East Asia, a factor that Okinawans today consider highly important in the history of their Martial Arts.

The Banning Of Weapons

 Around 1470, the collapse of the Sho Dynasty gave rise to a period of political turbulence that was ended only by the establishment of a new (also Sho) dynasty in 1477. The new king, Sho Shin, had to deal with the rebellious war lords who were firmly entrenched in their castles throughout the island. One of his first moves was to ban the carrying of swords by anyone, noble or peasant. He then ordered the collection of all weapons, which were to be placed under royal control at his castle in Shuri. Finally, he charged that all nobles, now unarmed, to come and live next to him in the royal capital.

This policy of disarming and de-casting of rebellious warlords in Okinawa predates the same actions on mainland Japan that were carried out in the sword edicts of Toyotomi in 1586 and in the Tokugawa Shoguns orders for the warlords to assemble in his capital in 1634.

Typical of the nature of the relationship between China and Japan the Shogun did not force the Okinawans to give up their tributary relationship with the Chinese. On the contrary, he forced the Okinawans to maintain a façade of

loyalty to the Chinese. Indirect contact with the Chinese, which the Japanese both wanted and needed, was maintained through Okinawa.

After the Okinawans were annexed to Japan in 1609, the Japanese maintained the ban on carrying weapons and kept the nobility restricted to Shuri city. Japanese samurai were, however, allowed to carry their weapons there. The ban on the natives carrying weapons remained in force throughout Okinawa’s subsequent history.

In Okinawa today, most Karate masters believe that the banning of weapons by one of their first kings was not an act of suppression, but one of sublime wisdom.

The Art Of The Hand

 That brief history of the early Sho Dynasty and the banning of weapons leads us now to the great Okinawan tradition of Te, the martial art of the hand, in which the human body is trained to become all the weapons a man or woman may need for self defence.

Karate as we know it today is mainly the product of a synthesis that took place in the eighteenth century between the native Okinawan art of Te and the Chinese arts of Shaolin Temple boxing and other South Asian styles that were practised at the time in Fukien Province of China.

Te is thought to be at least 1000 years old. The Okinawans of 1000 years ago were not rich, and weapons were in short supply. The land was not unified, and knowledge of self-defence must have been an important asset and would have provided the necessary impetus to the emergence of an indigenous martial art. Later, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when the Okinawans began to travel further afield, they were sure to have encountered many of the great fighting systems of South Asia and these would have influenced their indigenous art. Certain techniques in today’s Karate seem to have originated from that part of the world. Okinawa’s own style is unique, and foreign influences have always been modified to conform with the Okinawan fighting principles, chief among them is the use of the hand (Te), and especially the closed fist.

The Divergence Of The Okinawan Martial Arts

When the king, Sho Shin, disarmed the nobles and gathered them into Shuri city, it is believed that this is when two movements were born in Okinawa. The first one was the unarmed martial art of Te. This was sought out, learned and developed by the nobles. The other one was developed by the farmers and fishermen using tools and agricultural implements such as flails, sickles, horse bridles and boat paddles to form a combative weapons system known as Ryukyu (known today as Okinawan Kubudo). Both the armed and unarmed traditions were practised in utmost secrecy and remained confined to their respective social classes.

The first recorded performance of Chinese Martial Arts in Okinawa took place in 1761. There are also several personal histories of the masters of Te at the time. Some of these masters are known to have travelled to Fukien Province in China and studied there. During the nineteenth century, because of the influence of the Chinese masters, the Okinawan art of Te began to be known by the name of “T’ang-te” or ‘Chinese hand’.

Even though the art was practised in secrecy, in remote places, and largely at night, three separate styles began to emerge from the three urban centres around the capital. These were:

Shuri-te, the art that developed in Shuri city and practised by the Samurai of the court. Shuri-te is thought to have developed from the influence of Shaolin Temple boxing.

Naha-te, incorporates more of the soft Taoist techniques which involve breathing and the control of Ki, the life force, called chi in Chinese.

Tomari-te, drew from both Shuri-te and Naha-te and used both soft and hard techniques.

                                    It is important to note that that the towns of Shuri, Naha and Tomari are only a few miles apart and that the differences between their arts were essentially ones of emphasis and not of kind. Beneath these surface differences, both the methods and the aims of all Okinawan Karate are one and the same.

By the end of the nineteenth century the names of the styles had changed again.

The arts of Shuri-te and Tomari-te were incorporated under one name, Shorin-Ryu, meaning ‘Flexible Pine School’. Naha-te became known as Gojo-Ryu, the ‘Hard and Soft School’, and was developed further by Master Kanryo Higaonna.

Shorin-ryu is sub divided into several slightly different styles, but Goju-ryu has remained largely unified stylistically. There were also schools in Okinawa and Japan where both these styles were fused together and taught as one, this style becoming known as Shito-Ryu, and was headed by Master Kenwa Mabuni.

Traditionally it is said that the Shorin-ryu style is lighter and faster than Goju-ryu, and that the stances are generally higher, and in Goju-ryu the arm and leg motions are more bent and circular, with greater emphasis on breathing.

In 1935, a multi-style committee of masters sat down together to decide on a single name for their art. They called it “Karate”, which means ‘empty handed’. Some masters feel that the appendage –do (the way) should also be added to the name.

Modern Karate-Do

 Modern day Karate-Do (the way of the empty hand) only entered Japan at the beginning of the 20^th Century.

During the 1920’s a group of Okinawan masters introduced their own systems and styles emphasising and developing different martial elements into their training. Some of the main styles, and founders, are listed below :

Shorin Ryu       -           Choki Motobu

Goju-Ryu         -           Chojun Miyagi

Shito-Ryu         -           Kenwa Mabuni

Shukokai          -           Chojiro Tani

Shotokan          -           Gichin Funakoshi

Wado-Ryu        -           Hidenori Otsuka

Having looked at the general history and formation of Karate and the Martial Arts of Japan and Okinawa, I would like to follow on with a more in depth look at how we arrived at the modern day Shukokai style.

The Evolution Of Shito-Ryu

Soke Kenwa Mabuni (1890-1952) is accredited as the founder of the Shito-Ryu school of Karate, and like many of the old Masters, was descended from the Okinawan warrior class (Bushi). The Mabuni family had served Okinawan lords for hundreds of years.

At the age of 13, Mabuni became a student of Yasutsune Itosu (1830-1915), who taught Okinawan Shuri-te, and was accredited as the Master who developed the Pinan Kata. (Itosu himself was a student of one of Okinawa’s most famous Karate Masters, Sokon Matsumura (1792-1887), who was the forefather of Shorin-Ryu).

During his teens, we can see that Karate was a large part of the young Mabuni’s life, his good friend was Chojun Miyagi (the founder of Goju-Ryu Karate). It was Mayagi who introduced him to Kanryo Higaonna (1853-1915), a teacher of Naha-te Karate style. These two great Masters (Itosu and Higaonna) are most notably his greatest influences, this becomes apparent, when in 1929 the governing body for Martial Arts Butokukai, enforced that all Karate schools should officially register by their style name, and so Mabuni named his style Hanko, meaning ‘Half Hard’, but by the early 1930’s he changed the name to Shito-Ryu. The influence of Itosu and Higaonna becomes obvious when we look at the fact that the Japanese characters (Kanji) used to write Okinawan family names have 2 pronunciations, eg :

“Shi” or “Ito” from Itosu

“To” or “Higa” from Higaonna

therefore taking the first two characters from the family name of his original teachers, and acknowledging the contribution of these Masters to the development of his own style, Mabuni established “Shito” as the name of his style.

The Shukokai Master – Sensei Chojiro Tani

 Sensei Chojiro Tani was born in Kobe, Japan in 1921 and began studying the art of Karate during junior high school at the Goju-Ryu School of Karate under the tutelage of Master Chojun Mayagi. In 1940 he entered Doshisha University and furthered his Karate studies under the direction of Master Kenwa Mabuni. On graduation from university Sensei Tani followed Master Mabuni, learning first the Shuri-te system and then learning the developing Shito-Ryu system that Master Kenwa Mabuni founded. After many years of training under Sensei Mabuni, as one of his most senior students, Sensei Tani received certificate of succession, and in 1948 he founded his own school which he called Shukokai.

Shukokai (The Way For All)

Being a direct descendant of Shito-Ryu, Shukokai inherits both the Naha-Te and Shuri-Te styles of Okinawan Karate. Master Kenwa Mabuni merged the techniques and principles of the styles he learnt from his teachers Kanryu Higaonna and Yasutsune Itosu to form his Shito-Ryu style of Karate. Shukokai, therefore, combines the circular breathing techniques from Naha-Te and the quick linear movements of the Shuri-Te style. One of the things that is notable about the Shukokai style is the relatively high numbers of Kata. This is as a direct result of Master Mabuni’s experience with both the Naha-Te and Shuri-Te styles, and the reason he was renowned throughout Japan and Okinawa as the foremost expert on Kata.

Another attribute that distinguishes Shukokai Karate from other styles is the execution of techniques. Sensei Chojiro Tani sought to perfect his style by studying the mechanics of the human body and developed techniques which can be delivered with maximum efficiency. Over a long period of time Sensei Tani evolved and developed his Shukokai style stressing the importance of etiquette, discipline and mental control and was at pains to promote the improvement of technique, believing that a technique, no matter how powerful, was useless if it could not be delivered under combat situations. The philosophy being that the outcome of a confrontation could be decided with a single technique, one hit one kill, as was the way of the Samurai.

Shukokai Lineage

As I mentioned at the beginning, the following information is only a general outline of some of the influences that have helped to shape the Shukokai style of Karate. To the best of my knowledge, the following chart outlines a guide to the lineage of early Okinawan Karate to modern day Shukokai.