The History of Okinawan Karate – Blossoming
The twentieth century would bring about radical changes and advancements the world over. In Okinawa, it was time for the growing –te arts to spread. The Satsuma occupation had long since passed, and these styles were too accessible and enjoyable a physical education to keep in the dark. No more graveyard shift training sessions; new generations could benefit and grow strong from such training.
Anko Itosu, student of Sokon Matsumura, was a practitioner of Shorin-ryu and pioneered karate’s venture into public education. In 1901, Itosu introduced karate to the school system of Okinawa, and began teaching simplified, introductory forms (heian/pinan) to students who may not have had family training. Not only was Itosu instrumental in the popularization of karate as a public education, but his teaching skill nurtured the development of several great Okinawan masters of karate in the early century. That is why Itosu is considered the grandfather of karate. There are also neat kata named that carry his name, like Itosu Rohai.
Around the same time, in 1902, Chojun Miyagi started training under Kanryo Higashionna. In 1915, he retraced his sensei’s footsteps into China, and studied the Chinese arts there as Higashionna had done before him, although it was not until 1929 that Miyagi would formulate his knowledge of Naha-te and the Chinese styles into what we practice today.
It was in the year 1921 that Japanese crown prince Hirohito would visit the island of Okinawa. As part of a cultural demonstration, Funakoshi Sensei performed karate. Impressed by the performance, the future Emperor Hirohito invited Funakoshi back to Japan to attend the First National Athletics Exhibition to demonstrate this art form on Japanese soil in Tokyo.
It was in the 1930s that Funakoshi, seeing that Karate had left the shores of Okinawa and was now developing abroad, went and changed the name. Before, the kanji that made up the name of the art translated as “Chinese Hand”. The new name would spell “Empty Hand”. The change was threefold; one, it literally described the style in which the appendages would be used as weapons instead of armaments, secondly to emphasize the Zen principle of emptiness and stoic detachment necessary for cultivating a whole, healthy person, and thirdly to contemporize with an increasingly nationalistic climate in Japan (who were not good friends with China at the time). What would be added as well is the suffix of –do, meaning way. Karate was now becoming something more than just a physical education through fighting techniques, but a way of becoming a better person in general. Hence, karate-jutsu (empty hand techniques) also became karate-do (the way/path of the empty hand)
Let’s catch up with some Goju history. In the 1920s , Chojun Miyagi Sensei would start to develop Sanchin kata further from his experience with White Crane, and he would create Tensho (turning palm) as a soft compliment to Sanchin’s hard execution.
As mentioned, he would not officially name the style until 1929. It was then that the culmination of White Crane kung fu and Shorei Ryu forms from Okinawa would become Goju Ryu Karate; the hard/soft empty-handed way.
It may not be a stretch to say that the spring of 1945 was the darkest period in Okinawa’s history. The Ryukyuan people, especially Okinawans, endured the misery of three months of devastating conflict between Japanese and Allied forces that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. In the inferno of war, much of Okinawa’s cultural documentation, including karate’s written history, was lost; leaving the tradition’s teachings to be passed down through family or by spoken instruction.
Years later in 1952, Japan was on the tail end of Allied occupation in the aftermath of the Second World War. It was then that Peter Urban, an American sailor, would begin training in Yokohama under Sensei Richard Kim. After transferring to Tokyo, he was introduced by Sensei Kim to two of karate’s greatest names; Masutatsu Oyama (founder of the Kyokushin school) and Gogen Yamaguchi, who trained under Miyagi and is responsible for the propagation of the refined form of Japanese Goju Karate that we study today.
Okinawa’s Goju karate legacy is currently headed by Morio Higaonna, who was a post-war student of Miyagi Sensei’s lead student, Eiichi Miyazato. Higaonna Sensei, who shares a surname with Kanryo Higashionna (a more Okinawan dialect), founded the International Okinawan Goju Ryu Federation . It is now the governing body of most Okinawan Goju schools worldwide, and conveniently enough, the current Chief Instructor, Tetsuji Nakamura, teaches in Burlington.
Okinawan Karate, and its Japanese iteration, now enjoys worldwide adherence of over fifty million people, and has survived prohibition and war with its traditions and spiritual essence intact. Shoshin Nagamine, founder of the Matsubayashi style of Shorin-ryu and author of The Essence of Okinawan Karate-do, articulated simply how calmness, non-aggression, and spiritual enrichment through karate practice would help further unity:
“The world could live in peace if they would follow the example of the Okinawans”.
Thanks for staying with us over this three-part series, and keep checking in for more updates.
Until next time,