Context

From the "Putting Kata Back at the Heart of Karate" series:
Article 1. Context.

Column by Bill Burgar, author of Five Years, One Kata.

This is the first in a series of articles and serves as an introduction to some of the subjects to be covered. We start by looking at context then cover aims and objectives, rules, use of kata as a tool to meet your objectives, visualisation, history of karate and other topics that the contemporary karateka should be familiar with in order to develop and broaden their knowledge and skill.

Karate training methodology has changed over the course of time. In its long history different practices have sprung up to meet the varying objectives of the practitioners in any particular time period.

If we have a clear understanding of what the particular objectives of karateka were in each era it helps us to put their practice methods into perspective, and, more importantly, it brings a sharper focus to our understanding of our own methods.

In this article I'll take a look at the context of typical karate training in the contemporary dojo and show how the context determines the practice methodology. When you have finished reading you should have a better understanding of your training context, your aims and objectives and how this affects your method of practice. You will also be in a better position to ask questions about the discrepancies between your objectives and the method being used to train you. If you are an instructor then you will have some ideas about how to improve your training methods to match the expectations of your students more accurately.

First, we need to be clear about what we mean by "context". The context in which you train is the unique collection of all the factors that have any influence on what you do. This includes: your aims and objectives (for example are you training for competition, self defence, fitness, and so on, or a mixture of those functions?); the rules of those functions (e.g. competition rules, self defence rules, e.g. the law, or physiology rules determining how fit you can get and so forth); your teachers and their personal motivations, their individual preferences and their aims and objectives.

Your context is unique to you, alone, and nobody else. It may be closely aligned to the people who train alongside you, but make no mistake, it is just about you. Ultimately, this means that you must find your own method of practice that is best suited to you, which in turn means that you and only you are responsible for determining how best to train. Of course, to start with as a beginner, you don't have sufficient experience to know what to do for the best, which is why you need a sensei. The word sensei is often translated as 'teacher'. However, this inaccurate translation is not very helpful. Literally translated 'sensei' means 'one who has gone before', i.e someone who has greater experience and who can act as a guide; someone who acknowledges that your experience will be different but who can help you find your way when things are not clear for you; a mentor.

So, the first thing to do is to make a top level list of what you want out of your training (your key areas) and then put that list into a priority order, most important first, down to least important. This key area list will typically be between one and five subjects. For example: The list for one person could be fitness, social, self-defense; another might list: self-defense and fitness only; yet another might put down: winning competition, fitness, fun; or maybe: art, grades, personal satisfaction. As you can see from these examples just setting down a simple key area list for each person, before we even go into any great detail, shows how varied people's expectations can be. Writing down comprehensive objectives can be a daunting, difficult and time consuming task. This technique of writing a few key area words is a very good step in the right direction. For club instructors it is a worthwhile exercise to get all of your students to give you such a list every 6 or 12 months so you can better tailor your instruction to your students’ requirements. It is interesting to note that the composition and order of the list will often change over time for each person as their interests and motivations change.

Having looked, briefly, at the effect that our objectives (key areas) have on our context (I'll return to objective setting in a future article) let’s turn our attention to the rules that are in effect for the particular theatre of operations that you are training for. There are always rules; often people will say, "out on the street there are no rules". But this is not true, there may be fewer rules than on the mat but they are there. In addition, the rules that govern your behavior may be different to your aggressor's. Your rules are created both internally and externally. The external rules are, for example, the law, environment, physics and engineering principles. Internal rules are created by your morality and your humanity, what you are and are not prepared to do because of the degree of rightness/wrongness or your ability to de-humanise your aggressor sufficiently to inflict the required degree of injury. Remember, in a self-defence situation there is more than one fight. First there is the mental battle of wills, the physical action (if it happens), the possible legal battle afterwards, and the following moral battle with yourself (did I do the right thing?). In competition, you would hope that both you and your opponent would be operating under the same set of rules (although depending on the quality of the refereeing, sadly, this is not always the case). However, each competitor will know how far s/he is prepared to bend the rules to ensure victory.

Again, you can readily see that each person will have a different and unique set of rules that they are operating under furthering the uniqueness of their karate context. I'll come back to look at rules in more detail in a later article.

Finally for this article, let’s take a look at the effect that your instructors and peers have on your context. The first point to note is that all of the people around you in the dojo have a different context to you; this means that the training practices in use may not directly match what would be best for you. For example, let's imagine that your main goal was winning competitions with an end goal of representing your country. However, if the people around you are practicing mainly for self-defence then much of your time will be spent doing things that are poorly targeted at your goal. In order to meet your goals more efficiently you must have a good contextual match with those around you.

From an instructor's point of view it is important that you take the time to understand the goals of your students and to create an environment around them that is best suited to them all achieving their goals. To do this you must ask questions of them so that you can better understand their context. Also, it is important to look at the rules they will be operating under and to teach them accordingly. For example, if a student says that when it comes to it they really don't think that they could gouge somebody's eye (the morality/humanity rules they operate under), there is no point teaching them techniques to gouge eyes because they won't be able to use them. You'd need to find techniques that will fit in with their rules so that they will be able to use them - even if, in your view, their rules are wrong. Alternatively, you can determine the context and ensure that your students conform to it. In this case you have to understand that many people will not want to remain in your dojo; your choice.

So, in this article I've given you a brief overview of 'context', describing what it is and the various factors that affect it. You've seen how it is unique for each person and how it is important to understand each student's context when teaching them, and to understand your instructor's and peers’ contexts.

In the next article I'll go into more detail about setting objectives to give you a sharper focus on your training so that you use your training time better and get more out of it. Before then you should write down your key area list and have it to hand when you read next month's article.

About the author: Bill Burgar is a 6th Dan, a member of Rick Clark's ADK organisation and author of the advanced karate text Five Years, One Kata which is available on-line and to order at all good book shops. Buy at Amazon via http://www.martialartspublishing.com/

Okinawan Conversations #1



THE ESSENTIAL OKINAWAN
The life and times of
Shoshin Nagamine

By Mike Clarke
Author of Roaring Silence

The late karate master Shoshin Nagamine sensei founder of the Matsubayashi branch of shorin-ryu karatedo, passed away in 1997 at the age of ninety years old after a life of struggle and triumph. Along with every other Okinawan of his generation his life was interrupted by the kind of devastation and destruction few of us can even begin to imagine. The bloodbath that was the Battle for Okinawa began on the first day of April 1945, and continued for three months. At the end of it some fifty thousand Americans were either dead or injured, and an estimated one hundred and sixty thousand Okinawans had joined them on the list of statistics. Behind each of these deaths and each of these injuries lies a story unique and immensely personal.

Mike Clarke with Shoshin Nagamine 1992

In November 1992 I had the honour of meeting Nagamine sensei. I visited his dojo a number of times and was fortunate to have captured something of his story on tape.
He was in his eighties then, and still training. His hospitality was overwhelming and at times left me feeling somewhat embarrassed. Few martial arts sensei these days are as ‘giving’ as his generation was. The example of generosity he displayed was one of the signs I have come to recognize over the years as being the mark of a budo-no-tatsujin, a master of the martial ways. When I met him he had already been training in karatedo for over seventy years.

The following extracts come from my book ‘Budo Masters, paths to a far mountain’. **

Born in Tomari-son on July 15th, 1907, he was rather small at birth and remained somewhat undersized throughout his childhood. His father, Shoho, and his mother Gozei, did not worry too much about him though as he was just as wild as any other boy of his age. He entered high school in 1923 but shortly afterwards fell ill. The medication he was given proved useless and so he resorted to diet and exercise to improve his health.
The exercise chosen for him was karate. A neighbour, Chojin Kuba sensei, taught karate in his backyard and it was here that the young Nagamine first received instruction in karate. The year was 1925.

Nagamine sensei was drafted in to the Japanese army in 1928 and saw action in Sainan, China, but thankfully most of his national service was less eventful and he eventually found himself back home in Okinawa having received a honourable discharge. Joining the police force soon afterwards, he was now in a position to meet and train with some of Okinawa’s most revered karate and judo masters. At around that time he met and trained with Chotoku Kyan sensei and, whilst on assignment in Tokyo, trained with the notable Choki Motobu sensei.

Back in Naha, Okinawa’s capital, he met often with Chojun Miyagi sensei, and although he never received any official training from him, he told me he learnt a lot from Miyagi sensei by watching him and the way he lived his life.
The two men worked together on creating kata for school children and were successful in producing Gekisai-ichi and Gekisai-ni, Ichi being the kata representing the Shuri-te tradition, and Ni, representing the Naha-te tradition. Both these kata are still in use today by students of both Matsubayashi-ryu and Goju-ryu. In 1940 Master Miyagi recommended to the Butokukai that Nagamine sensei be awarded the title of Renshi.

On June the 23rd, 1945, news reached the small band of policemen, who were trapped in a cave, that Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima had followed the example set by the Commanding Officers of the 62nd and 63rd divisions of the Japanese Imperial Army, and committed suicide. At that point Nagamine sensei realized the futility of fighting on and, in the company of his fellow police officers, he surrendered.

Although karate was the furthest thing from his mind at that time, fate would step in to keep alive a spark of interest where once there had been an intensely burning desire.
Whilst working as a prisoner of war, transporting casualties from Iraha village, he came across a book lying in the dirt on the side of the road. Instinctively he stooped down and picked it up while he continued to walk. Clearing away the mud and dirt from the cover he was amazed to find it was a copy of ‘Karate-do Nyumon’ written by the great karate master, Gichin Funakoshi sensei, founder of the shotokan dojo.

Nagamine sensei kept the book close to him and read it many times over the following months. It inspired him so much that he once more dedicated himself to living his life through the tenets of budo, and he found a new strength to face the many hardships surrounding him at that time.

By the summer of 1947 he had been allocated a small house in the Makishi district of Naha, and shortly afterwards, he began teaching karatedo in a makeshift dojo he opened in his backyard. He felt very strongly at the time that the war had not only stripped away many of the ancient buildings and landmarks from his culture, but more seriously, it had destroyed in the minds of those youngsters who had survived the onslaught, any sense of their heritage. Once known throughout Asia as the; ‘Land of Propriety’, Okinawa was now facing a very uncertain future, and in the day to day struggle for survival, many found the battle to remain morally and spiritually intact just too much.

To help combat this, Nagamine sensei, along with other like-minded karate teachers, did his best to re-introduce the youth of the island to a part of their culture. He believed that in some small measure he was helping them to rise above the devastation that surrounded them. In 1952 Nagamine sensei resigned from the police and in January 1953 set up home above his small grocery shop, and next to his purpose built dojo at 3-14-1 Kimoji, Naha. He called his dojo the kodokan, and his school of karatedo, Matsubayashi-ryu.

During one of my meetings with Nagamine sensei he kindly agreed to be interviewed about his karate. His answers often ran in to great detail about small points that were clearly important to him. At the time the importance of many of these points eluded me, and have only become clear in recent years. What follows is an abridged version of the conversation I had with Nagamine sensei all those years ago at the kodokan in Naha, Okinawa.

I began our conversation by addressing the subject of kata, and I wondered what thoughts he had on them and their importance in understanding karatedo. This was his response.

“ I believe that the kata we practise today are about seventy percent Okinawan and about thirty percent Chinese in content. We can trace many of these movements back as far as the 16th century, and can see where Okinawan kenpo and Chinese martial arts started to exchange and mix. Of course the great contribution made to karate by Okinawa was not kata, but the makiwara [a stout post set in the earth and used to condition the hands, particularly the first two knuckles of the fist]. In China they had, and still have, many tools to develop techniques, but it was the Okinawans who devised and then developed the makiwara that we know today. In olden times men would gather in backyards all over Okinawa and hit the makiwara. I knew a person who did this even though he never visited a karate dojo.

Also, when people travelled to China and then returned home, they practised many of their kata with stretched [open] hands as the Chinese did. But when they saw how strongly a fist could be made they changed the kata by making a fist instead.

Goju-ryu karate is an example of this. I remember about sixty or seventy years ago, people from that tradition [Naha-te] changed the shape of the hands. Uechi-ryu karate has also been changed a little from the way it was done in China, but they have kept the old way [with the hands] when training in Sanchin kata.

I want to emphasise that doing something ‘this way’ or ‘that way’ is not a question of being better or worse, but simply different. So I want to stress that the kata that came from China have been changed and are now Okinawan.”

I knew that Nagamine sensei had known Chojun Miyagi sensei, the founder of goju-ryu, and as a student of that tradition myself I asked him to please share some of his memories. Although Miyagi sensei was almost twenty years older than Nagamine sensei, the two worked closely for a time on the creation of the Gekisai kata and their introduction in to the school physical education curriculum.

“I spent about seven or eight years with Miyagi sensei at the Okinawan police academy here in Naha. We became friends even though he was a lot older than me, and of course, he was very much my senior in karate. At the police academy I used to teach the procedure of law, and Miyagi sensei used to teach karate. It was him who recommended me for the title of Renshi [expert teacher] in 1940. He was a very strong person with a happy, pleasant character, and his karate was really skilful.”

Nagamine sensei saw himself not as a Japanese person but very defiantly Okinawan. From the outside, and from a distance, the differences may seem small. But one only has to go to Okinawa to discover the music the architecture the costume and even the food are all very different from Japan. Even the language [Hogen], though almost lost to the younger generations who have grown up since the Second World War, is still in use. In deed, many of the terms used in an Okinawan karate dojo would be unintelligible to many Japanese karate-ka.
I asked Nagamine sensei why he thought it was that Japanese karate had spread around the world and become more popular than the Okinawan methods? This is what he had to say:

“Well, you must know for a fact how smart the Japanese are when it comes to adapting things. In order to make karate more popular they have developed it as a sport, and this has helped to increase the number of people doing karate. They have developed the numbers of people but, in my opinion, they have not developed the minds and characters of the majority of those people. So now, the quantity is good, but not the quality.
The main reason for this is that many Japanese karate teachers want to eat from karate.
In other words, they want to make a living from it and, furthermore, they want to be sportsmen and women.

Admittedly, there is a sporting element to Okinawan karate today, but this is balanced by the culture we have here and our traditional philosophy. We have not dropped the traditional side of things, as the Japanese have tended to do. So this makes our karate less attractive to those people who are looking for a sporting pastime.
Now, sporting people have changed the kata and most of them no longer have any meaning. You see it is vital to understand kata, as they are the heart of karate. From understanding your kata will come all the other things. If kata has no real meaning in it then it is not kata at all, just movements.

What you have to understand is this, the kata as you do them in the dojo, are only the basic principles. It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to develop your formal kata ability. Now, if you train yourself to do this, and you keep in mind other techniques that may not be seen in the kata, for example hooking kicks, punches and so on, then by studying your kata for a long time you will subconsciously develop the skills for combating even unorthodox techniques.

So the best way is to stick to the old traditional techniques [kata], but always think about how you would use them in application. This has to do with the idea of ‘Shu-Ha-Ri’, or, “Obedience-Breakaway-Transcend’. First you practise exactly as you are taught, then you begin to experiment and start to bring your own experiences in to play. Finally, you reach a level that is yours alone. When you have a problem, you refer to your kata and develop techniques that will help you solve your problem. This kind of training also has to do with your mind, not just the physical techniques. Do you know about Miyamoto Musashi? Well, he used the same way of training; his mind was very strong.

Then there is the question of communication between people, which is very important. You should always take the opportunity to learn from others and their martial arts. But for things to go smoothly a person must have self-confidence. Once this is the case, we can all train together and it doesn’t matter what kind of karate you do.
Of course your roots are important as these are your heritage after all, but it is more important to be a good person and behave properly. In both karate and life, you must learn to rely on yourself and to have confidence, while at the same time you should be humble; this too is vital.”

I expressed the opinion that in my experience many people seem to drop ideas like ‘respect’ and ‘humility’ at the door of the dojo as they leave. Personal integrity too seems to disappear once people are away from the environmental influences of a well-run dojo.

He had this to say.
“To behave as you have described is not the way of karatedo. I know that, for instance, a person will train very hard if someone is watching but then stop as soon as the spectator has gone. In karate you have to train with the same attitude all the time, and it should not matter if people are watching you or not. In Zen they teach; Behave in the company of others as you do when alone, and behave when alone as you do in the company of others.
In karate we have a principle called ‘Shin-Gi-Tai’, ‘Spirit-Technique-Body’. This means, that to do karate well, and to understand it properly, one has to harmonise these three things. Today I think there is an over-emphasis on the Gi and Tai [Technique and Body].
The Shin [Spirit] of the person is often left behind while the other two aspects are worked on. Technique and power seems to be the reason why some people are doing karate today, and this is now a much bigger problem than it was sixty years ago. We should not forget to build a person’s spirit and character. This is very important and I want to emphasis it.

I believe the decline has come about because people want to do karate just for sport or business. To adopt the principles of ‘Shin’ [spirit] through karate training is very hard, and to be successful at it takes a long time. People today want things too quickly and so it is much easier to train just your body without the discipline of ‘Shin’.
The ability to do techniques comes from your knowledge and training in those techniques, but your wisdom comes from your mind and heart. It is now the fashion to look at karate techniques and to explain them with scientific information. Everything has to be logical for the modern person to accept how things work, but this kind of thinking leads them away from searching for the ‘feeling’ of the techniques. The ‘feeling’ for something comes from, if you like, your mind.
In the end, your ability to make things work comes from your ‘feeling’ for the techniques of karate. In future I would like to see more attention given to a student’s education. If karatedo is to be understood by people, we must educate them to develop a good ‘feeling’ for it.”

It should be clear from the above extracts that Nagamine sensei, in spite of his advanced years at the time, still had a mind as sharp and as clear as it ever was. His views and comments may not please everyone, but it should be remembered that he lived through a time, as a young man, that few of us would have been able to survive. His views were forged in the furnace of survival and not in the sporting, business or political arena where many of today’s leading karate teachers reside.

He was ninety years old when he passed away, and left behind him a legacy that is still treasured by many thousands of karate-ka around the world. His dojo still stands in the little side street just off Kokusai-Dori, Naha’s main shopping area, though these days his family store is now a restaurant. Matsubayashi-ryu karate-do’s present Kancho is the founder’s son, Takayoshi Nagamine sensei, who teaches karate three times a week at the kodokan dojo.

**
Budo Masters; paths to a far mountain
Michael Clarke
Published by P.H. Crompton Ltd, London, [2000]
I.S.B.N. 1 874250 26 X