Monday, February 7, 2011 by C. Michael Jones
After posting my last blog entry, Beyond Style, I received an email that read:
“I disagree with your blog post regarding styles. There are still pure styles of karate out there, and you should not infer otherwise.”
Now, if one reads that previous article carefully, I do not believe I said anything directly about the “purity” of style. However, since the subject has now been raised, it is worth discussing.
And because this is primarily a Goju-Ryu based blog, let us begin there.
The history of Goju-Ryu is, in itself, enough to make the idea of “pure karate” far more complicated than many practitioners would like to admit.
We know that Kanryo Higaonna traveled to China and trained under the enigmatic Ryu Ryu Ko before returning to Okinawa and eventually teaching his own students. Traditional Goju-Ryu history tells us that his senior student, Chojun Miyagi, learned eight kata from him that would later form the basis of Goju-Ryu Karate-do.
Modern historical researchers, however, have suggested that Higaonna may have only taught four kata.
Immediately we are faced with a problem.
If Higaonna taught only four kata, then why did Miyagi state that he learned eight? Conversely, Juhatsu Kyoda, founder of Toon-Ryu and another direct student of Higaonna, passed down that he learned only four.
So who is right?
The uncomfortable answer is that we may never know.
Perhaps both accounts are correct. Perhaps Higaonna’s formal public teachings centered around four kata, while only a select few senior students were entrusted with more. We know that many of his students learned only one or two kata. We also know that Higaonna spent the last years of his life living with Miyagi. It is entirely possible that additional teachings were transmitted privately during that period—either because Higaonna feared losing material or because he viewed Miyagi as his primary successor.
But this is, at best, informed speculation.
The point is simple: even at the very root of Goju-Ryu history, certainty is elusive.
Now let us complicate the matter further.
After Miyagi’s death, several of his senior students went on to establish dojo and organizations of their own: Eiichi Miyazato of the Jundokan, Meitoku Yagi of the Meibukan, Seiko Higa of the Shodokan, and Seikichi Toguchi of the Shoreikan.
All were direct inheritors of Miyagi’s teachings.
Yet anyone who has spent time studying these branches knows one undeniable fact:
They do not teach Goju-Ryu in exactly the same way.
The kata differ.
The bunkai differ.
The supplementary exercises differ.
The body mechanics differ.
Even the training emphasis differs.
So which one is correct?
Which one is the pure Goju-Ryu?
My answer is both simple and frustrating:
All of them are correct, and none of them are absolutely correct.
Each founder taught what he learned from Miyagi to the best of his understanding, filtered through his own body, his own experience, his own insights, and the decades of development that followed Miyagi’s passing.
This is where many karate practitioners become uncomfortable, because they want certainty. They want a clean line that says: this is authentic and that is not.
But karate has never functioned that neatly.
Karate is ultimately an individual endeavor.
Take two students who begin under the same teacher on the same day and train side by side for twenty years. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the teacher gives both students exactly the same information, with the same attention and the same detail. At the end of those twenty years, if both are asked to perform the same kata, I would be willing to wager that the kata will not be identical.
They may be structurally similar, certainly.
But identical? No.
Why?
Because each person develops differently. Each body moves differently. Each mind processes differently. Each practitioner comes to his or her own realizations about timing, power, rhythm, breathing, intent, and application. Over time, each person places his own signature upon the art.
Now imagine those two students go off and open dojo of their own, each claiming to teach exactly what their teacher taught them. Give it five years. Give it ten.
The differences will only become more pronounced.
Not because one is dishonest.
Not because one is wrong.
But because no two karate-ka are robots.
I have seen this firsthand within my own lineage.
The Komakai dojo was originally the Jundokan of Indiana, founded by Larry Pickel after his return from Okinawa. After he ceased teaching, the dojo was further developed by Glenn Keeney, who turned it into a dominant force on the American tournament circuit.
Today, only a handful of us remain who trained extensively under Mr. Keeney, and even fewer who spent twenty years or more with him.
Last year, several of us attempted to reunite and train together.
In my opinion, it did not go well.
Almost immediately the discussion became: “That’s wrong—Sensei taught me this way,” or “No, Sensei taught it this way.” Everyone believed his memory was the accurate one. Everyone believed his interpretation was the faithful one. By the end, people left frustrated, and some no longer speak to one another.
How can that happen when all of us came from the same source?
Because each of us absorbed that source differently.
My father, Mr. Keeney’s senior student, spent decades ensuring that what was taught in his dojo remained as close as possible to what he was given by his only karate teacher. Over the years I trained and tested directly in front of Mr. Keeney. I even sought him out privately to have my kata corrected and approved.
Others can say the same.
So who is right?
Again—the answer is that reality is not that simple.
People have different strengths.
People have different weaknesses.
People have different bodies.
People move differently.
We are not machines designed to produce carbon copies.
Personally, I do not teach kata exactly as they were first taught to me by Mr. Keeney. In 1990 I was told to go out and learn, so I did. I trained with many people, but I developed a particularly close relationship with the Jundokan of Kentucky and its chief instructor, Lloyd Johnson. Through Mr. Johnson, and through further training with senior Goju-Ryu instructors such as Morio Higaonna, Yuchi Chinen, Eiichi Miyazato, and others, I found myself led back toward the beginning of my own lineage.
That journey shaped my karate.
And yet, even among those very seniors, one can observe visible differences in kata performance.
So who, then, has the right Goju-Ryu?
The answer, I believe, is this:
No one possesses karate in a frozen, untouchable state.
Each practitioner may strive to preserve what was handed down, and should strive to do so honestly, but inevitably each individual leaves fingerprints upon the art. Those fingerprints may be small, but they are there.
This does not mean that all things are equal. It does not mean abandoning standards, dojo structure, or lineage. It simply means acknowledging an unavoidable truth:
As surely as one human being differs from another, so too will one karate-ka differ from another.
There are many roads up the mountain.
The mountain remains the same.
But each of us will climb it in our own way.
And in the end, each serious practitioner carries a style that is, at least in part, uniquely his own.
I welcome your thoughts and comments below. This is a discussion worth having.
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