NEWTECHNIQUESBY
FUNAKOSHI
?( : Gichin Funakoshi)
It is a well-documented fact that Funakoshi was an educator and also a very creative person. He brought many inventions to karate. To name a few: he is known to be the person responsible for switching Heian Shodan and Nidan; he replaced the old kata names with
more Japanese sounding names; he invented the karate-gi and belt; and he introduced a dan ranking system and dojo kun. Let me further elaborate on these creations although the main subject is about the new techniques he brought in.
I had written a separate chapter on the mysteries of the Heian kata, and the particular subject of Pin-an Shodan and Nidan being switched is already in that chapter, so I will only state here that Funakoshi decided to switch the names because the original Shodan was much more difficult than Nidan. It was his judgment from an educator’s point of view that it was better for the novice to learn the current Shodan first. I believe
no one disputes this judgment.
He changed many of the kata names. For instance, his favorite kata Kanku Dai was called Kosokun or Kusanku or Kushanku in Okinawa. Enpi was Wansu or Wanshu, and Gankaku was Chinto. For westerners it really does not matter if a kata is called Kanku or Kosokun as both are foreign words. But for Funakoshi it was a bold but necessary move. Once again, although I have written about this in my book Shotokan Myths, this subject is extremely important so I want to mention it here again.
When Funakoshi brought karate to mainland Japan in the early 20th century,
recognized or known as a part of Japan. In fact, Ryukyu was an independent country until 1879 when it was formally annexed by the Satsuma clan of Japan. The Ryukyus were not considered part of Japan and the Ryukyu people were not considered Japanese. Believe it or not, this prejudice against the Okinawan people continues to the present day. Funakoshi moved to Japan in 1922, only forty some years after the annexation so you can imagine the kind of challenges he had to face. He was not considered as true Japanese, and karate was not a Japanese martial art but that of a foreign country with closer origins to Chinese martial arts. I am sure he could speak Japanese but guessed that he probably
had a heavy accent. The culture of Okinawa was very different from Japan’s; other than languages, even clothing and etiquette varied. Karate has become very Japanese nowadays and most westerners do not doubt it came from Japan. But that was not the case at all in the first ten or twenty years after Funakoshi introduced this art to Japan. For karate to be adopted as a Japanese martial art, Funakoshi had to come up with many creative ideas and adjustments (changes) for which we must give him a lot of credit. Without his courageous decisions karate might not have been adopted by Japanese then, and that could have meant that this art might just have remained as a secret martial art
of the Okinawans. Ultimately, this would have meant that there would be no Japan Karate Association (JKA) and Shotokai, and no exporting of instructors such as Oshima, Nishiyama, Okazaki, Mori and Mikami to the US, and Harada, Enoeda, Kase, Shirai and Ochi to Europe. Without them, it would be difficult to imagine how karate could reach the level of popularity that we enjoy now, and practiced and enjoyed by millions of people around the world. In order to get rid of this “foreignness” Funakoshi changed the names to something more “Japanese.” Additionally at that time, Japan was at the height of imperialism and was in conflict with China, thus anything Chinese was not a popular thing
in Japan.
When we think of this now, the change seemed to be very natural but I know that some of the Okinawa masters had severely objected to it back then. Their idea was to protect and “uphold” their tradition which is also understandable. This was one of the reasons why Funakoshi decided not to return to Okinawa. Even though his wife lived in Okinawa and they had been separated for many years, he remained in Japan until he passed away in 1957.
His other inventions are the karate-gi and the dan rank system. I have mentioned earlier that Jigoro Kano, the founder of modern day Judo, was interested in Karate. Not only was Kano the owner of the biggest Judo dojo of the world at that time with literally thousands of registered students in Tokyo alone, he was also the school’s principal as well as an original member of the Olympics Committee in Japan. He was the man of power in the Japanese
martial arts world who could either help or destroy Funakoshi. So naturally Funakoshi adopted some of Judo’s characteristics into karate. One of them was to make a karate-gi look almost exactly like a Judo-gi. He also adopted the belt system and dan ranks just like the way it was done in Judo. Funakoshi never claimed any dan rank for himself because he was very humble. The dan system is a newly developed feature in karate so by not claiming any rank he wanted to show the Okinawan masters that he himself had not changed.
I must make note of one important thing that not too many people know or consider important: the one thing that Funakoshi refused to adopt from Judo
was its sports objective and its Shiai or tournament system. He proclaimed that karate is budo (a martial art) until he died and did not allow for any tournaments. Founded in 1949, Funakoshi was the first chairman of the JKA. JKA did not have its famous All Japan Championship or Zenkoku Taikai until 1957, the very year that Funakoshi passed away. Of course that was not coincidental. JKA had to wait until he passed away as they could not get Funakoshi’s blessing to hold tournaments. I can sympathize with Funakoshi as I can easily guess that he was frustrated by his wishes to make karate popular, yet have to keep it as a martial art and not a sport.
Another addition to karate training was the recitation of the famous Dojo Kun. There are five of them and I will not go deep into this as most practitioners are very familiar with them since we repeat them after every training session. I will write a separate chapter on why Funakoshi had to add the Dojo Kun to the training menu. You will see that Funakoshi was a real educator and he could foresee some potential problems when karate eventually became very popular.
DojoKun writtenby TetsuhikoAsai
Funakoshi did not only make changes on exterior things like kata names and gi, he also ventured into the core of karate and altered Shotokan karate from its original Okinawan form of Shorin-ryu. I wish to cover three distinctive techniques: yoko ke-age, kokutsu dachi and ki-ai. Without knowing the background and how these techniques came to life, they can be the mysteries of Shotokan.