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Karate and Health

My father had dedicated his life to the development of karate as a means of physical education already before I was born. In the world of martial arts he was called “Mabuni the technician”. Being one of the inheritors of the authentic Okinawan hand-fighting techniques (te), he was generally considered to be an outstanding expert with respect to techniques. He wanted to develop and spread karate as a method to improve the health situation of the general population.

In contrast to other martial arts, in karate the physical abilities can be enhanced by kata practice. All in all there are about 50 classical kata. Of course not all of them must be learned unless one wants to become a karate teacher. Kata are sequences of movements of attack and defense with respect to one or several imaginary opponents. In order to execute them no training devices are needed. Kata are easy to practice even in larger groups of people, and their practice can be a source of joy. There are some beginners who are afraid of kata exercises with partners called kumite. But in case one practices karate exclusively for one’s health, kumite is not needed. Furthermore one needs only little space. An area of 3.5 to 4 tatami mats (about 75-85 sq ft) should be sufficient.

The Shitō karate developed by my father contains the traditional Okinawan hand-fighting techniques of the Shuri-te and the Naha-te. Apart from some small technical differences, it is a typical feature of the Shuri-te kata that they consist of many effective and fast attack and defense movements designed for long-distance fighting. For the Naha-te kata, close-distance fighting is typical, with “heavy” movements and a special breathing technique derived from Chinese Fukien kempō5. Having such a broad basis it is easy to find the appropriate kata for any age and any kind of physical condition. This is the great advantage of Shitō karate.

Long kata include about 70 different techniques, shorter ones about 20. A short kata does not take more than one minute. During kata practice literally every inch of the body moves, so that results can be seen very soon. Men get strong and well-balanced bodies and women also become more beautiful. No space, no special devices or clothing is needed. So there is no easier method to improve the state of health. Even very busy people should be able to afford the few minutes a day needed to keep fit by kata practice. Some may think that they are already too old for it. But in principle one can start practicing kata at any age. Most of the masters of karate from Okinawa and mainland Japan enjoyed a long life.

The Physical Effects of Karate

I myself could be regarded as living proof. I am now 83 years of age. I have never been seriously ill. Several times a year I travel overseas to supervise karate training. I never feel any jetlag and always start practicing with the young karateka the next morning after my arrival. 6

In 1938 my father published the book Introduction into Attack and Defense Techniques in Karate Kempō.7 He stressed the positive effects of training, writing: “Karate helps to gain more pleasure in all other activities”, “Weak persons can strengthen their body practicing at home”, “Sick and overweight persons get strong muscles and become healthy”, “One drinks less alcohol in the evenings and one works more efficiently at day”, or “Neuralgia and mental weakness get cured”.

My father actively propagated karate as an excellent means to protect and strengthen health. In cooperation with a medical university he could scientifically prove the positive physical effects by blood tests and urinalysis. In his book there are extracts from a research report on the physiological effects of karate by marine physicians. According to their report the metabolic functions and nerve reflexes, the sense of balance and the muscle power were improved. The whole physical condition was harmonized. Thus, the positive influence of karate practice on the body was sufficiently proven.8

When his book was published my father had already been living on mainland Japan and propagating karate for ten years. He had brought from Okinawa a rather spiritual and even religious karate. Present-day karate is unfortunately very far from the one he wanted to spread. In his opinion, practicing karate for self-defense did not only require the training of fighting techniques but also a supporting spiritual and mental education. At the end of the book he wrote: “Once you will be confronted with a situation that demands action you will be able to act.”

Karate in Dangerous Situations

Several times I had the experience of spontaneous reactions towards sudden danger. When I was 16 or 17 I went with a friend to the Shirahama beach in the Wakayama prefecture. We wanted to enjoy the view of the Senjōjiki cliffs. I was wearing a swimming suit, and I just turned my back to the sea and fixed my belt when I was suddenly hit by a huge wave. My friend, facing the sea, saw the wave coming and ran away. But I could not see it and was fully stricken. In this very moment I understood that a wave had swallowed me and that my body had lost its freedom, and so I clung instinctively to the rocks the breakers had thrown me against. Had I allowed the wave to draw me into the sea I would not have survived. Many people have lost their lives this way.

Towards the end of the Greater East Asia War9 I was stationed on the Philippine island of Cebu. When the American troops had landed there with considerable force, we had to flee together with the Japanese settlers to the central highlands. We had to march at night because in daylight American reconnaissance aircrafts were cruising over our heads. So we were marching in total darkness, one hand touching the belt or the shoulder of the man in front. Suddenly I slipped and fell down the slope. When I regained consciousness I found myself about 15 feet below the path, and I was gripping my knapsack. Astonishingly I had remained uninjured. I thought: “Maybe it’s not such a good idea to stay behind.” Then I climbed up the precipice as quick as I could and managed to join the others. I remember that again I thought how helpful it was to practice karate. Once more my body evidently had spontaneously reacted to the sudden danger so that I remained unharmed in spite of the deep fall.

There were many similar occasions, maybe less dramatic, in my life to make me realize that without karate I could have lost my life or at least would have been seriously injured. Some may say that my reactions were due to special training. But this is not correct because everyone can reach the same result if only the person’s karate practice is serious and continuing.

Karate as a Spiritual Martial Art

Karate has changed more and more into a competition sport. This is one of the reasons why the number of women practicing karate mainly for self-defense has recently considerably decreased. But besides health care, self-defense was the original aim and is still a very important aspect of karate.

When my father taught at the Meijō Girls College, he invented two special self-defense kata for girls. One was called Meijō kata according to the name of the school and meaning “bright star”. The other was called Aoyagi (green willow) referring to elegance and gentleness. These kata were made for real combat. They contain techniques against typical attacks towards women like embracing from the front or from behind, and punches that use the energy of the attacker. But these real-combat kata are very short and not appropriate for competition and therefore unfortunately not very popular in our days.

Recently, I read an article in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun. It was about a high school boy in Ōsaka who was at home when a burglar came in and attacked him with a knife. But the boy was clever enough to evade the attack and managed to escape. Afterwards he told a reporter, “When I saw the knife my body reacted spontaneously. If I had not practiced karate I would have been paralyzed by fear.”

To use karate for self-defense, it is not enough to study a number of techniques. One has to develop a special mental energy, ki,10 necessary to mobilize the abilities in the very moment they are needed, that is, just when one is confronted with sudden danger. No matter how often one may have practiced the techniques, without this energy one cannot make use of them. That is why the mental education is so important.

The development of ki is important for all kinds of martial arts, such as jūdō, kendō or iaidō. The mental education is needed to get rid of any inner agitation or inner tensions and to become able to focus the whole mental energy on one point. Since karate is aiming at the ability to defend the own body with empty hands flexible mental energy is extremely important. For this reason one can consider karate as martial art of the soul (ki no budō).

Of course the physical condition affects the general development of a person. It could be said that people who are lacking physical self-confidence are apt to mental and psychological weakness. Because karate practice develops the whole body, even people who begin in a rather weak condition can gain strong physical confidence after a short time, building the basis for mental and psychological strength.

The Breathing Techniques in Karate

However timid and weak a person might have been, by regularly and seriously practicing karate – even if the practice is not very intense – one can experience how the body gradually fills with energy, how self-confidence grows from the ground of the abdomen and calmness installs in a quite natural way in the whole body. This is a particularity of karate.

Especially the breathing techniques (kisoku hō) of the Naha-te are a good example to explain how karate strengthens the spiritual and mental unity.11 It goes without saying that breathing is important for all kinds of martial arts but its deliberate and systematic training is a special aspect of karate. Breathing, and in particular inhaling (iki o suru), is closely connected with life. The Japanese verb meaning “to live” (iki ru) is said to be derived form the expression “to take breath”. People can live without food for about a month. But as is well known, it is hard to survive without breathing.

If one gets nervous in a situation of violence one will lose. Such nervousness comes from disturbances of pulse and blood pressure, which again are caused by breathing disturbances. For this reason some people get also nervous in front of a crowd. When things go wrong somehow and life is full of trouble one often feels depressed. Unconsciously breathing becomes short, flat and throat-centered. In the worst case, one breathes only with the tip of the nose, so to speak. If someone gets used to such kind of breathing he cannot expect to be blessed with a long life.

In order to harmonize the soul one must harmonize breathing. Breathing deeply into the abdomen arranges the energies in the lower abdomen. If in this area everything is “well settled”, one has good reason to hope for a long life. The effects of correct breathing will be greater the better the breathing rules are understood and followed consciously. I studied several breathing techniques like those of yoga or qigong. According to them, holding the breath (taisoku) is harmful. But in karate it is regarded to be very reasonable. It strengthens the heart and improves the flexibility of breathing. I am now more than 80 years of age but I do not have any problems climbing a staircase and never grasp for air.

The State of Total Inner Calmness

Karate practice develops body, spirit and fighting abilities. Since these three aspects of education are closely connected in the kata, kata training allows progress in all of them. This kind of learning is a real pleasure and can be a never-ending one.

In the Edo period (17th to 19th century) the samurai of the Nabeshima fief on Kyūshū Island (now Saga prefecture) were educated on the basis of the famous warrior code Hagakure12. The first rule a samurai had to follow was about his attitude towards aging. This rule demanded that learning and practicing should never end. No matter which level of abilities a samurai may have reached, how high in the hierarchy he might be, there is no reason for conceit, no reason to stop learning and improving oneself. 13

Those who learn only in order to win over others, to be better and stronger than others, are people who in fact learn for others. This is not the right way. A real master follows his way by continuously trying day by day, all his life, to improve himself. If one does not practice karate with joy so that nothing can stop oneself whatever people might say, this cannot be called true karate. Only if one enjoys practicing karate for oneself, not for others, if one cannot stop even if one would like to, one will experience karate as an endless path and reach a state of total concentration and inner silence.

About such a state of deep concentration called zanmai,14 my father once wrote the following words: “I enjoy my mind getting empty while rowing to the island of bu«.15

There is a Japanese term called gunshū meaning “learning by absorbing the smell”. It is based on the idea that the odor of an object is transmitted to the person steadily handling it. If one works with wood one will gradually acquire a wooden smell. What one does and thinks day by day finally becomes part of oneself, shapes the character and gives a certain “smell”. When my father was a policeman on Okinawa, visiting the karate masters at hidden places, teaching karate at the fishery school or attending karate performances, he always took me along and let me sit on his lap. That is maybe how I acquired his “smell”.

I always remember my father stripped to the waist practicing with his comrades in the light of a naked bulb, encouraging each other and forgetting the world around them. After he had moved to Ōsaka, he never knew what the day would bring. Nevertheless he went on with his life devoted to the study of karate, spending time with his comrades with whom he often shared his food and shelter. He also took care of the tatami mats that were always worn fast by the practice of the karateka. When one of his students came home from the battlefields of the Pacific War unharmed, he was as happy as he was when I returned. All this is the “smell” of my father my body has absorbed and I shall never lose. I also shall go the way of my father, the way of karate, which has no end. I shall practice karate as long as my body can move, step-by-step, stage-by-stage. I cannot predict how far I will come. But I know that I shall move on as long as I can. Progressing and improving oneself, that is what really makes sense, provides pleasure and joy. This is special about budō karate, that kind of karate I would like to propagate and that is the subject of this book.

I

1 The Development of Karate
1.1 Karate as Fighting Technique
Unarmed Fighting in Ancient Times

Methods of fighting without arms are mentioned in the ancient records of all peoples and therefore can be considered to be part of the common heritage of mankind. In the oldest Japanese chronicle Kojiki16, a fight between the gods Takemigazuchi no kami and Takeminakata no kami is mentioned which took place on the Inasa beach in the Izumo region. The Nihonshoki annals report about a fight between Nomi no Sukune and Taima no Kehaya. This fight is considered to be the moment when sumō was born.17 But in contrast to present-day sumō it must have been a life-and-death struggle. Although carried out without weapons it was nevertheless a fight without rules, since Sukune broke Kehaya’s hips and then kicked him to death.

Such techniques of fighting without weapons have existed everywhere in the world since ancient times. It is even reported that in ancient India Buddha has fought against his younger brother for the right to marry a beautiful girl. I saw fights in India that were very similar to sumō. In ancient China there were fist-fighting techniques called kempō in Japanese. In the Spring and Autumn Annals18 they were called “brave fist” (kenyū) or “martial art” (bugei), during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) “punching technique” (gigeki) and in the Han period (202 BC to AD 220) simply “technique” (gikō) or “circular punching” (shubaku).

Shaolin Kempō – the Fighting Techniques of the Warrior Monks

The Shaolin-Kempō was created in the Chinese Shaolin monastery that was built in 495 (late Wei period) by order of the emperor Xiào Wén (471-499) for the Zen Buddhist priest Ba Tuo, who had come from India. The monastery is placed in the Honan province south of the Yellow River at the foot of the Songshan mountains. That is why it was also named Songshan Shaolin. It became famous because Bodhidharma19 (Japanese: Daruma), who became the founder of Zen Buddhism in China, stayed there and introduced zazen20. This might be the reason why he was – probably by mistake – considered to be the founder of the temple and the father of kempō, too.

Fighting techniques were developed particularly in the monasteries because they owned rich treasures of art and other property that the monks had to defend in this country that was ceaselessly stricken by unrest and war. The term Shaolin kempō includes all techniques that were invented in the monastery itself or came from the surrounding region. Some of them got lost in the course of time, such as the “smashing fist” (tsūhai ken), the “animated fist” (shin i ken) or the “cosmic fist” (rikugō ken).

In the Shaolin monasteries the monks were divided into prayer monks who where specialized in religious studies and warrior monks who mainly practiced fighting techniques. Those to become warrior monks had their hair shaved and wore monks’ habit immediately after entering the monastery. They spent their monastic life mostly with martial exercise rather than with Buddhist studies. The present-day Japanese style of Shaolin kempō (called Shōrinji kempō) practiced as a religious exercise is a historically new phenomenon that appeared after World War II. It was founded by Master Sō Dōshin (1911-1980).

Incidentally, since the Ming period the Shaolin monks were famous rather because of their staff fighting, kompō21 or bōjutsu, than because of their fist-fighting techniques. The Fukien kempō was developed in the Fukien and Kanton provinces in southern China. This martial art, too, is said to originate from a Shaolin monastery – not the Songshan Shaolin but another one built later in the Fukien province.

The Fukien Shaolin temple does not exist anymore. Possible remains were found at different places. That is why its location could not be determined until today. Because the Songshan Shaolin monastery was located north to the Yangtze River and the Fukien Shaolin monastery south to it, their respective martial arts were also referred to as northern and southern Shaolin or northern and southern kempō.

As in other countries, there were times when certain religions were supported and times when they were suppressed by the rulers. So the Shaolin temple, too, experienced times of promotion and prosperity and times of suppression and destruction. There might have been monks who practiced in both temples or others who had to flee the Shaolin monasteries and found shelter in other temples were they shared their knowledge and fighting experience with their hosts. It can be supposed that their knowledge and abilities were spread even among the common people. Chinese distinguished between the “monastery or house” kempō of the monks and the “outsiders” kempō of the commoners. The taijiquan is an example of the latter.

That is how present-day Chinese kempō developed in a long historical process out of different schools and styles of fighting without weapons which influenced each other. But there is no doubt that Chinese heroism in general was inspired by the monks of the two Shaolin monasteries. Like the monks of the Japanese Hieizan monastery at the end of the medieval times they took up arms and intervened in the secular world.

So did Minamoto no Yoshitsune and Musashi Bō Benkei at the end of the Heian period (794-1185) in Japan. Yoshitsune, who as a child was called Ushiwaka-maru, lived in the Kurama monastery north of the capital Kyōto. He studied esoteric Buddhist teachings (mikkyō)22,and started to practice fighting techniques. He was said to have been taught martial arts by the long-nosed mountain spirit of Kurama called Dai Tengu23. To strengthen his body he walked every day from the Kurama mountains to the center of the capital. Once he encountered the fearsome warrior monk Benkei on the Gojō bridge of Kyōto. In a great fight he achieved a victory over him.24 This episode is widely known in Japan because it is part of a famous kabuki25 theater play.