Article

The Road to Karate – A Budoka’s Way To Live
By Hiroshi Shoji. Shihan of the Japan Karate Association.

Part 23 Chapter 4 - "Kanku"

"Respect others"

"Refrain from violent behaviour"

Divine Technique
Kanku is the name of a Kata which used to be called Kushanku. This name may originate from a Chinese person named Kushanku, who came over to Okinawa with some of his disciples and taught a sort of hand combat art. As in this case, many of the names of Kata derive from the names of masters who created or taught those Kata, or the names of Buddhist monks. Or they derive from the particular movements of animals. Therefore, it is difficult to judge the contents of the Kata from their names.

I had an opportunity during my school days to see Funakoshi Gichin Sensei’s demonstration of Kanku. I was only a beginner in Karate and still remember that I thought it was a rather slow Kata, even though this Kata was meant to be performed fast. But my instructor, Nakayama Sensei commented that the circular motion and closing of the hands of Funakoshi Sensei was like a fine art beyond description. At that time I was impressed how different the view of an advanced Karate-ka was to mine. Now I think that the movement of Funakoshi Sensei’s Kanku was not calculated to try to produce 100% of his physical power, but it was perfection in opening his mind from the consciousness of performing Kata. Funakoshi Sensei’s Kata provided those who were able to see how natural his movement was with a profound impression. We, the students, still did not have the ability to appreciate such fine points in depth.

There was an incident to demonstrate the importance of becoming open-minded when performing Kata. It occurred when I went to pick Funakoshi Sensei up at his house for grading examinations for which Takushoku University was responsible. As Funakoshi Sensei, dressed in Haori and Hakama (Japanese formal coat and skirt-like trousers), stepped out of the front door of his house, a speeding car rushed towards him.

“Watch out”. I tried to scream, but could not because I was taken by a surprise which took my voice away. At the same time I could not believe what I witnessed. Sensei rolled his body along the side of the car and started walking as if nothing had happened. I was amazed by the unbelievable body shift of Funakoshi Sensei. I could not believe that he was over eighty years old. I was not able to say a word and just watched him walking away in surprise. His daughter who was at the door seeing him off said to me that these kinds of things happen quite often, as probably she sensed that I was in shock. This was an incident that proved that through practising Kata thoroughly we could acquire a movement or technique that could save us at a time of crisis threatening our safety. A threat does not come only from the enemy facing us. Today we are facing heavy and dangerous vehicle traffic. We may need to protect ourselves not only from enemies but also from other things. In later years when I learned Kata called “Meikyo”, I found that a similar body shift to the one Funakoshi Sensei had demonstrated to avoid the speeding car was included in the Kata. This made me recall clearly even today the incident of the speeding car coming towards Funakoshi Sensei and his movement to dodge the car.

To those who are versed in Karate like Funakoshi Sensei, sudden and unconscious movements will be all based on Karate techniques. Such movements will not be practised as special movements separately and isolated from other techniques in Karate. When Kata is practised unintentionally in its entirety, such movements will be perfected and become our own movements.

Those who are versed in their own fields are great. The author, the late Yukio Mishima, used to come and train at the JKA. He was an extremely busy person and his schedule written in his diary was set by the minute. We were impressed with his enthusiasm for Karate. One day I asked him to write a script for our pamphlet. Although he was a very busy person, he accepted my request without any hesitation. What he requested at that time was that even though he did not mind noises around him, we should not speak to him whilst he was working on a script, otherwise it would slow down his pen. He started writing a script quickly on the spot. I felt something not to be interfered with within Mr. Yukio Mishima, who had developed as a pinnacle of literature. I felt my respect for him coming out naturally from within myself. A few weeks later, that shocking incident where he cut his abdomen and died took place. The two pages of a script that Mr. Yukio Mishima wrote so quickly is treasured and stored at the JKA as the only script that he had left for the JKA.

It is great for one to excel in a particular area. But such excellence will become a waste if further progress based on the excellence possessed is not achieved. A person who was a very good high jumper came to try for his first dan, but his Karate was not good at all. I gave him advice that he should incorporate his excellent jumping ability in his Karate. But he just kept concentrating on jumping only and did not progress in his Karate.

During our university time, we used to show off the darkened skin of callous developed on our fists, which looked like a clam with a rough shell, and teased each other, calling “Makiwara 2nd dan” or “Makiwara 3rd dan”. Such expressions refer to the callous on the fist that even a person with no experience in Karate can develop from punching Makiwara just for fun. Of course the hardened skin on the fist is good, but the importance of punching Makiwara lies in somewhere else. What is important is strength in stance and the ability to generate a destructive impact in our punch by rotating our hips fast. We cannot say that we have done Karate just from making a superficial callous on the fist whilst ignoring the logics in speed and power. A callous is to be developed as a result of the dynamically logical movement that is squeezed out of our body.

One day when a foreigner watching us working on Makiwara commented that we could harden the skin of our fists by an injection of some substance or by something else. We just shook our head. During my university days I practiced Nukite (the spear hand with four fingers together slightly bent), a form of attacking horizontally or vertically, particularly to the rib cage, side of abdomen, solar plexus, jinchu (translator’s notes: Jinchu is the vital point just under the nose).

I think it was when I was in my third year of university. The Karate Federation of Kanto Universities visited and demonstrated Karate to class A war criminals at the Sugamo Prison. Our Karate Club also participated in the demonstration. One of the demonstrations made by a member of the Karate Club of another university was the breaking of three boards of one centimetre in thickness each, with a so called “Nukite” – I found out later that it was not Nukite but Washide (or eagle hand). In Washide the tips of the five fingers are put together forming a shape of the beak of a bird, which is effective when used for an attack to the throat or other vital points of the body. I was impressed and brought home leftover board and tried with Washide as the student from another university did. I broke them easily. This is because the force can be concentrated on the thumb in Washide that makes breaking easy. I laughed at the exaggeration of calling Washide “Nukite”. I also found at the same time that it was difficult to break boards with Nukite. Since this time I started practicing Nukite.

Speaking about training in Nukite, there was nobody who had experience in Nukite training. So, I started Nukite training in my own way, referring to stories about Nukite that I had heard from other people. I first tried a cloth sack filled with sand. I tried but the fine grain sand was packed hard and I could not stab the sand with my Nukite. Therefore, I replaced the sand with soybeans. I could now stab the beans with my Nukite up to the wrist, making the ear-pleasing sound of “swish, swish”. I then moved to rice. A slight change in the size of the grain caused excruciating pain piecing through the top of my head. I had a habit of biting my nails all the time, so my nails were short. The skin close to where the nails grew had splits and got swollen. The pain was unbearable, but I thought if I had stopped now, the training that I had up until now would become nothing. I gritted my teeth and continued my Nukite training. As a result I became able to break three boards together, two centimetres in thickness each, with my Nukite. As far as Nukite was concerned, I achieved success. I showed my Nukite at a Karate demonstration, which was held occasionally. But, this is a side technique and that we are able to do Nukite very well does not necessarily mean that our Karate is strong. The key point is how we can utilise such training to the development of ourselves. We should not train in Nukite for the purpose of showing it off to people like a road show. I still maintain the strength in my Nukite today. I demonstrated my Nukite to other people only when Karate was not comprehensively understood.

Today I have no intention of spreading the base of Karate with such a showman technique. Breaking board or roof tiles or breaking other materials in general is a form of misrepresentation of the real nature of Karate-do and it lacks the aspects of Budo. I hope that people do not think that such an unthinkable technique is Karate itself. Such a technique is not a divine technique. They are by-product techniques that will be achieved during the course of training to strengthen certain parts of our body. It is my wish that the intrinsic nature of Karate will be understood deeply to assist the development of humanity. To be continued....

Read our Tribute to Shoji Sensei from November 2003

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