There are aspects in the personal lives of personalities
associated with a particular area, which often escape us and tend to disappear
from the studies about them.
Chojun Miyagi is a great Karate master and the acclaimed
founder of Goju-ryu style, therefore it will not be surprising, that almost all
of the studies will be limited to this issues. Nothing more natural and normal since
this is the area wherein distinguished.
Anyone should be able to find dozens of studies
on the founder of Goju-ryu, in that particular area, but will some achieve to find
studies on other aspects of Master's life?
Many will say that this might be irrelevant, since
it is not the core of his activities, but irrelevance is something inexistent for
any historian in search of view of man as a whole.
How was the man Miyagi, which private habits did
he possessed? What did he liked? We know, by some scarce references that was an
avid reader, an attentive and caring father, an educated and respected person
and, as a matter of fact, very little else.
The aim of this brief paper is to trace in Chojun
Miyagi’s life one of its passions. As indeed as in his Karate, the Master
pursued a search for perfection in the art of Japanese calligraphy: Shodō (書道), literally “the
writing path”.
As an attentive educator to his kids we can
trace on his daughter Thuruko Miyagi, interview on March 30, 1978, a double
concern with organization and shodo.
Thuruko recalls, “He got angry when I did not put my books on the shelves
correctly. When I knew not read Kanji (Chinese character), I put hiragana
(Japanese alphabet) along the Kanji. He was angry that I cannot even memorize
the Kanji”. So we can clearly see the
importance the Master give to writing kanji, something considered vital to
one’s education.
Although we do not have many examples of
Master’s writing we can see them on the cover of his first essay, Karatedo Gaisetsu (唐手道概説/1934), written still with the Tang
character, perfectly and carefully done.
It is without surprise that in order to pursue
the path of writing perfection he studied shodō
with his Sensei Yamashiro Tadashi, a renowned calligraphy master, someone we
can inferred was very closed to him, since we can trace him in two photos taken
with the master’s in Japan mainland during the 30’s.
To have a shodō
Sensei clearly attests he wanted to surpass in skills and deep understanding
the writing skills any Japanese boy (I know Okinawans do not consider
themselves properly Japanese, but they legally were by then) could get at
school. Chojun Miyagi was a grown men by then and he could only had one
objective: excellence and mastery in the art. Chojun Miyagi was a true
perfectionist in any aspect of his life. Shodō
was no exception.
A third and important connection with shodō can still be traceable. Hōhitsu Gushimiyagi (1892 – 1966), a young
fellow pupil of Miyagi under Kanryo Higaonna, latter studied Karate from Miyagi
(for a length we could not trace), while studying japanese calligraphy in depth
and gathering know disciples on the art.
Nevertheless he was Miyagi’s friend for life.
It is know that after the war he
regularly visited Master Miyagi at his home in Tsuboya. The two were so closed
that he nicknamed Miyagi his “big brother pine
tree”. It is know they chattered for long hours, like good friends they
were, about martial arts, classical music (they both were fond of) and a
variety of other things, among them the shared passion for calligraphy. It is
recorded that Master Miyagi one day asked Gushimiyagi to tell a story about
calligraphy, he explained that
“When writing a straight horizontal
line with a brush in calligraphy, you don't
just write a straight line. You write it while breathing from
the tanden with a breathing method which is similar to that of Sanchin. It is
also not merely that simple, but you write with brush, breathing, and mind in
harmony”.
Clearly we can understand that Gushimiyagi
apart from being a skilled calligrapher was also a skilled karateka that could
clearly understand that the way (道) of the brush and the fist are one and the same. And that was also the
path Master Miyagi pursued all his life.
(With deep gratitude to Andreas Quast. It was
one translation he send me that raised the idea of this paper).
References
Morio Higaonna Morio and Tooru Kadekaru. “Gushimiyagi
Hōhitsu 𤘩宮城芳弼 (1892 – 1966)”. In: Shigeru Takamiyagi, Katsuhiko
Shinzato and Masahiro Nakamoto. 2008. Okinawa
Karate Kobudō Jiten. Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 2008, p. 426
Thuruko Miyagi (Yasuko Kojiro). 1978. The
memory of my father, Chojun Miyagi (Interview). March 30, 53rd year of Showa
(1978). http://www.hgweb.nl/isshinryu/history/miyagi.htm
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