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History of Wado Ryu—Continued
Folklore has it that Bo dharma, the original Buddha, while on his travels gathered together different fighting techniques, and on his arrival in China he taught these techniques to the monks as a form of physical exercise with which to condition the body to make it fit to carry the soul. In the absence of any documented fact, we may just as well except this story as any other.
What is certain however, is that the Chinese took these fighting techniques and developed them into a high art form, and never more so than within the temples of Shoalin. Contrary to popular opinion, the Shoalin temples were not a haven for poor monks. They were highly profitable business centres and used to charge exorbitant fees for students wishing to learn Kung Fu. Sometimes over £100,000 in today's terms for a full-time residential place. It is reported that one student paid the equivalent to the cost of eleven average sized houses.
Kung Fu flourished and hundreds of different styles developed. Often these were very small schools consisting of only a handful of people and many of them died out when the master himself died. In an effort to make their own styles as identifiable as a possible, many masters based their movements on creatures, monkey, snake, and so on. One of the most significant of these styles was White Crane, and this can be traced through Okinawa and into modern Karate.
Parallel developments led to the blending of Kung Fu with the Traditional Chinese medicine arts of acupuncture. This resulted in the highly mysterious and still often misunderstood art of Dim Mak, or death touch.
Yet another deviation concentrated purely on the physical conditioning and spiritual side, removing all martial and dangerous aspects to form Tai Chi Chuan.
The Okinawan Link
The islands of Okinawa lie between Japan and the Mainland China and were subject to constant invasion by her neighbours. However, the Okinawan people were extremely resilient and resisting all attempts at subjugation, continued to fight each invader.
It was a regular occurrence that the occupational armies would prohibit all weapons to the Okinawans. As a result, the Okinawans developed a highly efficient unarmed combat system known as Te, hand. They also learned to adapt their traditional farming implements into effective and lethal weapons. They trained with these constantly and in secret, developing extraordinarily high levels of skill. This gave rise to the weapons that we now know today as nunchakas, sai, tonfa, bo, Jo, kamae, ekubo and so on.
Eventually, a cautious peace developed between Okinawa and China and trading links were established.
A Chinese general named Ku San Ku, a master of White Crane Kung Fu, settled on Okinawa. He taught his techniques to the local population who readily absorbed this new knowledge and added it into their own indigenous art of Te.
It is probably around this time that the first use of the name karate was coined. Although at this time it meant 'China hand'. The Japanese, having a natural suspicion of all things Chinese, changed this word to the similar sounding Japanese word for empty, Kara, giving our modern interpretation of karate meaning empty hand. The Kanji for Kara can also mean all-encompassing. So it could be said that you use the whole power of the universe in your empty hand!
Okinawa was divided into two main Prefectures, Shuri and Naha. Each of these regions developed their own recognisable forms of Te. Sometimes these are erroneously described as Shuri Te and Naha Te. Although these styles never actually existed as recognised Ryu., school.
Gradually, Okinawa and Japan learned to live with each other. And in 1920, an Okinawan school teacher, named Gichin Funakoshi, a master of Okinawan Te, was invited to Japan to display his art. And so karate entered mainland Japan. Funakoshi formalised the training so that it could be taught in the universities.
The Samurai Connection
In the preceding centuries Japan had had its own troubles. Civil War and feuding Shogunate had been a way of life for centuries. The constant fighting between the different regions led to the development of a warrior class known as the Samurai. The Samurai honed their skills to perfection with weapons such as the katana, long sword, wakasashi, short sword and tanto, knife. It was from here, that the martial art of Ken Jutsu, sword techniques, was developed.
It was not uncommon for Samurai to be disarmed during battle. In most instances, this would prove to be fatal. However, through a sort of natural selection a series of techniques were discovered that an unarmed Samurai could use against armed opponents. This became known as AikiJutsu, meaning 'Spirit in harmony with technique'.
From AikiJutsu, some of the more brutal, battlefield techniques were removed leading to the formation of Jujitsu. This was further sanitised by Jigaro Kano to form the sport version known as Judo. He added the word do, meaning 'The way' to gain further acceptance in the Shinto dominated Japanese society.
Morihei Ueshiba, took the AikiJutsu techniques and formed them into a softer, self defence system known as Aikido, once again replacing the word jutsu with 'do'.
The Birth of Wado Ryu
Hinori Ohtsuka was born in 1828 and studied from a very early age Yoshin Shindo Ryu Jujitsu, one of the harder, more aggressive styles of the art. In 1950 he became the head of the Ryu. He also studied with Funakoshi in his newly formed karate do, known as Shotokan, so named after the house of 'Shoto' where Funakoshi first trained.
Ohtsuka liked what he saw of karate but felt there was something missing, in particular, the more aggressive, attacking movements. He went to Okinawa to study with the old masters and the people who had taught Funakoshi. He replaced many of the techniques that had been removed. He then blended this with his Jujitsu and incorporated some sword techniques of Ken jutsu and Tanto Dori, knife techniques. This formed the basis of Wado Ryu, the way of peace and harmony.
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