I'm glad to see the forum back online. I missed it.
To get a discussion going, I will post the following comments and ask the members to respond with their views and analysis.
I recently finished Bruce Clayton’s book on Shotokan, entitled “Shotokan’s Secret,” which proposes a radical re-interpretation both of the history of this style and of the kata bunkai. Whether you agree with Clayton or not, the book deserves study and discussion.
Clayton’s postulates that hard style, linear karate, as developed by Matsumura and passed down to Azato, Itosu, and eventually Funakoshi, was not intended as a general system of self defense. Rather, it had a limited and specialized purpose: as a combat system for the unarmed bodyguards surrounding and protecting the 19th century Okinawan kings. According to Clayton’s analysis, the kata were created or adapted from older versions to address the specific problems Matsumura expected the king’s bodyguards to face.
Clayton argues that the kata should be looked at first with regard to the environment that the bodyguards faced. He suggests that the main challenge the bodyguards faced was an attempt to seize the king’s person, so the guards trained to accomplish two things. First, they trained to evacuate the king from his immediate location. Second, they trained to fight in a crowd of hostiles (either Satsuma samurai or Western sailors, who frequented Okinawa in the 19th century before the opening of Japan to the West by Perry) so that evacuation could occur. Clayton contends that these two imperatives explain why kata takes the form it does and contains its specific movements.
For instance, in tekki, Clayton argues that this kata represents the method of defending the king or another high official who is behind the bodyguard, often against a wall. (Dillman rejects this view.) One fights outnumbered against attackers until the principle can be spirited away, usually up a staircase.
The other kata represent the techniques to be used by those not immediately with the principle. Clayton argues that those bodyguards not immediately with the principle were expected to wade into any hostile group and strike down as many as possible, creating confusion and delay, until the “extraction” team removes the principle. At that time, the delay team withdraws. Combat by the delay team is marked by rapid movements from one attacker in the crowd to another. Attackers receive one or two blows which are intended to be debilitating but not necessary fatal or long-lasting in effect (although they could be both). Because the defender is surrounded and attacked from all sides, he does not have the luxury of giving much attention to any single attacker. He must strike hard and move on. Thus, the emphasis on the one-punch knock down and the rather reckless firing of techniques without much heed to one’s own safety. As a bodyguard, however, one is not interested in one’s own personal safety, but that of the principle.
Clayton proposes that the kata should be studied with these “bodyguard” factors in mind. He starts by speculating what techniques a bodyguard in the Okinawan throne room of Shuri castle, the most likely venue for combat, would need to carry out his mission. He comes up with an extensive list which includes breaking out of various holds and chokes, defeating attempts at tackles, rapidly shifting from one opponent to another, rapidly clearing a path through enemies, snatching enemy weapons, and dropping enemies quickly with a minimum of blows.
He goes on to suggest a number of bunkai for the kata based on this evaluation. Many of them I have not seen before. Some of them are rather startling and, once you see them, they seem obvious and you want to hit yourself in the head for not having thought of them already. For instance, the mysterious and odd opening to Heinan Nidan is explained not as two simultaneous blocks (outward and rising) but as a neck twist to defeat an attempted tackle followed by a hammer fist to the attacker’s head. I have tried this bunkai and it is sweet. The movements exactly match the kata. It is a far more satisfying bunkai than the lame double-block, arm break sequence which is usually taught (or is in my system and as shown to me by one of Chosei Chibana’s students). In another example, Clayton suggests that the opening move in kanku dai, when you’re “viewing the sky,” is not a passive meditation but actually a break to a double wrist grab. In a third, he suggests that that weird opening to bassai dai is also a break to a double wrist grab. I’ve also tried both of these and they work as described. There are others equally as surprising and effective.
Clayton concludes by speculating why Azato and Itosu did not pass down the bunkai to Funakoshi. As bodyguards to the king, they were preparing the next generation of guards should the king, who was taken into exile in Japan 1879, return to Okinawa. But they were pledged to secrecy and because the trainees were not sworn bodyguards, Azato and Itosu could not tell them what the techniques were for because that would have broken their vow of silence. But the last Okinawan king died in 1901, releasing them from their vow. The following year, Itosu took karate public, but by then, when the bodyguarding aspect of karate was not longer needed, he had become convinced of the “do” nature of karate and taught it as a “do” rather than a combat ryu.
I am not an expert, or even more than moderately informed on Okinawan or karate history, so I am not sure if Clayton has his facts right. However, his view that the kata should be interpreted as containing far more than just blocks and punches really resonates. His explanations of some of the katas’ weird moves as grapples, rings true, for they work when you try those he has suggested (or at least the ones I have tried make sense). Moreover, the theory explains many of the puzzling aspects of the kata, such as why so many techniques (like the various kicks) which are effective in self defense are missing and why we so often block in two directions at once. Clayton suggests that Matsumura deliberately eliminated all the techniques he believed would not be useful in the specialized environment of the Shuri bodyguard. They may still have been practiced by other Okinawan karateka, but they do not appear in the Shotokan kata because they were not required by the king’s bodyguards. So Clayton’s thesis is deeply intriguing, even if it may be flawed or untrue.
Because I am no expert on this area, I invite participants of this forum who are more knowledgeable in Okinawan and karate history -- or anyone who has read Clayton’s book -- to weigh in. I’d like to read your opinions, analysis, and criticism.
Thanks.