Interviews with Kenji Tokitsu Sensei
Part 2. This is the second in a series of interviews granted by Kenji Tokitsu-sensei to the French magazine Arts Martiaux.
Why do you teach combat tai chi instead of karate?
I think that the ideal martial art method is one that simultaneously satisfies two requirements: technical development and energy strengthening. This is what guarantees both immediate and long-term efficiency, as I explained before. The method of karate is good generally for technical development, but in my opinion it is insufficient from the standpoint of energy. This is particularly true of modern karate. This becomes abundantly clear when we compare it to tai chi chuan. Longevity of practice is the acid test. On the other hand, however, the movements of tai chi are frequently quite ambiguous and barely applicable in combat, so I work on understanding the martial meaning of tai chi chuan and the application in combat of each technique. Developed in this way, the method of tai chi seems to me to be the most effective for ensuring long-term efficiency. Accordingly, I have adopted the form of tai chi for developing the technique and energy required for the art of combat.
I have condensed my knowledge of technique and energy in two forms of tai chi chuan: Chen tai chi and 99 movements Synthesis tai chi. From the standpoint of combat, Chen tai chi provides an excellent technical and energy register. This does not mean that I have abandoned karate, for karate forms part of my very self. It is just that through tai chi, I've developed an effective teaching method and training model into which I have condensed my knowledge of karate and other disciplines. In any case, I have adopted the form of tai chi because it is well suited to conveying the information that a person needs in order to develop his energy and body techniques. I have examined the form of Chen tai chi and of the 99 movements that I learned, and have made some changes to adapt them to my object: the art of percussion combat. This is because, in being handed down and altered to meet changing objectives, numerous facets of these tai chi forms have been deformed and are no longer suited to the realities of combat.
For example, as you know, some practitioners of tai chi practice tuishou but very few practice combat. Tuishou is performed slowly, but combat is very swift and sudden. These differences are necessarily reflected in the way of executing, interpreting and transmitting the gesture sequences of tai chi. In some forms of tuishou, when your chest or some other part of your body is pushed, you absorb the push and very subtly deflect your adversary's hands. This can be an educational, interesting and effective exercise for developing the body's reactions based on percussion. In fact, while you can absorb a slow push, you cannot do the same thing with rapid fist or foot techniques. You don't have time to absorb them or deflect them if contact has already been made.
I have encountered numerous tuishou experts. Some have tested themselves with me to see if they were able or not to absorb and deflect fist and foot techniques, as they did in tuishou. In my experience, none of them have been able to. If the blow touches you, it is already too late to absorb or deflect it. However, tuishou exercise appears effective because it diminishes the effect of blows in certain cases, although not always. Consequently, other exercises besides tuishou are indispensable if we want to cultivate and develop our qualities in percussion combat.
So you examine the technique of tai chi in the light of your experience and contribute modifications as necessary.
That's right. To investigate tai chi, I have studied with a number of masters. I have chosen the style that best suits my purposes and have contributed certain modifications. For example, in the old form (lao ja) of Chen tai chi, fist technique is executed only with the right hand, whereas I execute it with both fists. In numerous passages the centre of the body is left too open to attack, so in my training I alter the angle of the body. Moving the hands simultaneously with knee blows is not applicable, so I change the movement of the hands, and so forth. I examine each gesture to give it a precise technical meaning and make sure it conforms to the energy principle. Revised in this way, Chen tai chi has become, for me, an extremely fertile kata for technical and energy purposes. So if someone tells me that it isn't the form taught by such and such a master, or that it differs from official competition form, I couldn't care less, because I am the one who has departed from these forms voluntarily, since they lack the essential elements needed for combat. Such criticism is due in large part because they are focusing either on the corporal expression aspect of the martial style, or else on the search for well-being. But our objectives are different. If the official form had, from the beginning, given me what I was seeking, I would have continued with it without question. This would have been much easier for me, but there is no combat with the qualities that are allowed officially. Official recognition is of no importance if you take the martial path. What is importance is the reliability of your technique and your personal capacity. The Chen tai chi form revised by me is clearly good for me. It is the most reliable, the most efficient, the most fertile and most beneficial. After all that I have done until now, I have no intention of wasting my time practicing useless, decorative katas and techniques.
In many fields, there are two kinds of people. Some depend on an established system of values. They feel secure in a group. Instead of thinking and judging for themselves, they prefer to obey whatever is handed down by authority. The form imposed by an institution becomes the one sole truth. The second kind of person seeks a personal system of values. They not only seek it, but want to build it for themselves. This difference is seen most flagrantly in religion. For example, the teachings of Buddha were originally designed to enable each person to approach the truth in his own way and through his own efforts, whereas today, for most people, Buddhism has become a religion of dependency.
I think that the practice of martial arts is fundamentally an individual discipline. The important thing is the creation of qualities and skills which each person acquires through training with a method. But even if we train in groups, practice is individual. When someone dies, he dies alone, even if he is holding someone else's hand.
So you mean that there are people who need to practice the official form - that of the federation for example - to feel secure, while there are others who need to find it for themselves.
That's right. The vast majority of practitioners situate the criteria for judgement outside themselves, and see this as something best left to the Federation, for example. Very few appear to judge for themselves. This situation facilitates uniformity in the martial arts, instead of developing the strength of independence in each person.
So you have arrived at a form of tai chi by examining for yourself the qualities needed to develop efficiency in martial practice. You began this search starting with karate, didn't you?
Yes. Ever since I first started karate, I have always wondered about the meaning of the katas. My teachers used to tell me that the meaning of the katas was very deep and that I would understand it later, but I always had doubts. Much later I had occasion to speak frankly with my old teachers and discovered that they had only been repeating what their predecessors had told them. It is often said that a kata is to be performed in a certain way, but when applied in combat it is done differently. So I asked myself, why weren't katas executed in the same way as in combat?
Then, when I was working with a Shotokan master, after a year I understood his system for interpreting the katas. By learning the movements, you know how they are to be interpreted. To understand the 26 katas of Shotokan, it is sufficient to learn a few simple schemes. It's not complicated. It doesn't matter if a school child can discover their meaning through logical thinking. We are still told: “in the kata, it is done this way, but in the reality of combat, it is done this other way”. But no-one can explain why. So I asked, “why isn't it executed the same as in reality?” And this set me off on my own personal investigation.
Beginning with an analysis of the meaning of Shotokan katas, I went back into the history of how karate has been taught. Shotokan karate derives from the teachings of G. Funakoshi. What form of karate did he practice? When I first saw technical photographs of G. Funakoshi, I was quite surprised because that was not Shotokan. At least the forms were very different from the ones that I learned in Shotokan - i.e., the katas of the JKA (Japan Karate Association). I had always wondered why Shotokan karatekas never wondered about this when in combat, and why they didn't look into the matter further. They salute the photograph of G. Funakoshi, the founder of their Karate, never acknowledging that the style of their founder and their own style are very different. How to overcome this contradiction? They failed to see any contradiction to be overcome.
In any case, I began to learn more about other masters who were pupils of G. Funakoshi and found relatively old forms of Shotokan that were considerably different from JKA forms. So I wondered where these differences had come from. Given my deep commitment to Shotokan, I decided to find out the truth about this school. I realised that I'd have to go back to the origins of G. Funakoshi's karate if I wanted to find the true essence of Shotokan. This course proved logical. G. Funakoshi had worked under A. Itosu and A. Sato, both situated in the Shuri-te tradition, spread notably by the Shorin-Ryû schools, which is what I followed.
The Shito-Ryû and Wado-Ryû schools also fall within the Shuri-te tradition. In my research on Shuri-te practice, I re-encountered Naha-te and Tomari-te. Why were there so many different schools on such a small island as Okinawa? There are no major differences in lifestyle to justify the birth there of different schools. If there are differences, they must have come from China. And that is how my research led off to a study of Chinese martial arts.
So before exploring Chinese martial arts, you had studied many different styles and schools of karate. How did you pursue your research?
When you attend a combat competition between different schools considered to be traditional, you can barely see any differences in style. Today, when we speak of a karate style or school, the distinction is based mainly on differences in katas. The katas thus became the basis of my research. Today, some fifty classical katas have been catalogued, with a large number of variations. I have made comparisons between more than 250 variations of katas and have analysed the logic behind each alteration that has taken place in a kata in the course of being handed down from master to student, highlighting the vectors of change.
These analyses were necessary in order to judge the quality of the changes undergone. For each kata, it was necessary to discern whether a change was positive, or whether it proved negative. To reach such a conclusion, a number of parameters had to be applied. Once again, I wanted to find out for myself. In 1985 my research project was funded by the French Ministry of Youth and Sports and by the Research Ministry of that period. At the end of the first part of my investigations, I delivered a research report to the Ministry and also to the Karate Federation, expecting that at least the Federation's directors would be interested and that this would make it possible to launch other kinds of research and delve deeper into the quality of karate practice and teaching. However, I received no response at all.
This led me to the conclusion that other karatekas were not interested in this kind of research.
Most of the results of my investigations are therefore in my papers and in my dôjô, where some of my students have partial knowledge of them.
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