Bottles

Shimabuku Tatsuo Sensei taught Marine and other military on Okinawa so we talk about our service members. Shimabuku Tatsuo said, "All bottles are good. They all served a purpose." This story came from me but it was his quote. - Advincula A. J. Sensei Isshinkai post #27618

On many an occasion after a dojo workout we would have a drink or two with Shimabuku Sensei. On one occasion, several American students at the Honbu Agena Dojo we were drinking. Some were drinking beer while others were drinking Awamori a potent alcoholic beverage indigenous to and unique to Okinawa.

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Shimabuku preferred awamori and at this event, some Americans were mixing awamori with pine juice (Pineapple soda). Shimabuku asked us which bottle was best. Some picked up beer bottles while others awamori bottles and one or two who did not drink alcohol picked up the pine juice or other soda bottles.

Shimabuku stated, "All bottles are good. They all served a purpose." While he never said why he asked the question about the bottles, I thought he was relating it to karate styles, that all styles of karate were good.

Read also "Ken-po Goku-i and Bottles"

All Bottles are Good

When I read the story about how this particular quote came to be I sometimes wonder at other possible underlying meanings. I mean to say that since all bottles are good regardless of size, content, etc. then maybe Tatsuo-san was trying to teach the students that dogmatic adherence to a strict way of practicing and teaching Isshinryu was not important and the real importance was teaching a system along with a philosophy - a philosophy as derived from each unique individual from the study of the ken-po goku-i. 

Isn't it true that any system or style of karate is good simply because they all do serve a purpose? If you agree then whether one practices Goku, Shorin or Isshin matters little but in reality the practice of the art itself is what requires our attention toward importance. Maybe this is why they refer to traditional/classical Okinawan karate as "Ti (pronounced tea)/Te (pronounced tay)." 

Tatsuo-san had only a limited amount of time to pass along the more metaphysical essences of his study of Ti so he tried to pass it along by awarding a copy of the gokui (short for ken-po goku-i). Keeping the essence of the Okinawan Ti practice may have been far more important than sticking to a "specific, unyielding, method of holding a hand for shuto strikes, etc."

All bottles are good as all karate systems, styles and branches are also good, they all serve a purpose and are all descendants of Ti.