The Gokui without Adequate Explanation

I like the gokui. I like it that Tatsuo-san provided it to the first group of Western Military personnel on Okinawa. I am especially grateful that those first students decided to continue passing on the system to their students who passed it down to their students for if that had not occurred I would not be practicing Isshinryu today and making the effort to understand it as I believe Tatsuo-san intended. 

One of my efforts over the past couple of decades has been an attempt to provide adequate, sensible and coherent explanations for the ken-po goku-i as provided by Tatsuo-san, the creator of the Okinawan Isshinryu system. I have discovered that the ancient Chinese classics to include a Bubishi are instrumental and necessary to fully and completely understand a martial system.

My efforts to decipher and provide explanations on the gokui (shortened from ken-po goku-i for brevity, etc.) is because over the last forty years I have not heard one explanation that made sense to me other than bare bones direct and obvious explanations, i.e. the eye must see all sides as “the eyes must take in all sides in a fight so as to see and hear your adversaries, etc.” as if attacked by a group of antagonists. 

Maybe this is all there is to the gokui but it that is so they why bother to give a copy to students? Why bother to ask students to try and understand the Okinawan culture and belief systems? Without the gokui, as well as the fundamental principles of martial systems with specificity to the first one titles “theory” and the last one titles “philosophy,” then the martial arts are just fighting with hands and feet and wooden weapons, etc. 

My personal journey using the study of the gokui makes senses and when explained as I have done in my eBook (soon to be published - shameless promotion here) it makes sense. It does not mean that it is right or wrong, just my interpretation as it connects to all martial systems and not “just Isshinryu.” 

Let me provide an example as to what I am trying to convey in interpretation of the gokui. A direct student of Tatsuo-san stated, “One of Isshinryu gokui is raise the big toe.” I have seen this stated in a few slightly different renderings but other than making that statement there has been, to date, no reasonable explanation as to how that relates to the eight terse tomes of the gokui as provided to Isshinryu students by Tatsuo-san. Read the following and then tell me which ones and how forming a foot while raising the big toe interconnects with the gokui?

1. A person's heart if the same as heaven and earth. Dragon (heaven) overhead and tiger (earth) in the headress.

2. The blood circulating is similar to the sun and moon. The dragon which leaves the water and flies overhead to return to the sea. The never-ending cycle.

3. The manner drinking (inhaling) and spitting (exhaling is either hard or soft. Open hand and fist of the Megami.

4. A person's unbalance is the same as a weight. There is a balance of the yin and yang in the symbol.

5. The body should be able to change directions at any time. The dragon flying overhead is Tatsuo who looked at change in a positive light.

6. The time to strike is when the opportunity presents itself. This again is represented by the opened and closed fist, to strike only as a last resort.

7. The eyes must see all sides. Represented by the stars or teachers who light or guide the way.

8. The ears must listen in all directions. Megami is alert and listens. Listening is knowledge.

Note: the explanations that follow each line of this gokui are simply showing a relation or connection to the symbology of the Isshinryu-no-megami.

Even if someone stated that the raised toe is about maintaining balance as per line four and then explained how that worked in action then it would connect to the gokui in a way that explained why, how and when we would form that foot in applying karate in a fight or self-defense. No one says that and no one to date has provided such an explanation. My explanation is more in like with theory and philosophy as principles that connect the mind, body and spirit training derived from the practice, training and application of Isshinryu in life. 

The other quote that I have read is about a special way of forming a spear hand, nukite, that is supposed to be Isshinryu no gokui. 

Of course, if they are talking about a gokui that has nothing to do with the above ken-po goku-i as written and presented to the early students of Isshinryu then that is another matter totally. 

I have heard how there are a variety of gokui within Isshinryu, i.e. there is a kata gokui, etc. that is not connected or related to the written ken-po goku-i than that is also another matter but I was impressed with the belief that they all connected and are passed on and taught to students using the ken-po goku-i as a “key” to open our hearts, minds and bodies to the intricacies of the Isshinryu system much like the study of the fundamental principles of martial systems for all martial systems. 

There is a book written by a leading proponent of Isshinryu that says it is his gokui as he believes it was meant to come from Tatsuo-san but I have read that book and it is more in line with a self promoting ego stroking effort with the ken-po goku-i simply adhered to the front of the book for a title. No where in the book do I sense any connectivity to what is written to the actual goku-i as shown above. 

This begs the question as to why, “Why don’t folks who use the gokui as sound bites in teaching and training provide full, complete and coherent explanations as to how it applies, connects and inter-connects. 

I find the goku-i as I interpret it for my studies and practices to be a key that unlocks the door to the full wholehearted study of the Okinawan martial system of “Ti or Te.” It is like the hub of a wheel on a wagon that uses the spokes, i.e. the gokui and principles as they apply, that form the circle or wheel that rolls us over the path or way of life through the discipline of martial arts. 

So, I ask the question or make the request that anyone, I mean anyone, provide the connection from the gokui to the physical manifestation of a raised toe or formation of nukite, etc.? Anyone? 

Addendum dtd Wednesday May 28, 2014 at 9:19hrs:

Gokui [極意]

The characters/ideograms mean, “Essential point; main point.” The first character means, “poles; settlement; conclusion; end; highest rank; electric poles; extremely; most; highly,” the second character means, “idea; mind; heart; taste; thought; desire; care; liking.”

Ahhhh, enlightenment. I made a mistake by connecting the comment using just the term gokui to the terse tome of the ken-po gokui [拳法極意]. When you take the term gokui and the characters by themselves external from the term ken-po goku-i you find that the definition is essential point or main point. So, the nukite and the raising of the big toe are an essential point or main point within the physical that is Isshinryu. 

This makes a lot more sense. It is using a term that just happens to be connected with the more philosophical meaning attributed to the ken-po goku-i. In other words I mixed up one subject with another. 

This is another whole subject other than the ken-po goku-i. Cool. Just sometimes I need an extra glimmer of light to see things more clearly. I still have the questions I pose above and that doesn’t change but this explains why I wasn’t connecting one with the other properly. Cool. 

My eBooks

I am still working on them when time permits (I plan on retiring from my real job next July so if I am not done by then, then I will have all kinds of time to complete the project). I have two that are going through their final edit stages and will soon be published. One is a terminology book and the other is the gokui book. I also plan on having them printed in hard cover through Lulu. 

I have added a huge amount of terms in the fist book and the second is in its polishing stages. Look for the eBook at Smashwords and the printed versions at Lulu. 

Kata and Gokui

In a recent posting on FaceBook Advincula Sensei provides some data he got from Shinsho (Tatsuo-san’s second son), i.e. “What is the most important thing to teach karate students?”

His answer was that karate had two parts. First part is show karate, i.e. he and his father understood that to draw in students you needed to put on a demo, i.e. where Tatsuo-san would drive a 16 penny nail through a plank and others would demo tameshiwari, etc. Second part was “kata and gokui, i.e. these two were to most important parts of karate training and practice. 

Show karate, said Shinsho, includes sport karat and tameshiwari. 

Where I question things is, “When you make a statement like ‘kata and gokui are the most important aspect of karate,’ you have to consider what they mean by making that statement.” How kata has gokui and what that gokui is may be the most important aspect of karate training and practice. Just accepting the statement without finding the essence and meaning of how these two come together into one wholehearted practice is important. In my view, how can you understand what you are doing without this knowledge.  

I have studied, my perspective, the gokui for years now. I took it beyond the obvious and made connections that would support such a statement. I actually believe that the gokui is the most important aspect of karate and kata is born of that aspect. When you think of the fundamental principles of martial systems, i.e., “theory principle and philosophy principle,” you get a sense of how the terse karate koan of the gokui can lead to support the practice, training and application of karate in life. Even the other two major principles of physiokinetics and technique come from theory and philosophy which are all reflected in the gokui as presented by Tatsuo-san (note: there are more than one interpretation of gokui in karate circles and this is just the one Isshinryu studies). 

I feel strongly, my feelings and sense of things, that the gokui is a key to lead us toward the fundamental principles of martial systems that also are about life, morality, humility, decency and many other traits that make for a whole holistic person. I feel this is important since that drives how you apply your training and practice in the real world. 

The gokui is also a koan that helps practitioners to reach a level of focus and awareness that allows us to separate the wheat from the chaff, i.e. where a practitioner could detect the rhetoric that drives commercialized martial arts to see the value of classical or traditional martial arts. 

The gokui is that key that leads us to the underlying connections and interconnections that unite the seemingly separate and different approaches to the martial arts. It is this teaching of the underlying factors that make all martial arts function and provides them the value I believe we all search out in our study of this physical and spiritual discipline. 

As I allude to in this post there are connections and interconnections that make the study of martial arts valuable and holistic. It is this teaching that leads us past the mere basics and provides guidance toward mastery, true master of martial arts. This is how gokui and kata lead toward a complete and wholehearted study of Isshinryu, Karate and all Martial Arts.