A couple of weeks ago I read this thread started by Dennis Jones over on Shikon. Dennis’ post refers to an account about Miyagi witnessing a Filipino boy demonstrating his martial art. Miyagi observed a resemblance between this boy’s performance and the karate of Okinawa of the period. Miyagi had taken note of what the boy was practicing, but had lost it, so there is no record of the exact style.

Dennis asked the question, ‘What did Miyagi see?’ and some discussion ensued, but it was mainly in the spirit of Miyagi’s text, which was philosophical; i.e., making distinctions between calligraphy of the North vs. South of China and their respective martial arts.

Although the question, ‘What did he see?’ is one that can’t ever be answered definitively because there is no record, it reminds me of the research into the Fujian and Hakka systems of Southern China that I undertook over a period of roughly 40 years. The purpose of my research was to try to determine the relationship between these systems and the Goju-ryu and Uechi-ryu systems of Okinawa.

What I found out was that, particularly during the Ch’ing Dynasty (1644-1911) persecution resulted in mass migrations from Southern China, particularly from Fujian, and of the Hakka people who were particular victims of persecution. These migrations resulted in Fujianese and Hakka arriving in significant numbers across the coastal areas and islands of the South China Sea. This is the same area where the Silat of the Malay people had already been established over a period of centuries.

The systems of the Fujianese and Hakka that came to this South China Sea area subsequently became known as Kuntao, or, in the Philippines, Kuntaw. It’s the Hokkien term equivalent to Chuan-Fa or Kempo, meaning ‘Fist Way’.

Here’s the tricky bit. The Malay people, like the Chinese, were very protective and secretive about their systems. But cross-fertilization took place nevertheless. It may have happened through intermarriage, or amongst labourers who  would have had interactions with one another and exchanged information. Also the Dutch colonists (such as the Thouares family) who operated business interests in the area would have had exposure to both types of system, but a vested interest in neither.

There was also political pressure, particularly within Indonesia, that led to some Chinese actually calling their system Silat. The Chinese would have taken and adapted what was useful from the Silat in a general sense. They would also have needed to adapt their practices according to the specific geographical conditions they were living in, and this would include not only terrain and climate, but also the weapons available and the stylistic and physical type of adversary they would encounter.

Out of this mix, you get something called Kuntao Silat. These styles were spread throughout the Indonesian archipelago, some obviously remaining more ‘pure’ than others. On the Philippines, the practitioners were more inventive and the systems became more eclectic.

Now this brings us to our boy. At the beginning of the 19th Century, Hawaii took on numbers of Chinese labourers to work in the sugar plantations. And again, we can easily imagine how they also took with them their martial arts. For political reasons, these migrations were stopped, and the Chinese were replaced by Japanese, who, again, would have taken their martial arts to Hawaii. And then, again for political reasons, these migrations were stopped and the Japanese were replaced by Filipinos.

And so, who knows? Maybe our boy had actually studied Kuntaw Silat on the Philippines, or something that had been influenced by it. If so, the style may well have had that Fujian/Hakka ‘look’ about it, which would have been familiar to Miyagi through his research in China. It could have also been that the boy picked up what he got on Hawaii itself. But wherever the boy learned his martial art, we know the style probably wasn’t karate, because Miyagi wouldn’t have had to write down the name!

What we do know is that Miyagi was familiar with the Fujian systems and possibly even the Hakka systems, and I suspect maybe that’s the flavour that he detected in the boy’s performance.

Now here’s a side issue. When I was researching both the Fujian/Hakka and the Malay Silat systems, as well as Kali and Arnis systems of the Philippines, I made a few observations. The Fujian and Hakka systems had a strong understanding of how to enhance the neuromusculoskeletal structure, and they knew how to generate explosive force over a short range. They also had an aggressive, spirited approach to combat, straight down the line. But when I looked at their application of that understanding in combat it fell somewhat short. However, when I looked at Silat, providing it hadn’t been over-idealised, I found that it had a clearly defined method of approach, entry, breakdown, and finish that I recognised as being valid for fighting. And this was probably because within the regions of the Indonesian archipelago, fighting was still a serious business. What the Silat systems lacked, however, were the very strengths that I’ve attributed to the Fujian and Hakka systems, above. In particular, Silat lacked the delivery power of the Fujian/Hakka systems, and I suspect this is mainly because Silat was concentrated on the use of the blade, which doesn't require the same kind of power delivery. 

I felt that if a martial artist had the right combination of both approaches (and these systems were already influencing one another) he could put together a more complete fighting system than karate was offering at the time.

That’s why, in the late 1980s, I put these two approaches together.  My original research had been about the connections between Goju-ryu and the Fujian systems.  What I'd found was that the 'essentials' had been removed from Toudi after Toudi was put into the Okinawan school system as an indoctrinational tool of the Japanese Empire.  The Goju that Miyagi created for the school system on behalf of the Butokukai and the Ministry of Education was obviously lacking in these essential principles of the Fujian systems and the Hakka, even though Miyagi had studied the systems.  However, the forms of Goju-ryu were derived from the Fujian systems by way of Higaonna Kanryo; this made Goju-ryu a suitable vessel to re-fill with those essential ingredients of Fujian boxing. 

So, when I re-invented Goju-ryu in the late 1980s, I used a combination of elements of the Fujian/Hakka systems and the entry/breakdown/takedown concepts and applications of Silat.  I simply poured these ingredients into the Goju model. 

That's why my Goju from the late 1980s onwards, had nothing to do with karate as such. 

I still keep an eye on the Indonesian and Filipino systems as well as those of Fujian and the Hakka. If you know how to filter out the irrelevant bits, there’s a hell of a lot of fighting information to be gained.  In fact, if you go to my You Tube page you can look at my Fujian playlist http://uk.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=497D01F44B2B7720 or my favorites http://uk.youtube.com/profile_favorites?user=stevemorrisnhb but in the case of the latter, the Bionicles videos aren't mine, they're Tyrone's.  Honest.