Chojun - Goran Powell

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Sanchin once again, alone this time.

      Sanchin means Three Battles, and the first of my battles had begun. In this never-ending struggle to achieve harmony between mind, body, and spirit, the first battle was the body, the simple struggle to position myself correctly and make myself strong. Later, the second battle would join the first, as I sought to develop the subtlety of technique that makes Sanchin so powerful. And lastly, the final battle would enter the fray, the struggle to understand the effect of such an exercise on a man’s innermost soul. This final battle was one that I would wage for many years to come.

      By the age of fifteen, I’d grown tall and strong despite my skinny frame. Father decided it was time for us to visit his brother Anko, who lived and worked in Naha. Anko owned a trading ship that he sailed around the Ryukyu Islands and farther, to Fuzhou and Shanghai in China, and Kagoshima in Japan.

      Father wanted me to help out on my uncle’s ship during the holidays. Though he never said it, I knew he wanted me to be more than a fisherman, and he saw this as a way for me to gain new experience in the world. My uncle was dubious at first, saying I was a little young for such work, but my father wouldn’t hear of it. “Kenichi is deceptively strong,” he insisted. “He’s been training for a year with Miyagi Sensei.”

      This piqued my uncle’s interest. “He’s lucky to train with such a man,” he said, looking me up and down with a fresh eye. “He can start next weekend.”

      And so I abandoned my weekends of diving and beach training to work on my uncle’s ship. Loading cargo and climbing ropes was backbreaking work, but I didn’t mind. I knew it would make me even stronger. At first, the other deckhands ignored me. I heard them muttering that I was too small to be any help on a boat, but when Uncle Anko told them I trained with Miyagi, their mutterings ceased. They began to give me tedious tasks to perform, which I did to the best of my ability. Soon, little by little, I was included in their conversations, and when they finally began to call me by my name, I knew I’d been accepted by these rough men.

      On the days when I did work for my uncle, I slept on board. I was much closer to Miyagi’s dojo and didn’t need to hurry home after class. Instead, I was free to stay behind and enjoy Miyagi’s impromptu lectures. Miyagi loved to talk and often continued late into the night, allowing us to stay or go as we pleased. To my surprise, I discovered that my sensei was warm and affable once the serious business of training had finished. He took a personal interest in each of his students, questioning the younger ones on their schoolwork and the older ones on their jobs, giving advice on health and lecturing on morality.

      The subject of his lectures wandered from one topic to the next as the mood took him. One night he would tell us the history of the Ryukyu Islands before the Japanese invasion. On another, he would mystify us with the concepts of Yin, Yang, and Tao—and in each case, the topic would relate back to his favorite subject of all: to-te. He always referred to it as Chinese Hand rather than simply Hand (Boxing) as many Okinawans did, and I learned his own sensei had studied in China for many years before returning to Okinawa.

      Miyagi told us the mythical origins of Kung Fu, which was introduced to the Shaolin Temple in the fifth century by the Indian monk, Da Mo. The Shaolin monks observed the fighting methods of animals and based their strategies on what they saw. Countless styles now existed all over China. In the southern port of Fuzhou, where Miyagi’s teacher had mastered his art, the main ones were Crane, Lion, and Dog Boxing.

      I learned that Okinawa had had its own fighting art, which, as well as developing powerful punches on the makiwara, combined throwing and grappling. Miyagi believed to-te was a combination of native Okinawan methods and classical Chinese martial arts, which had been introduced by the Chinese immigrants. These were the legendary Thirty-six Families that had been sent by the Ming emperor. This filled me with pride, since Chinese immigrants were rarely spoken of in such a positive way on Okinawa.

      When my uncle realized I was a good diver, I was sent down to scrape barnacles off the hull and free the rudder from tangled netting. Diving in the oily waters of Naha harbor wasn’t the same as diving in the clear waters of Itoman Bay, but I was happy to build up my breath and didn’t complain. It took three days, and by the evening of the third day the hull was smooth and the rudder in perfect working order. I sat with the rest of the crew as the sun went down and my uncle appeared with a bottle of awamori, the local rice brandy. Someone produced cups and handed me one without a word. Uncle Anko poured a tot for me without comment and I drained it quickly as the others had done. My throat was on fire, my eyes watered uncontrollably, but I was determined not to choke, and I fought hard to pretend nothing was amiss.

      “You did well today, nephew!” Anko said loudly, pointing in my direction with his empty cup, “Didn’t he?” It seemed he’d had a few tots already and didn’t wait for a response. “The boy is a to-te man. He trains with Miyagi!” he nodded knowingly, looking from one deckhand to the next. “They all know Miyagi round here. But tell me Kenichi, have you ever seen your master do to-te?”

      “Many times,” I answered.

      “Ha! What did you see?”

      “I saw him battling a typhoon,” I offered.

      It sounded silly now that I’d said it. “On the cliffs-tops near Itoman, facing into the wind,” I continued half-heartedly. Anko didn’t know what to make of this information—it was inconceivable that anyone, let alone a native Okinawan, would stand on a cliff during a typhoon. “I saw him break a makiwara,” I added hopefully. I wondered if anyone knew what a makiwara was.

      “Have you ever seen him fight?” Anko demanded.

      I shook my head.

      “I didn’t think so. So how do you know if he can?”

      I looked from my uncle to the crew. All eyes were on me expectantly. “I just know,” I said defiantly.

      Anko looked at the faces of the crew too, then nodded slowly and leaned close to me as if talking confidentially, though when he spoke, it was loud enough for all to hear.

      “Well guess what Kenichi, you’re right! Because I have seen him fight,” he said triumphantly. “And so have these guys,” he said, pointing his cup at some of the older crew. “It was a long time ago now, but I can still remember it well. I will never forget. In fact, I know quite a lot about Miyagi. I knew him as a boy. He’s the same age as me, you see, although we didn’t go to school together. In those days we Chinese immigrants had our own school. We weren’t allowed to go to the same school as the Okinawans and the Japanese. Besides, he was the head of the noble Miyagi clan, so we had very little in common, but his reputation was well known among the young men of Naha.”

      Anko smiled and wagged his finger at me, spilling awamori as he did. “Believe it or not, your teacher was a bit of a tearaway in those days. Always getting into fights and scrapes. He was strong, too. None of the other boys wanted to tangle with him, even before he learned to-te.” At this, some of the crew nodded their agreement. “When he left school he joined the family business of import and export. One day when he was about eighteen, he came to the docks to solve a dispute with a group of dockers who were refusing to unload cargo from one of his boats.

      “The dockers were saying it was more work than they’d been told, and they demanded more money. Miyagi insisted they’d been correctly informed. He offered to help them unload it himself to make the job easier. There were six of them, so a seventh hand, a strong man like Miyagi, would make a big difference. But this gang was notorious for cheating people and refused his offer. It was an old trick: leaving a perishable cargo in the hold all day in the hot sun, until the owner was forced to agree to their demands or lose his cargo completely.

      “Well, Miyagi wouldn’t be cheated. The discussion got heated. It turned into an argument. Insults were exchanged and then some pushing and shoving began. The dockers were all strong men, you know how they are, and they were not afraid of Miyagi. They surrounded him and they threatened him. They didn’t believe a rich merchant like

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