Training

[GNARL04]

How did the Shuri bodyguards train their techniques? Surely doing kihon in a line and repeating their katas wouldn't have prepared them to face an armed onslaught. Is there any knowledge or guess of how this training was conducted? I know you stated that they often trained at night but what went on during it?

[HanshiClayton]

I have commented in print (for instance, here) about the glaring absence of any dojo-training stories from the Matsumura/Itosu era of karate. We know next to nothing about what went on in their training sessions. Only a little knowledge has leaked into the history books:

• We know that Funakoshi did tekki shodan, and apparently little else, for the first three years of his training. His teacher, Azato, seemed to be concentrating on developing the student's legs rather than his torso.
• We know they did work with katas, and not only studied them but modified them freely. The idea seemed to be that your personal version of the kata should help you practice techniques that worked well for you. They didn't do the empty dances that Shotokan has emphasized for the last hundred years. Their katas had meat in them.
• There is mention of practicing the kata applications one-on-one in class, but I have seen no details.
• There was a heavy emphasis on makiwara training. Early Shotokan classes consisted of kata, kihon, kumite and makiwara, in roughly equal parts.
• We know that they an active "fight club" life, where they would go to a park in Naha and challenge all comers to full-contact matches. Matsumura met his wife in one of these matches.

And that's about all I've seen on the subject.