Higuana Sencai is a master of karate.
He holds a seventh-dan black belt.
At 42, he is young to be accepted as a master.
This status he has earned by an almost mystical level of skill and power.
He lives in Okinawa, an island in the Ryukyu group off Japan.
Karate started here 500 years ago when King Sho Hashi disarmed his warriors to prevent
civil war.
Without weapons but with a powerful fighting tradition, the warriors secretly developed
karate, the art of the empty hand.
The technique remained secret to a small group of masters until in the 1920s it began to
be taught in Tokyo.
Now it is practiced all over the world.
The Ryukyu Islands are in the northeast of the Pacific between Japan and the Chinese
mainland.
The largest of the islands is Okinawa.
The King's decree brought peace to the islands for many years.
Unfortunately it also meant that they became defenseless against an invading Japanese army
in 1622.
Eventually the islands fell under Japanese rule.
The Okinawan way of life was nearly destroyed in the Second World War.
The Japanese fought bitterly against the Americans, caught between the two armies, at least 50,000
civilians died.
The young Higawana escaped because his father evacuated the family to Japan.
Of their convoy of three ships, two were sunk.
Higawana went back to Okinawa after the war.
The islands remained an American base and were administered by them for 20 years.
There is still a garrison of 50,000 men there.
Now once again under Japanese administration, the economy is reviving and the city is rebuilt.
Higawana left to go to Tokyo to become a university student and then to be a karate instructor.
He became unhappy about what he felt were alien influences upon his art, forcing it
to develop in ways that he felt were wrong.
After 25 years, he returned to Okinawa to help strengthen karate in the place where it began.
The rough paved streets of the old city are the same that he knew as a boy before the
bombs fell.
The houses were destroyed, but the stone walls that surrounded them are still there and still
the home of snakes.
Master Higawana lives in a family house in the city.
His sister lives in the top flat.
He and his wife share the next floor with his mother and underneath he has turned the
garage into his dojo.
He began to learn karate when he was 15.
After eight years, his master gave him his teaching license and he began to instruct
his own students in the art.
It requires a rigorous pattern of daily exercise to maintain his status as an international
master.
After his morning run, before he even begins to practice karate, he exercises his whole
body section by section.
He works through every group of muscles from his toes to his head, from his spine to the
tips of his fingers.
Although millions of people practice karate throughout the world, such determination is
very rare.
The hours of practice have changed his body.
It is now close to the karate ideal.
And the mind too is trained to achieve complete concentration in every action.
Karate means literally empty hand and its aim is to turn the bare hands into powerful
defensive weapons.
Some years ago, Master Higuana met a Chinese man who had hands which were truly like stone.
He applied a special oil, a secret combination of herbs to his hands every day.
It helped the skin grow hard and calloused, protecting the bones and muscles underneath.
Master Higuana asked for some of the oil and ever since then his Chinese supplier has sent
it regularly.
The post he is striking is made of solid oak and is set in concrete at floor level.
It is just flexible enough to stop the bones of his hands being damaged when he strikes
it with full force.
At the heart of Okinawan karate lies the kata.
These are long sequences of fighting actions which employ all the most important techniques
for attack and defense, one after another.
They are linked together by steps forward, backwards and to the side, or by rapid turns
to face a new imaginary opponent.
Breath, posture, striking action and balance must all be harmonized at every moment in
every action.
To achieve this, Master Higuana works like a great dancer practicing for a performance.
The level of skill is comparable, but the karate master seldom shares his mastery with
an audience.
The level of skill is comparable, but the karate master seldom shares his mastery with an audience.
I was told to do it again and again.
In this section from Akata the soft gentle blocking movements are accompanied by exhalation.
They are followed by a lightning turn during which the master must inhale, ducking down slightly, then he rises and holds his breath to gain the power for a double punch.
The solitary discipline of his life has been eased by his recent marriage.
Three years ago Alana joined his class in his Tokyo Dojo. They have one child, Seigi.
It's not an easy place to live for someone used to the relaxed American way of life. Okinawa is isolated and very few of the Americans who live there mix in local life.
Karate is considered by most of the world to be a Japanese art. In fact the main influence on its development was the Chinese martial arts.
There are many schools of karate. Master Higwana practices Gojo-ryu, the hard and soft style. This has adapted the deep breathing techniques of the soft Chinese martial arts like Tai Chi.
Gojo-ryu has special kata based on them called San Chin. Here it is practiced by Master Miyagi. He has instructed Master Higwana for 25 years.
The handing down of knowledge from one master to another has been crucial to the continuity and development of karate. Higwana spends many hours in discussion with the senior masters.
Most of what they know is not written down, but Higwana believes that if the old traditions are to continue, then everything known must now be recorded.
The discussions are often about tiny details, comparing the ways that long dead masters taught and practiced.
Kina Sensei is 72 years old. He wears a red belt, which is given only to untested beginners and to the most senior masters, signifying that the master has traveled the full circle of the life of karate.
They use the language of Okinawa for these conversations. They say it's impossible to discuss karate properly in Japanese, since only Okinawan has the words for the details and the more profound concepts.
Their conversations continually return to the subject of kata and how to perform each one. The hard and soft style of Gojo-ryu has 13 katas. The most advanced of these is called Super Rinpei.
It is not taught to students until they have trained for at least 10 years. It consists of abrupt bursts of action contrasted with soft, slow, controlled movements.
Mastery of this kata is considered to be mastery of karate itself.
It consists of 112 separate sequences of moves. To perform it correctly requires total physical control. At the same time, the mind must be both alert and yet in a state of meditation.
There is a powerful sense of striving in such a performance. Where other fighting arts relax into a fluid, easy style, karate keeps the tension and effort.
It is said that at this level of performance, the master is not fighting any imaginary opponents, but is confronting only himself. The purpose of karate is to gain mastery over self.
In karate, there is no weapon. Everyone respects karate.
In Japan, samurai is considered to be the weapon. In Okinawa, samurai is considered to be the real weapon.
In most places in the world, the teaching of children is considered suitable for the lower grades of black belt.
However, in Okinawa such is the concentration of expertise. The children are often taught by masters. Once formed, this relationship continues for life.
There are two main paths in karate. The traditional way is that of self-defense, leading after years of practice to self-discipline.
This is the path taught by the traditionalists, including Higwana. The other path is taking karate away from this ideal into the world of sport, where training leads to sporting contests.
Master Higwana returned to Okinawa because he felt that the sporting way was taking over. For him, karate can never be a sport. It is not possible to pull a punch or kick and still perform it properly.
In pure karate, a blow must always be practiced with full power.
In the senior class, the students' ages range from 20 up to 50. Some are black belts of 4th and 5th Dan. Grading is awarded after detailed and demanding examinations.
They practice sequences of prepared sparring, which are designed to prepare the students for real fighting and the control of aggressions.
Though his classes in Okinawa are small, Master Higwana has students throughout the world. He is the head of an international Gojo-Ryu organization, and he travels regularly to give classes in Europe, South Africa and India.
At the end of the class, the most senior students practice an extraordinary exercise in sustained tension, Sanchin-kata. They strip to the waist so that the master can detect any faults of posture or breathing.
In Sanchin-kata, the student is trained to breathe with his hands in a tight position.
In Sanchin-kata, the student is trained both mentally and physically to feel unshakable, whatever the attack on him, to stand like a rock in a stormy sea. With feet set slightly apart and knees turned in, the groin is protected, and the fighter is very securely balanced.
He is trained to breathe with his hands in a tight position.
There are two ways to practice Sanchin-kata. First, you breathe in through your nose, then you blow your nose, and then you wind up with a short stroke.
The other way is to blow from the back, then you wind up with a short stroke. There are two ways to practice Sanchin-kata. You do this while controlling your movement and your
breath.
The other way is to breathe in through your nose, then you blow your nose, then you wind up with a short stroke.
The Kera-san has been practicing Sanchin for many years. The prolonged muscular tension has developed his strength. The combination of this tension with the special breathing and
the harmonized pattern of movements has generated a deep inner concentration.
The exercises like these must be practiced with great caution. If bad habits are allowed to develop, then the powerful tension in the chest can cause internal injury.
The Kera-san has been practicing Sanchin-kata for many years.
Kami Murasan is one of Higawana-sensei's most senior students. He can reach such a deep state of meditation that he doesn't appear to even notice the fierce slaps.
He is a master of Sanchin-kata.
Karate is like a life, like philosophy, like a cloud that is hard to grasp.
So I try to grab the Karate every day, but I can't. I practice it every day.
It was a peasant community until Chinese and Japanese visits in the 8th and 9th centuries. The inhabitants gradually formed three rival kingdoms on the island.
Okinawa was unified in 1429 by King Shohashi. The walls of his palace and the royal tombs have been rebuilt.
After he disarmed the noblemen, a court of astonishing splendor grew up around him.
The Ryukyu Islands, of which Okinawa is part, became a rich trading nation, the Venice of the Far East.
Since trade was officially banned between Japan and China, they acted as the middlemen between them.
They took their culture from the many countries that they traded with, but always adapted it, making it their own.
The great turtle-backed tombs that are placed on hillsides all over the island came from the Chinese.
The response of the working people of the island to being disarmed was to develop a fighting system based on using their tools as weapons.
Fishermen developed combat skills using turtle shells as shields and fish spears as short swords, adopting the techniques of karate.
Like the warriors, they also maintained it as a secret, concealed art.
Master Higawana's research into karate includes a study of these weapons systems.
In karate, there are techniques of striking, but there are also techniques of using a stick.
Farmers learned to use threshing flails, horse bridles, and even these grindstone handles as weapons.
They were particularly useful for defense against the sword, as the forearm can be used to block the sword strokes and thus penetrate the swordsman's defense.
Even the small Japanese rice harvesting sickles have a special kata designed to make them effective weapons.
Each tool has been studied so that its special qualities of attack and defense are used.
All the objects of everyday life were adapted by the peasants. On the other hand, the nobles always fought without weapons, maintaining the art of the empty hands.
Out of the wreckage of war, other parts of the Okinawan culture survive.
Their music, strongly influenced by Indonesian styles, and their skill in weaving and dying silk come together in the ancient court dances.
The dance master Miyagi Sensei studied the same style of karate.
Miyagi Sensei studied karate, Gojo Ryu, as Master Higuana, until he reached fourth dan black belt status.
He was learning to dance at the same time, and at this point, when he was nearly 40, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to teaching dance.
With 15 years of karate training behind him, Miyagi Sensei is deeply aware of the similarities between the two arts.
He stresses that it is not just the movements that are the same. The actual way of performing the movements is also the same.
The feet must move diagonally, then be firmly planted on the floor. The arms flow out gracefully, but are checked by tensing the muscles.
The arms are the same.
What does it mean to hold the sleeves?
It is to make the shape of the sleeves beautiful. But the way of holding the sleeves is the same as karate.
What does it mean to hold the sleeves?
It is not the way of holding the sleeves, but the way of holding the sleeves.
In karate, the way of holding the sleeves is called the K-O-K.
The same is true for karate.
Many of these dance movements are obviously related to karate. These blocking techniques, for example.
The foot movement is the same as karate.
The way of standing, the way of dropping the hips, the way of walking.
The same is true for karate.
The way of opening the arms, the way of releasing the power.
In 1393, the Chinese government sent a colony of artisans to Okinawa to teach the people the arts of writing, shipbuilding, lacquer work and pottery.
The Okinawans already had crude pottery before the 14th century, but the Chinese potters added new skills and techniques.
The Chinese potters added new skills and techniques.
They became famous for their pottery, and many well-known potters went to Okinawa before 1940 to learn from them, although the pre-war Japanese government tried to discourage this.
They wanted a unified Japan, but they had trouble forcing the islanders to conform.
The Okinawans cremated their dead and placed their ashes inside huge earthenware jars.
Custom dictated that the ashes of one's ancestors be placed in a new jar every few decades, which means there is a constant demand for them.
This potter works for three months making several hundred funeral pots, then they are all put into the kiln together.
Just as the Chinese guided the Okinawans in pottery, so they did in karate. Over the past four centuries or more, Okinawan fighting masters have been visiting the Chinese mainland and studying martial arts there.
Many of karate's carters were brought to Okinawa in this way, but after they arrived in Okinawa, they were modified and developed to become part of the local fighting system.
This was always the principle of their lives, to learn from everyone, but to transform what they learned to suit their own strong characters.
This Chinese lion gets a Okinawan face.
Fighters traditionally use clay jars for strengthening their fingers and hands.
Every week a small group of the most senior students gather to do body strengthening exercises and practice the most advanced karate skills.
They use a mixture of local and foreign training aids.
This loop of solid iron is an Hawaiian training invention. It weighs about 60 pounds.
The people of Okinawa have always been stocky, with short powerful legs, the physique of seafaring people.
Karate matches their bodies, giving them a strength much greater than seems possible for their size.
They don't fight with their own hands.
They are not fighting with their own hands.
They are fighting with their own hands.
Although Karate is usually practiced alone, occasionally Higawana Sensei goes through one of the Karate techniques to demonstrate how each movement is applied.
This is very dangerous, requiring practice and extremely careful timing.
For this exercise Sensei uses his two most trusted students, Wihara-san and Kamimura-san.
Though they are taught that Karate is a defensive art, when the fighting starts there is no lack of brutal techniques.
Many of the hand and elbow blows which Sensei is using are lethal. They strike into nerve centers and other vital points.
The kick with the left leg is a feint, designed to pull the opponent down and onto the powerful right legged kick.
The right leg is a feint, designed to pull the opponent down and onto the powerful right legged kick.
For the devotees of Karate then, fighting is not something to be fooled with or played at. It should never happen.
They train themselves relentlessly to learn the self-control which prevents fighting breaking out.
Their tradition has grown up amidst centuries of foreigners invading their small island.
Its central philosophy teaches calmness and preparedness in the face of adversity.
If Higurana Sensei has his way, this philosophy of control and self-mastery will be taught alongside the techniques to practitioners of Karate all over the world.
In a moment, sneak preview and then at 8.30, Sport Aid Special. Stay tuned.