Customer Reviews

The Heart of Karate-Do

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This book has been out of print for some time and now it's back! It is one of my favorite books about karate, written by a man who studied directly from Gichin Funakoshi. Originally published at The Way of Karate: Beyond Technique, this book will guide karate practitioners to another side of karate, a softer, more powerful, and more spiritual side as described by one of the pre-JKA pioneers, Shoto Kai Master Shigeru Egami. This book provided insight and helped me improve my karate (I have trained in Wado Ryu for over 20 years). The book also has historical significance in that it provides a window into the understanding of a man who trained with Funakoshi and went on to make his own discoveries.

This is no doubt a true classic in the traditional Karate world, which I should find no reason not giving it full marks. So where is that missing star?
The problem came with this 'Revised Edition'. I was so surprised when I received it, finding out that they'd replaced all the demonstration photos from the older version. What a dumb move. The quality of the new photos might be a little bit better, but the new demonstrators are simply not on par with the ones in the original version.
My advice: If you can afford the $ and time, hunt down an out-of-print copy of the original version instead.

Think again! But for the pioneering spirit of Shigeru Egami...Egami pioneered certain flexability and strength exercises that are demonstrated in this book. Included are several kicking exercises which are similar or identical to many done by Korean and Chinese stylists, like the jump split kick, jump double front kick (both feet out at the same time), and so on. Also many jumping and flexing exercises. If you are familiar with the martial art of Shintaido, founded by Horoyuki Aoki, you will note many similarities, for Aoki, a disciple of Egami's, encorporated many of Egami's flexibility training ideas and techniques directly into Shintaido, making them the foundation of the art and doing away with much of the ridgidity that had taken over Shotokan since Funakoshi. Egami was an accomplished karate man, unafraid to innovate, experiment, and include new helpful training methods. Advanced "hard" stylists should enjoy this book, especially Shotokan, Wado-ryu, Sh'to-ryu, Kyokushinkai. Egami is seen in some circles as the "Tohei of Shotokan", innovating and changing karate in a manner similar to the way Koichi Tohei changed Aikido.

I was eager to read this book. I have read virtually all articles by and about master Egami on the Internet, for I admire his idealistic view of karate do, and his struggle to turn it into a way to make oneself a better person.

Master Egami found that the karate he had been training was somehow misdirected. Not Funakoshi's fault, though. I kept wondering why Funakoshi students did their techniques differently than Funakoshi, and I finally concluded that it was the kumite practice.

While Funakoshi's main teaching devices where punching the makiwara and kata, his students wanted to learn how to fight and therefore included sparring in their curricula, but did this privately for Master Funakoshi wouldn't like it (there are many examples of Funakoshi being upset when he heard about sparring training). Most of the technique deviations from master Funakoshi's teachings came from senior students who practiced sparring and developed their own training regimes. This was the karate Egami practiced for a long while.

What I wonder is why master Funakoshi didn't do anything to stop this, like not granting the senior students their black belts. In any case, Egami trained and mastered a karate full of force and contraction which, for a young man, could be really effective.

Why, then, would he change the way he practiced and understood karate?

Egami's awful experience at Nakano base where he had to train soldiers left marks. He felt karate was but the art of homicide, and that he was training murderers (which indeed he did while at Nakano). That must have hurt, because I think of Master Egami as a nice person. Therefore, he tried to change the karate he had learnt into something else, not to oppose but to cooperate; not to move against but to move with your oponent; to react to your opponent as if you were parts of something bigger. Some sort of coordination and harmony (the 'ai' in 'Aikido' and in 'Deai').

This idea permeated the way of striking and of blocking. This idea is related to concepts such of rythm, timing and distance.

Furthermore, Master Egami became ill many times throughout his life, and had to approach karate training very differently than the way he trained when he was young, without force and without contraction of the body, and that is how he discovered a new way to strike (which, in my opinion, is the traditional way, that is, the way of Okinawa).

Therefore, by making his techniques more relaxed and blending the concepts of rythm, timing and distance into the techniques, Egami acquiered a very effective yet apparently light tsuki.

Tsuki = relaxation + breathing + rythm + timing + distance. That is the new way of striking. This is the way of striking that needed a new approach to blocking. Not just the way to form a fist, or the stances (which he also changed). The rest is history.

Another thing that influenced Master Egami's karate was his spiritual quest, which gave birth to the Rakutenkai (which, in turn, gave birth to Shintaido). There are many references to ki and esoteric stuf like the kata in Appendix II. I think that his experience in WWII must have been devastating.

In my humble opinion, The heart of karate do is not a book to learn techniques (eventhough it includes nice pictures and descriptions of the basic stances and striking, blocking and kicking techniques, no to mention the warm up excercises). It is, on the other hand, a very inspiring book.

It is very famous in Japan that Egami looked for soft and smooth Karate in Aikido or Shinei dai do.
His techniques are not like Karate we imagine. How to make fist is very different from other Karate because Egami way is very good to give a blow to human beings, not good for a brick or a board.
A kind of meditation, "A" and "Un", seems funny. Egami was studying hidden Japanese ascetic exercises. So I guess the meditation came from one of the exercises.