TRANSLATED BY: SENSEI TETSUJI NAKAMURA
INTERVIEW BY: SENSEI DAVID LAMBERT
KYUNA SENSEI: It’s hard to say which is more important. However with traditional Karate it
is a way of developing your whole body along with your breathing – which is very important.
But it only works if you train properly. The student needs to trust their teacher and be loyal to
what they are saying and slowly, step by step, they will be shown more and more detail. For
example when you punch Makiwara or you break a board, you use two knuckles, but eventually you will be shown that outside you would strike only with the first knuckle. It’s a progress
system which develops both.
My teacher was Aizo Shimabukuro Sensei and he had a Dojo after World War II. He had so
many years of experience teaching Karate, but now in Okinawa there are only two of his students that have their own Dojo’s, Shimabukuro Sensei’s son and I. So the traditional way is
hard, but the finished product is high quality and develops both attributes.