THE GHOST MASTERS
HISTORICAL NOTES
FURTHER READING
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR CHOJUN…
I sit now to write my memoirs, not because I am a man of any great importance to the world, but rather because I knew such a man. His life changed the lives of millions and changed mine in ways I could never have imagined when I first met him, all those years ago, as a boy of just nine years.
Today his name is written in karate histories as one of the truly great Okinawan masters. It has even been immortalized in a series of Hollywood movies, but apart from featuring a karate master of the same name, the movies bear little resemblance to the man I knew or the times in which he lived. The Mr. Miyagi I knew was called Chojun Miyagi, and he lived and died in Okinawa. He was born in 1888 in the island’s capital, Naha, and rarely ventured far from the warm embrace of his Pacific home. He traveled occasionally to China and the Japanese mainland, and once spent several months touring Hawaii and demonstrating his art, but he never made it as far as America where his karate is so popular now.
Miyagi died relatively young, in 1953, at the age of sixty-five. People say karate training is good for the health and promotes longevity, and I believe this to be true. However, no amount of training can protect against heart disease or temper the soul for the tragedies of the war that descended on Okinawa with such ferocity in 1945.
Chojun Miyagi died a long time ago, but to me, he is still alive. Each day when I practice karate he is with me, beside me, his hard hands guiding my own, his soft deep voice in my ear, urging me to stand firm, to tense here, to relax here, to inhale deeply, to exhale slowly.
When I retired from my job at the harbor, I realized I was the same age as Miyagi was when he died, and ever since that realization, I began to feel his presence more persistently. His ghost visited me not only in my karate, but also in my dreams and even in my waking moments, sitting on my tiny balcony, staring out over the uneven rooftops to the sea. It seemed my long-awaited days of lazing in the sunshine in tranquil retirement were not to be. Miyagi had other ideas and I could feel his disapproving gaze upon me as I sat watching the waves while my wife tidied around me and my neighbors tended their gardens below. It took me several days to realize what my heart, and Miyagi’s ghost, was telling me: it was time to stop idling and put down on paper my memories of my master, my teacher, my sensei. It was time to pay tribute to the name of Chojun Miyagi.
I am still on my balcony. I have moved my writing table out here, which means there’s even less room than before, but if I go inside I won’t be able to see the sea, and who would ever choose to go inside when they could watch the waves, forever changing and re-forming, yet never becoming anything more or less than a single ocean? Who would give up seeing the boats going in and out of the harbor, and the wind at play in the palms? Besides, these things remind me of Miyagi. They inspire me, as he inspires me.
I met Chojun Miyagi by the sea, at the end of the long, hot summer of 1933. It was a day I’ll always remember, for many reasons, though it began like any other on our island. The sky was a fathomless blue, as vast as the ocean beneath it, the sun was rising slowly over the tall Ryukyu palms, casting pointed shadows on the white sands below, and the sea was moving in gentle swells, with only the occasional ripple of white foam beyond the rocky headland.
I’d been wandering along the shoreline from my hometown of Itoman to the little village of Nashiro, where the long beach provided rich hunting grounds for sharks’ teeth and other treasures left by the sea. I was moving quickly, stopping only to examine any unusual shells or stones that caught my eye, or to prod the dried remains of a sea creature lying in the tidemark. When the sand of the sweeping bay gave way to stony ground, I chased crabs in the shallow rock-pools, following a haphazard trail through the rocks to the rugged cliffs of Cape Kyan, the southernmost point of Okinawa. The sea was rougher here, and ten-foot swells surged below me, sending white foam fingers reaching up the cliff-face for my feet, and then retreated to reveal sharp coral rocks hidden beneath. I continued along the cliff-top path until I came to a rockfall at the beginning of a pristine cove and scrambled down the rocks to the deserted beach below. It was a place all to myself, away from the world.
A shallow reef hugs the Okinawan coastline and I swam out to dive among the coral, searching for oysters that might conceal a pearl. I dreamed of going deeper, all the way to the bottom of the sea like a real pearl diver, but my lungs were too small and I was forced to make do with mussels, clams, and starfish. Beyond the coral shelf, the ocean fell away into an abyss. Whenever I found myself at the reef ’s edge, I was seized by a lurching sense of vertigo and quickly returned to the shallower water, imagining as I did, some terrible creature emerging from the blackness to drag me to my doom. I held my breath as long as I could, staying down a little longer each time. I must have practiced for several hours, unaware of the time, until I emerged from one particularly long dive and found myself in darkness. I wondered, had I really been diving so long that night had fallen? Bewildered, I spun around in the water, examining the sky. I could still make out the faint outline of the sun behind a sprawl of angry black clouds. Warm, fat raindrops splashed on my arms and my shoulders, and I heard the growl of distant thunder. I looked to shore and saw a narrow shaft of sunlight cast by a gap in the clouds, illuminating a thin strip of the rocks behind my beach like a beacon in the gathering storm. I swam hard for that beacon. Giant waves were already crashing on the shore. I was forced to swim with all my might to avoid being cast into the jagged rocks at the beach’s end. At last, a benevolent wave hurled me safely ashore and I lay in the seething sand, exhausted.
I cursed myself for my stupidity. The wetness of the wind and the growing swells of the sea should have been my clues. I was a child of Okinawa, and every Okinawan knew that in the summer months, the Kuroshio current brought more than warm water from the tropics—it brought typhoons.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a typhoon, they’re common in Okinawa at that time of year. But it was the first time I’d been so far from home. Worse still, the way home would take me over cliff-tops and open beaches where I’d be at the mercy of the wind. I feared I’d be picked up like a leaf and dashed on some hillside far inland. Going home would be impossible, but I couldn’t stay on the beach. New waves were reaching farther up the beach, eager to drag me back into their embrace. I rose unsteadily to my feet. The wind lashed my back with sharp sand, and a sudden gust hurled me toward the rockfall. I slammed into a boulder, taking the impact on my palms and cursing myself once more.
I had to think. I had to find shelter, but my mind was a blank. The answer came to me through my hands. It was in the rocks that I was holding. I remembered a small cave that I’d noticed at the top of the rockfall. I didn’t relish the idea of climbing up the rocks in this wind, but it was my best hope of survival, and I had to do it now, before the full force of the storm hit. I pressed my body close to the rocks, my fingers digging hard into the glistening surfaces, and climbed swiftly and evenly up. The wind snatched at my limbs playfully and slapped me heartily on the back with a warmth that belied its murderous intent. I wasn’t fooled. This wind was merely flexing its muscles in preparation for what it was to become. Near the top of the rockfall, I caught sight of the cave exactly where I’d remembered it. There was a huge boulder like an enormous stepping-stone lying at its entrance. I stood on it and at that moment, when I wasn’t holding on, the wind made its final play for me. A furious gust sent me tumbling over the side of the boulder. I felt myself falling but the sensation lasted only a moment. To my good fortune, there were three smaller boulders on the other side, their ends close together and forming a rough plateau. It was here that I landed on my knees and my forearms. I was shocked rather
