swift99

My wife did some research recently that identified the lineage of Kitagawa sensei. Kitagawa sensei was a direct student of Itosu sensei, as was Funakoshi sensei. Where Funakoshi sensei focused on popularizing karate as a sport and bringing it to the masses, the only record of Kitagawa sensei teaching anyone was six or eight teenaged boys at the New Denver internment camp in 1945 to 1948. He called his art "Okinawa Te", or "Kumite". It appears that he may not even have been aware of the branding of the art as karate until after the war. Where Funakoshi sensei modified the katas to be easier to teach to large numbers of students, Kitagawa is not believed to have modified the katas much at all. Kitagawa was teaching survival, not recreation. He did not receive payment for instruction. His emphasis was on stoicism, endurance, speed, and power.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kata is a good start.

Kata in this video is chi kata. It is also a kitagawa beginner kata, Chonan has more side to side movement. Chi kata was attributed to kitagawa sensei by Shintani, but some people believe it was actually created by one of his students. I know that seisho was created by Shintani, but he always attributed it to Kitagawa. There was a period of time (early 1980's) when some groups in Western Canada mistakenly called Chi Kata Chonan, but that was resolved when Shintani sensei gave more direct attention to those clubs. Shintani sensei often spoke about the naming of the katas, and why he stuck with the old names. The naming is in an old okinawan dialect that is a blend of chinese, Japanese, and the (now extinct?) original okinawan language. Since karate is an Okinawan art, he stuck to the Okinawan names. This is chonan:

Shintani sensei oftem spoke about kitagawa sensei when teaching. Kitagawa sensei taught in the New Denver internment camp in Canada during WW2. He was suffering from tuberculosis at the time, and running a continuous fever, so he could only work out comfortably in the extreme cold. After WW2, he returned to Okinawa. His training methods were considered harsh at the time, and would be considered abusive by today's standards. However, he was training kids for survival in a prison camp rather than sport - it is unclear how much the setting influenced his training style. For more information about Kitagawa sensei, start from http://www.wado.ca/top.html