Meitoku Yagi
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Meitoku Yagi (八木明徳 ''Yagi Meitoku'', born March 6, 1912, in
Naha is the capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. As of 1 June 2019, the city has an estimated population of 317,405 and a population density of 7,939 persons per km2 (20,562 persons per sq. mi.). The total area ...
,
Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...
- died February 7, 2003) was a karate master and teacher. He learned Goju-ryu from its legendary founder Chojun Miyagi. On April 29, 1986,
Emperor Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...
named Yagi a Living National Treasure (ningen kokuho) for his contributions to the martial arts.


Training

Yagi began training under Miyagi when he was 14 years old. Miyagi was impressed by his dedication and hard work, and eventually taught him all the kata in the Goju-ryu
syllabus A syllabus (; plural ''syllabuses'' or ''syllabi'') or specification is a document that communicates information about an academic course or class and defines expectations and responsibilities. It is generally an overview or summary of the curric ...
. Normally, Miyagi would only teach
Sanchin is a kata of apparent Southern Chinese (Fujianese) origin that is considered to be the core of several styles, the most well-known being the Okinawan Karate styles of Uechi-Ryū and Gōjū-Ryū, as well as the Chinese martial arts of Fujian W ...
to his pupils for several years, and even then he might only teach them
Seisan The karate ''kata'' (alternate names ''Sesan'', ''Seishan'', ''Jusan'', Hangetsu) literally means '13'. Some people refer to the ''kata'' as '13 Hands', '13 Fists', '13 Techniques', '13 Steps' or even '13 killing positions'; however, these names ...
and Seiunchin. To complement his karate training, Yagi enjoyed many activities including shodo, playing the
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
and shamisen, and
chinese chess ''Xiangqi'' (; ), also called Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. ''Xiangqi'' is in the same family of games as ''shogi'', ''janggi'', Western chess, ''chatu ...
.


Career

After Miyagi's death in 1953, Yagi opened his own dojo in the Daido district of Naha. He named his school of Goju-ryu
Meibukan {{short description, Style of karate Meibukan (明武舘) is a branch of Gōjū-ryū karate. It was created by Meitoku Yagi, a student of Gojyu-ryu's founder, Chojun Miyagi. Meibukan means "House of the pure-minded warrior." Yagi opened the first ...
, meaning "house of the pure minded warrior." The name and crest of his school both utilise the first
kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
in his given name, 明 (Mei), which has several meanings, including purity. It is made up of the kanji for sun and the kanji for moon, reflecting the duality of nature, which is
inherent Inherence refers to Empedocles' idea that the qualities of matter come from the relative proportions of each of the four elements entering into a thing. The idea was further developed by Plato and Aristotle. Overview That Plato accepted (or ...
to Goju-ryu. Today, the main headquarters for the Meibukan school are in the Kume district of Naha. Yagi's number one goal was for his students to promote peace, be good people and contribute to society. Meitoku Yagi began developing a series of kata in the 1970s and 1980s, which he named Meibuken kata. The first of which is Tenchi, meaning "heaven and earth." It was originally two kata, Fukyu kata ichi and Fukyu kata ni. The two kata can be put together so that if two
karateka (; ; Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the influence of Chinese martial arts, particularly Fujian ...
were to perform each half an attack in the first kata would correspond with a block in the second, for example. The Meibuken kata are different from the kata in the Goju-ryu syllabus in many ways, including having vertical closed hand chambers, and having a different yoi position, reflecting Yagi Sensei's Chinese roots, and his time spent studying martial arts there. The other four Meibuken kata represent the four guardians of the
cardinal directions The four cardinal directions, or cardinal points, are the four main compass directions: north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials N, E, S, and W respectively. Relative to north, the directions east, south, and west are at ...
in Chinese
mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...
. As with Ten no kata and Chi no kata, the other four pair up as well to show the kata’s bunkai. Seiryu (East, Blue Dragon) and
Byakko The White Tiger ( Chinese: 白虎, Pinyin: ''Báihǔ''), known in Chinese as Baihu, is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. It is sometimes called the White Tiger of the West (). It represents the west in terms of direction an ...
(West, White Tiger) go together, and Suzaku (South, Red Phoenix) and Genbu (North, Black Tortoise) combine. Though those are the
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
names generally used for the kata, Yagi Sensei once said that he never specifically chose colours for the animals. In 2000, Yagi released an autobiography entitled ''The Life Drama of the Man, Meitoku''. In late 2002, he was 91 and still performing demonstrations of katas. He died February 7, 2003, at 11:40 am. At the time of his death he was considered as the most senior Karateka in the world.


Family

Yagi has three daughters, Chieko, Chikako and Chizuko; and two sons, Meitatsu and Meitetsu. Currently Yagi Meitatsu is the president of the International Meibukan Goju-ryu Karate Association (IMGKA), and Yagi Meitetsu is the president of the Meibukan hombu dojo. In 1997 Yagi promoted his eldest son, Meitatsu to
Hanshi The Japanese language makes use of a system of honorific speech, called , which includes honorific suffixes and prefixes when referring to others in a conversation. Suffixes are often gender-specific at the end of names, while prefixes are att ...
Judan. Before his death, Yagi also promoted Meitetsu to Hanshi Judan in 2001, but it was only made known publicly
posthumously Posthumous may refer to: * Posthumous award - an award, prize or medal granted after the recipient's death * Posthumous publication – material published after the author's death * ''Posthumous'' (album), by Warne Marsh, 1987 * ''Posthumous'' (E ...
.


External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20171107015822/http://www.imgka.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Yagi, Meitoku 1912 births 2003 deaths People from Naha Okinawan male karateka Gōjū-ryū practitioners