空手に先手無し karate ni sente nashi There is No First Attack in Karate
空手に先手無し (karate ni sente nashi), in karate there is no first move, is the best known of Funakoshi Gichin's twenty precepts, the one a Zen abbot brushed for his memorial at Enkaku-ji. 先手 is the first move of go and shōgi, and the precept makes karate's whole stance a reply.
Abstract
空手に先手無し, in karate there is no first move, is one of Funakoshi Gichin 船越義珍's twenty precepts of karate, and the best known of them: a Zen abbot brushed it for his memorial at Enkaku-ji, Kamakura, in 1968. The list of twenty rests on a 1938 book not held here, 空手道大観, which the encyclopedias cite for its frontispiece photograph and which the 2003 English translation of Funakoshi's own commentary names as the first printing of the precepts with that commentary. 先手 is the term for the first move in go and shōgi.
Overview
The text. 空手に先手無し, karate ni sente nashi, in karate there is no first move. The twenty precepts are given by the Japanese Wikipedia article on Funakoshi, citing a photograph in a 1938 book, as a numbered list [1]; this is item 2.
The sense. The precept holds one sense and the tradition does not argue it: karate does not strike first. Funakoshi's own Karate-dō Kyōhan calls it the state of absolute passiveness, and a student remembered it as meaning that one should never attack and if attacked, be only defensive [2][3].
The words. The twenty precepts are written in the formal Japanese of their day: 先づ with づ, 而して, 放たん, 要す. The list writes 先手なし; 先手無し is the same word with the kanji for the kana. 先手, the first move, is the term from go and shōgi [4]. 無し, there is none.
The text in English. There are no Meiji bilingual dictionaries for a 1938 list; the English begins with the karate books, and this precept is in them from 1973. What a rendering must keep is the imperative: the precepts are rules, not observations.
The historical record
1938. Nakasone Genwa 仲宗根源和, 『空手道大観』 (A Survey of Karate-dō), the frontispiece. The earliest print anyone names for the twenty as a list. The Japanese encyclopedia gives the list as 空手二十箇条 and cites this book's frontispiece photograph, dated 3 May 1938; the English encyclopedia cites the same book. The Kodansha translation of Funakoshi's commentary names it too: Originally published as Karate-do nijukkajo to sono kaishaku, in 空手道大観, 1938 [5]. The book is not in the National Diet Library's digital collection, and neither are Funakoshi's own five pre-war books. So the list rests on one book, cited by the encyclopedias for its photograph and by the translation for its text. That is the honest footing, and the precepts are Funakoshi's by every tradition that has them [1].
The precept in English
1973. Gichin Funakoshi, Karate-dō Kyōhan: The Master Text, translated by Tsutomu Ohshima, Kodansha International. The precept as a maxim, three times: on the Taikyoku kata, the real meaning of the maxim, "In karate, there is no advantage in the first attack"; "There is no sente (first attack) in karate," the state of absolute passiveness; and It has long been said that there is no first hand (sente) in Karate, and whether performing kata or kumite, the front fist is used for defense. The book has no list of the twenty; its chapter of maxims for the trainee is another text [2].
1975. Gichin Funakoshi, Karate-dō: My Way of Life, Kodansha International, p. 64. The caption to the memorial raised at Enkaku-ji, Kamakura, in 1968: The calligraphy at the right is by the master; that at the left is by Asahina Sogen, chief priest of the temple, and reads, "Karate ni sente nashi.", the precept brushed by a Zen abbot [6].
1995. John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, Kodansha International, p. 82. Stevens's own numbered paraphrase of the twenty, Funakoshi summed up his views on the art in his "Twenty Principles of Karate.": 2, There is no first attack in karate. This is Funakoshi's best known maxim, and it is engraved on his tombstone [7].
1999. Mark Bishop, Okinawan Karate, A & C Black, p. 64. A student's memory of the precept's meaning: 'Funakoshi,' Kaneshima remembered, 'was well educated and a good youth leader; his famous adage "Karate ni sente nashi" had meant that one should never attack and if attacked, be only defensive.' [3]
2003. Gichin Funakoshi, The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate, translated by John Teramoto, Kodansha International. The first English of Funakoshi's own commentary on the twenty. It heads this precept There is no first strike in karate; the commentary opens "A sword must never be recklessly drawn" was the most important tenet of conduct in the daily life of a samurai [5].
Today. The two web lists give There is no first strike in karate and There is no first attack in karate [8][9]. The first is the Kodansha translation's own heading [5].
A reading
The precept's earliest witness is the list's, an unseen photograph of 1938, and it is Funakoshi's by every tradition that carries it. What it says, it says with a board-game word: 先手 is the move that takes the initiative, and the precept gives the initiative away on purpose. That is why a Zen abbot could brush it for a memorial and a student could remember it as a whole ethic.
References
- 「船越義珍」, § 松濤二十訓, Japanese Wikipedia, citing 仲宗根源和『空手道大觀』(1938) 口絵写真. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/船越義珍
- Gichin Funakoshi, Karate-dō Kyōhan: The Master Text, translated by Tsutomu Ohshima, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1973.
- Mark Bishop, Okinawan Karate, A & C Black, London, 1999 (© 1989, 1999), p. 64.
- 「先手」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/先手-509381
- Gichin Funakoshi, The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate, translated by John Teramoto, afterword by Jotaro Takagi, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 2003 (Kodansha USA, 2012).
- Gichin Funakoshi, Karate-dō: My Way of Life, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1975, p. 64.
- John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1995, p. 82.
- "Nijū kun", Wikipedia (English). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijū_kun
- "The 20 Precepts of Karate", Chiltern Karate. https://www.chilternkarate.co.uk/about-karate/philosophy/20-precepts/