The Secret Symbol

Matsumora Kosaku (1829-1898) together with Oyadomari Kokan (1827-1905) were masters of a Tomari village method of Te (Tomari-te). Oral tradition teaches that they were students of the masters Teruya and Uku, but they also learned kempo with Annan, a supposedly Chinese master from Fuzhou that survived a shipwreck in the Okinawan coast. This man lived as a hermit in a cave at the hills north of Tomari, and Matsumora and Oyadomari observed secretly his solitary kempo training. One day, they decided to ask him for instruction and began to practice in the atrium of a grave where Annan slept.
When Anan left Okinawa, he gave Matsumora a scroll with a picture of a woman in a fighting posture (kamae) holding a pine-branch in one hand. Anan explained that the picture was the symbol of his school. This story was passed on by Funakoshi Gichin in "Karate-do Kyohan” and also by Nakazone Seiyu, and it means that Tomari-te has a Chinese origin. Now, Matsumora considered Teruya as his true master (according to Shoshin Nagamine in "Tales of Okinawa's Great Masters"), and Teruya was probably a Chinese master (and not an Okinawan, like Uku). It is said that he passed on the katas Passai, Wanshu and Rohai. It is not impossible that Teruya and Annan are the same person.
Kempo symbolism usually represents the Art as a woman. This is the Yin principle, the internal power (the “Ju” energy). The woman means flexibility, agility, cunning, dissimulation, characterizing a soft style of Quan with body changes (escapes), tricks and circular strikes. The pine branch is a symbol of knowledge and secret..
It should be noticed also that a very similar symbol was adopted by Shimabuku Tatsuo as the symbol of his karate system (Isshim-ryu). In fact, Tatsuo was exposed to the Tomari-te via Motobu and Kyan, before create his karate system.
According to the Isshin-ryu tradition, Shimabuku has obtained this symbol in a dream or – probably - in a trance-like state (he was a seer and mystical). This is a passage event that marks frequently an initiation in the esoteric traditions from Western and Eastern cultures. In fact, Tatsuo was a sort of a medium, clairvoyance, and a professional diviner before he dedicated full time to his karate. This tradition has a long history… Hyppocrates and Galenus, famous physicians from the Antiquity related that they acquired their wisdom through dreams, that is, in trance-like states. These are only two among thousands of examples that can be found in the Western and Eastern prisca sapientiae traditions. Wisdom and knowledge are two differents things. Among the Vedics, Taoists, Muslims and the first Christians, similar experiences took part on their “initiation into the mysteries”. They happened also with the American (Northern, Central and Southern) Indians and also in the African and Asiatic’s spiritual traditions. A deeper involvement (in the Platonic sense of the Eros) with some knowledge based in traditions, like karate, can turn on archetypes that control the Art and that is asleep in the Collective Unconscious. An deeper psychological and physical experience with the Art inserted in a cultural receptive environment sometimes can turn on these archetypes.
Shimabuku’s karate was legitimated by this experience and he didn’t need any “menkyo kaiden” (a mere object of vanity) to be a master in the real sense. When we look the Kosaku Matsumora’s biography, we think that he had a similar experience. In fact, it is probable that this archetype is recurrent in the Okinawan karate, that could be controlled by this archetype. The legend of the Anan’s scroll perhaps should be read in this psychological and anthropological sense. Martial Arts traditions are controlled by archetypes (and not by menkyo kaiden or masters), or as the old Chinese masters said: “by the Night Imperator” (the "Genbu", in the Japanese mytholoy).