Jo Ha Kyu ?

[Ferran]

A query for those versed in Japanese Go:

Does it use the Jo-Ha-Kyu triad of concepts? Opening-Middlegame-Endgame kinda suggests it, but it can go much further than that.

Thank you

[bogiesan]

Is this a Chinese concept? Korean? Martian?

I can tell you this: in the West, When one is beginning to learn go/baduk/weiqi, there is only the opening; it never really ends, it only spreads across the entire board.

[Ferran]

Is this a Chinese concept? Korean? Martian?

Japanese. Originally from theatre, it expanded into martial arts. It's sort of "setup - confrontation - resolution" with some quirks.

Take care.

[John Fairbairn]

I've never seen it mentioned in go, but then you almost never see references to Sun Zi's Art of War, or other exotic stuff that westerners think suffuses everything oriental. I suppose next there'll be people itching for matcha go stones on a tatami board.

Personally I think jo-ha-kyu is much overrated (though Zeami himself isn't). It's a pretty standard literary device in European literature, for example. Even journalists learn to write features that way. As to other areas, it's not that different from the old lecturing adage: tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em, tell 'em, tell 'em what you've told 'em. Or a three-course meal.

But if you insisted on applying it to go styles, you could say the Korean style is ha-ha-kyu, and the typical amateur style is ha-ha-ha.

Jo is of course sealing off territory in the opening, Japanese style:

> When o'er the hill the eastern star
> Tells bughtin-time is near, my jo.

[dfan]

But if you insisted on applying it to go styles, you could say the Korean style is ha-ha-kyu, and the typical amateur style is ha-ha-ha.

That certainly describes my style.