Uechi Ryu Karate

   Shushiwa

Southern Shaolin Ken, considered the strongest sect of Chinese kempo, consisted of hard body training and was offensively rather than defensively oriented. Emphasis was placed on fingertip (nukite) training. Practitioners were known for having fingers like iron.

Eishun Ken, another system developed in the South, was a soft style known for its defensive skills. Shushiwa is believed to have combined the two styles to create a system that used hard techniques for offense and soft techniques for defense.

Shushiwa, described as an intelligent and dedicated student, became proficient in several forms of Chinese boxing, particularly Tiger Fist, one of the Five Fists of Fujian.  It had been thought by later Uechi-Ryu practitioners for many years that "Shusshabu"  which is a dialectic variant of the name "Shushiwa" who was a teacher of Tiger Fist, were the same person.  After a research visit to Fuchow by master Kenei Uechi and other members of the Uechi Karate Association in 1984, it had become apparent that Shusshabu and Shushiwa were different individuals.  Legends attribute Shushiwa with great strength. He reportedly could hold the weight of two people hanging from the fingertips of his outstretched arms. He also became an accomplished painter and calligrapher.

Shushiwa contracted a severe illness and died in 1926, at the young age of fifty-two.

 

   Kanbun Uechi

 Some believe Kanbun Uechi was born in Izumi on the Motobu Peninsula, and that he moved to the tiny mountain village of Takinto at three or four years old. However, evidence clearly indicates that Kanbun's parents, Kantoku and Tsuru Uechi, had already moved to Takinto and it was in the mountain top village that Kanbun was born on May 5, 1877.

Kanbun Uechi grew up in this area, part of a proud, traditional Okinawan family of bushi (Samurai or Shizoku) lineage.  The Uechi family farmed daikon radishes and sold them in the village at the bottom of the mountain.  Radishes are still grown there today.

Empty handed Okinawan fighting arts (te), kobudo, and the samurai arts were a cultural part of rural life in Okinawa, especially on the Motobu peninsula.  More organized martial arts were being taught in the southern areas such as Naha, Shuri and Tomari.  Those systems were greatly influenced by the martial arts of China (tote).

Kanbun learned bojutsu (staff arts) from exposure to Motobu experts such as Taru Kise and Kamato Toyozato as well as his father, Kantoku.  Kanbun often taught the younger people of his area and led bo demonstrations that accompanied holidays and festivals. An aged martial arts master from Tobaru named Toyama instilled in Kanbun the desire to pursue martial arts training in China. Toyama had visited China many times to study the martial arts and bojutsu. Though he did not leave a lasting historic mark on Okinawa, Toyama influenced many young men in the Motobu peninsula, including Kanbun Uechi.

Kanbun's keen interest in karate and social objections to serving in the Japanese army provoked his decision to leave Okinawa.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, most of the great Okinawan instructors of martial arts went to China to study.  Many of the beautiful, flowing styles taught today bear only a superficial resemblance to the practical fighting forms of that age.  The main difference was the attitude involved in the imparting and studying martial arts.  At that time one studied to survive!  A strongly practiced technique could easily be responsible for saving one's life in that age of road bandits, brigades, personal vengeance, and the violent political climate caused by the falling of the Tokugawa (Edo) period and the Meiji Restoration.  In turn students took their training much more seriously.  It was not a "hobby"!  And so China, being the birthplace of so many great fighting systems, was the naturally the best place to go for intensive training.

The other reason was to avoid being drafted into the Japanese Army.  Since shortly after Kanbun's birth Okinawan youths were being forced into military service.  This was one way Japan attempted to ensure the subservience of the next generation of these troublesome, headstrong Okinawan people:  Draft the youth into the army and indoctrinate  them into Japanese political thought, give them the little power a soldier has, put them a few of them in charge of a small village now and again, and they would be subservient to the new Emperor.  This attempt to control the Okinawan people did not work as well as planed.

The Okinawan were quite aware of the effort that main land Japan was exerting to try to centralize there island into the main Japanese political and cultural structure.  The Okinawan saw this as an effort to erase their culture and subjugate them so naturally they resented and opposed the Japanese government.  The Japanese government responded by creating enormous taxes.  This lead to a high poverty level on the island.  But most of all the Okinawan people feared that letting Japan have a standing army on their island it would lead Japan's enemies to invade their island.  His parents abandoned their earlier objections against Kanbun traveling to China in the interest of their son's safety and life.

In March 1897, Kanbun undertook the ten-day excursion across the East China Sea to Fuchow City in Fukein Province. He was accompanied by Tokusaburo Matsuda, a friend from Motobu. The two young refugees, soon to be twenty years old, were uneducated and unfamiliar with the language and ways of China.Kanbun Uechi in China

                                    Fukien Province, Southern China      

 

In the early summer of 1897, he began study at the Kugusuku Karate School with Matsuda.  However, Kanbun had something of a personality clash with one of the senior students, and soon left the school to study a form of Chinese boxing called Pangainoon, under a master named Shushiwa.

This version of Kanbun's acceptance into Shushiwa's school is a combination of Seiko Toyoma's and Kanei Uechi: 

One day Shushiwa became ill with a massive headache. He did not look well so his alarmed students sought out Kanbun Uechi and insisted that he use his medicine to cure their teacher. Kanbun successfully healed Shushiwa with herbal mixtures. As a result Kanbun Uechi was finally accepted as an official disciple at the Fu Chuan Shin Temple in a secret ceremony called Pai Soo.

Shushiwa proved to be a taskmaster of the highest degree.  Like many would-be martial arts students in the last days of the 19th century, Kanbun Uechi's first years of study were as much about patience as about martial arts! He later told his son Kanei "All I did for three years was Sanchin. Very few students survived this test of patience.  When I first began my training, I cleaned the training floor and the toilet area, and occasionally tried to learn some of the movements by watching the senior students.  After a while, the would see me going through some of the movements by myself, and would give me a little help, but the master would offer no assistance.  Finally after being thoroughly discouraged and resigned to the fact that I would never learn karate, the master called me to him,

"Stand here and do this motion" Shushiwa said, indicating the opening movements of Sanchin and the double thrust.  I worked on nothing but these thrusting motions for three months, but because I had nothing else to work on, my thrusts became very strong."

Kanbun told Kanei that mastery of Sanchin took at least 10 years, but after 3 years, his teacher taught him Seisan kata.  During that time Kanbun became very strong and fast, almost all his time was being spent in study.  This was in due in part to the rigorous old-style Chinese training methods for strengthening and conditioning, which used sand, gravel, buckets of rice, gripping weights and holding/lifting with the fingers, and chores that encourage the development of the body.  Kanbun worked at farming on the temple grounds, pulling up daikon radish roots. Another chore he performed was the cleaning and husking of beans. The beans were placed in a large stone bowl and struck repeatedly with the fingertips until the husks could be blown away. With this type of work the fingertips were being trained for martial arts.  But throughout all the training, emphasis was placed on total mastery of Sanchin.

"All Is in Sanchin" - Kanbun Uechi

In Okinawa and China, building strength in daily work and karate training were closely related.

Kanbun studied under Shushiwa for 10 years learning not only the physical art (which at that time included Chinese medicine) but also philosophy and the ancient Chinese classics.  He became fluent and literate in Chinese during his stay.  To supplement his income he would sell medicines outside the temple gates.

In the spring of 1904, the same year that war began between Japan and Russia, Kanbun Uechi received the Menkyo Kaiden certificate naming him a master of Chinese Pangainoon (half hard-half soft style). It was a monumental event in his twenty-seven years of life. He had vowed to himself to become proficient in the martial arts of China or never return to his homeland.

Kanbun became an assistant to Shushiwa, continuing his martial arts training and lessons in Chinese literature and medicine for three more years. Kanbun felt a strong obligation to perform and teach Pangainoon precisely as Shushiwa taught him. He was diligent about every aspect of his teaching.

Kanbun had learned a great deal about the language and herbal medicine by that time. The knowledge of growing, preparing and administering herbal medicine went hand in hand with martial arts teaching. A teacher was expected to heal his students when they were injured during training.

At thirty years of age, Kanbun opened his own dojo, the Pangainoon Kempo Sho (Martial Arts Institute) early in 1907. He chose a town he liked called Nansei no cho (Nanching), approximately 250 miles southwest of Fuchow.  Nanching was well known for its large number of famous kung-fu fighters and teachers.

A tea merchant and friend to Kanbun, Wu Hsien-Kuei (in Japanese Gokenki) warned Kanbun not to try to open a school in that district - many had tried before and failed.  But Kanbun replied that he liked the area and looked forward to the challenge.  In time, despite a few run-ins with jealous locals, Kanbun's reputation grew, and he was heading a successful school.  Even Wu Hsien-Kuei, the very man who warned him of trying to teach there, left his old system of Kingai (a Chinese forerunner of Goju-Ryu) and became his student.

Kanbun Uechi was a warm hearted, affectionate man who was well like by his students. His fierce martial arts ability was secondary to his easy, likable demeanor. Though now teaching in his own dojo, Kanbun continued his instruction by making semiannual visits to Shushiwa to continue his own dedicated training.

By 1909 Kanbun was doing quite well as a teacher and was very happy with his new life.  when one of his students fell into an argument with another man over a farming dispute.  That year had seen a severe drought in the area, and the disagreement concerned the irrigation of the parched rice fields.  Violence ensued.  Kanbun's student instinctively called upon his training, struck the other man with a heavy blow and killed him.  It was well known that he was a student of Pangainoon under Master Uechi.  While the young student was punished, Kanbun Uechi was help responsible for having trained him.  The city accused Kanbun of failing to teach the proper spirit of Kenpo (Chinese boxing).  In that society that accusation was a very serious thing.  Kanbun vowed never to teach again.

Kanbun Uechi, despite requests from his students and Shushiwa to remain, closed his dojo in 1910 and left China forever. During his thirteen years in China, Kanbun learned three kata. They were Sanchin, Seisan, and Sanseiryu. Kanbun called the third kata Sandairyu. Kanbun also learned various methods of Chinese body conditioning.  He also has the distinction of being the only Okinawan ever to have been accepted in China as a teacher of Pangainoon.

Kanbun Uechi back in Okinawa

At the time of Kanbun's return to Okinawa, Japanese officials were arresting all Okinawan people accused of evading the draft, and sentencing them to prison terms.  However, Kanbun had so completely adapted to the life and culture of China that when he landed in Naha Port, the examining officials were convinced he was a Chinese scholar.  He wore Manchu clothing, spoke Chinese, and wore his hair Chinese style.  Kanbun returned to Izumi without incident.

That year, Kanbun married and settles down to raise his family and farm his land.  He tried to forget his years of training in China, but his reputation was following nt far behind.

Gokenki, the former student, often traveled to Okinawa on business.  He soon located his friend and teacher.  He tried to persuade him to teach again.  With the ghosts of past events and the sudden downfall of his reputation in China still haunting him, and the possibility that his recent connections with Chinese training might help to identify him as a draft-evader.  Kanbun was alarmed at the thought that his now happy and peaceful life may be destroyed and his new family made to suffer and so vehemently refused.

Gokenki was a rather outspoken fellow, it seems, and made no secret of his obvious preference for Chinese-style training and it's superiority over many Okinawan systems.  He managed without much effort to get into a brawl with another Naha Karate teacher, and defeated him soundly.  After that, it seams that the reputation of several teachers and systems were at stake.  To save face, other well known karate teachers challenged Gokenki, but none were able to best him.  Then, of course many prospective students showed up at Gokenki's door asking for instruction.  Gokenki made it known that his teacher in China was an Okinawan after all, and lived on the northern end of the island.

Soon Kanbun's reputation grew, though no one had ever seen him perform.  When approached by young men seeking instruction, he merely stated that they must have mistaken him for someone else.  Finally, the townspeople got Kanbun and Gokenki together to cleat up the mystery.  Kanbun could no longer deny the stories.  Hi still refused to discuss karate or demonstrate a kata and would not offer an explanation.  Somehow, the question of draft-evasion never came up, and Kanbun was never indicted.  He continued to farm his land as if he had never been away.  Though he did teach the bo staff technique at village gathering and festivals, but never a demonstration of karate.

Every year the Motobu police department held a large celebration at which it was customary for all the local karate schools to demonstrate their skills.  The teachers got together before the celebration to discuss the demos and plan the events.  The idea came up to have the mayor of Motobu announce that Kanbun Uechi would demonstrate by performing a kata.  They were anxious to see proof of his ability, and so saw to it that he attended the celebration and was seated so near to the stage that if he refused the mayor's request, he would lose face.  The plot was successful, for when the mayor asked Kanbun to demonstrate, the other teachers pushed Kanbun onto the stage where he was seen by all.  He could not refuse!

There was applause, the dead silence.  Kanbun was furious, but quiet.  He hesitated for a moment - just enough time for the other teachers to wonder if, after all, it was just a story.  Then with eyes glaring, Kanbun performed Seisan kata so fast and beautifully, with strength and power that after he had finished, jumped down from the stage and proceeded home, the karate portion of the day's festivities had come to an unexpected end.  No one wished to try and follow Kanbun's demonstration.

From that time on, Kanbun was respected through out Okinawa as a true expert.  He was asked to teach his karate in public schools, and was even offered a position as a professor of karate at the Teacher's College of Okinawa by Itosu Anko, the great Shorin teacher, who was also a professor at that college.  Kanbun politely refused all offers.

Okinawa was now feeling the great national pride of a suppressed people, and the poverty stricken Okinawan people were ever on the lookout for heroes and role-models to bolster the societies morale.  But "famous" Okinawan people represented a threat to the Japanese rule of the island, and were subject to harassment and "investigation" by the Japanese officials.  Kanbun was concerned with his family's welfare because of his years as a draft-evader, and would not give into the pressure to teach, which would only expose him to official scrutiny.  There was so much pressure from different sources, in fact and income for family support so scarce, that Kanbun left Okinawa for mainland Japan in 1924 to search for stable employment.Kanbun Uechi in Wakayama, Japan
Kanbun eventually traveled to Wakayama and secured employment in a textile mill, the Hinomaru Sangyo Kabushki Kaisha. The large mill, made of red tile called akarenga, produced boseki fabric used in Japanese clothing. The factory operated twenty-four hours a day.

In April 1925, Kanbun ended his fifteen-year ban on teaching martial arts and opened his first school in Japan. It was at this point that Uechi ryu, taught as Pangainoon, was born. Kanbun used the living quarters (taku) in the company (kai-sha) compound for this purpose, naming it the Shataku (company quarters) dojo. "Dojo" is the name for a karate school. The words literally translate to "way place" and represent the place where the way of karate is taught.Kanbun intentionally limited the number of students he taught. New students had to be recommended by one of the original members. That member guaranteed the moral character and behavior of the candidate they recommended. All prospective students were carefully screened and scrutinized by Kanbun. All students were forbidden to display their martial arts outside the dojo. All training was conducted secretly behind closed doors and shutters.

 

Members of the Shataku dojo in Wakayama, Japan

In March 1932, Kanbun Uechi, at fifty-four years of age, changed the location of his dojo. He opened the Pangainoon-ryu Karate-jutsu Kenkyu-jo in the Tebira section of Wakayama. The new dojo, located at Showa Dori (street), less than two miles from the former Shataku dojo, was dedicated to formalized training and personal development.

 

 

The site of Wakayama Dojo

 

Gichin Funakoshi, who is generally credited with being the fist Okinawan to open a dojo in Japan, opened his Meisei Juju dojo in Koishigawa, Tokyo two years later in 1934. The clandestine atmosphere of the Shataku dojo was left behind and the new dojo was open to the public. Kanbun continued to screen potential students. Only persons of an unbalanced or deceitful nature were excluded. The student enrollment grew and Kanbun soon quit his job at the boseki factory.

Kanbun Uechi and Ryuyu Tomoyose

 

Due to post war strife in Japan, Kanbun decided to return to Okinawa. In October 1946, Kanbun Uechi, accompanied by students Seiryo, Tsuru, and Seiyu Shinjo, Seiko Toyama and a few others, returned to Okinawa together. Several others later returned separately and settled in the northern portion of Okinawa.

Kanbun left the Tebira dojo in the care of Ryuyu Tomoyose.

                                               The site of the first Futenma Dojo

 Ryuko Tomoyose, then twenty years old, learned from his father, Ryuyu, that Kanei was back in Okinawa. In April 1949, he helped Kanei Uechi establish the Uechi ryu Karate jutsu Kenkyu-jo in Ginowan-son, Aza Nodake, known as the Nodake dojo. The style name was then changed from Pangainoon karate jutsu to Uechi ryu karate jutsu in honor of Kanbun Uechi. Uechi ryu karate and the Futenma dojo were open to the public, including American servicemen in 1958.

Kanei Uechi was very ambitious about organizing and teaching his father's system. He recognized the difficulty in teaching newer generations in the rough manner of the past. His desire was to make Uechi ryu karate available to the public at a level at which they could participate, without compromising the integrity and authenticity of Pangainoon.

Toward this end Kanei and other senior Uechi ryu practitioners created four new kata between 1954 and 1958. These were to be used as steppingstones between the three kata that Kanbun Uechi brought from China.

In July 1959 Kanei Uechi was awarded the Master Instructor Certificate by Ryuyu Tomoyose.

In February 1967, Kanei, at age fifty-six, was promoted to Hanshi Judan (tenth degree) by the Japanese Karate-do Federation, Zen Nihon Karate-do Renmei.

In May 1975, Kanei, sixty-four years old, was elected President of the All Okinawa Karate-do Federation, Zen Okinawa Karate Renmei, which had been founded in May 1956. In April 1977, Kanei was promoted to Hanshi Judan by that association, ten years after his promotion from Japan.

In 1987, Kanei Uechi was hospitalized with a severe stomach ailment. He remained in that frail condition until his death on February 21, 1991. He was eighty years old.

Kanei was a kind, gentle person like his father. His soft-spoken manner was in direct conflict with the expressiveness of his karate. He dedicated his life to his father's style of karate and directed his efforts to its propagation. Kanei Uechi's vision and years of tenacious work have created a karate system that is practiced in many countries throughout the world.

 

 

 

 Excerpts from " The Secrets of Uechi Ryu Karate and The Mysteries of Okinawa" and the History of Uechi-Ryu Karate