UechiRyu
KarateDo was originally a
form of Chinese Boxing --
one of the many pangainoon
(“half-hard-soft”)
systems. According to one
researcher, its formal name
may have been “Nan-Pa
Toro Ken” -- South Group
Mantis Fist.
However, the founder never
told the true name of the
system he studied in China.
This system combined the movements
of the tiger, dragon, crane,
leopard, snake, mantis, and
cobra. Today, UechiRyu KarateDo
is mainly known as a “Tiger,
Dragon, Crane” system,
named so for the three major
ready-positions of those animals
and their predominance in
the system.
Grandmaster Uechi Kanbun Sensei
was responsible for bringing
this art out of China. Kanbun
Sensei’s decision to
teach allowed the system to
spread worldwide, thus preserving
the original style and many
variations for all to study.
According to Toyama Seiko
Sensei (a direct student of
Kanbun Sensei), Uechi Kanbun
Sensei never told the true
old name of the system, but
simply named it “Pangainoon-Ryu
Karate-Jutsu”.
Uechi Kanbun Sensei was an
Okinawan Bushi descendent,
born on 5 May 1877 in Izumi,
a small village on the Motobu
peninsula of northern Okinawa.
As a young man, Kanbun Sensei
left Okinawa for China to
avoid conscription in the
Japanese Army, to study Chinese
Kung Fu, and to further business
prospects for his family’s
herbal medicine trade. His
resolve to study fighting
arts in China was inspired
by incredible tales of the
fighting skills and feats
of the Chinese masters as
told to him by an old karate
master named Toyama, who had
traveled frequently to China
to study such arts. Kanbun
Sensei was already proficient
with the Bo (staff) and had
excelled in the karate training
of his village, but these
stories fired his imagination
and made him thirsty for new
and deeper training. And so,
in March 1897, nineteen year
old Uechi Kanbun Sensei left
Okinawa for China to seek
fulfillment of his dream of
becoming a true warrior.
In Foochow, a major city of
the Fukien Province of China,
just west of the northern
tip of Taiwan, Kanbun Sensei
met a young Taoist priest
named Shuu Shiwa Sensei, a
master of Chinese Boxing.
Among other styles, Shuu Sensei
taught his family system of
Kung Fu which, according to
research, may have been created
by an ancestor approximately
200 years prior, the monk
Shuu Anan. Kanbun Sensei studied
every day for ten years, and
became a master of the Shuu
Family Style. His training
with Shuu Sensei extended
beyond fighting skills --
Kanbun Sensei also deepened
his already-considerable knowledge
of the healing arts, and made
medicines which he sold to
help pay his tuition. Eventually
he was permitted to teach,
and opened his first school
in Nansoue, about 250 miles
west-northwest of Foochow.
He taught there for nearly
three years. Near the end
of that time, an unfortunate
incident occurred in which
a technique from the Shuu
Family Style was accidentally
misapplied and a man was killed.
Kanbun Sensei felt completely
responsible for the death,
and so closed his school and
left China, vowing to never
teach Kung Fu again. The year
was 1910. It is probable that
Uechi Kanbun Sensei was the
only Okinawan who ever taught
Shuu Family Style Kung Fu
in China.
After his return to Okinawa,
Kanbun Sensei married and
settled down to a life of
farming. His son Kanei was
born on 26 June 1911. Other
children followed, and the
Uechi family grew. Kanbun
Sensei still refused to discuss
his skills in Kung Fu or his
life in China.
After seventeen years of silence,
Uechi Kanbun Sensei was finally
convinced to share his art
once again. He had left Okinawa
in 1924 for employment in
Mainland Japan, in the Wakayama
Prefecture near Osaka. His
first non-family student was
an Okinawan named Tomoyose
Ryuyu, who lived in the Okinawan
compound in Wakayama close
to where Kanbun Sensei lived.
The year was
1927 -- within a few years,
Kanbun Sensei and his senior
students established a highly
reputable dojo. Kanbun Sensei
taught full time, and also
made and sold the medicinal
compounds he had learned from
his father using herbs he
brought from China. By that
time, the art of fighting
without weapons was becoming
known as karate -- “Void
Hand” -- which had previously
been known as “Chinese
Hand” (one Japanese
Kanji KARA means “Chinese”,
the other KARA means “Empty”).
When Kanei Sensei was sixteen
years old and in ill health
(1927), he joined his father
in Wakayama and began to learn
the art of “Pangainoon-Ryu
Karate-Jutsu” -- Half-Hard-Soft
Style Empty Hand Technique.
He regained his health and
became proficient enough to
establish his own Osaka dojo
in April 1937.
In 1940, Kanbun Sensei renamed
the system "UechiRyu
Karate-Jutsu". In 1942,
Kanei Sensei returned to Okinawa
and began teaching in his
home dojo in Nago. Kanbun
Sensei returned to Okinawa
in late 1946, and moved to
Ie Jima, an island just off
the northwest coast of Okinawa.
He died there on 25 November
1948, losing his agonizing
battle against nephritis.
Uechi Kanbun Sensei was 71
years old. After his death,
the art was renamed UechiRyu
KarateDo (Uechi’s Method
of the Way of Karate).
Uechi Kanei Sensei continued
to teach a modified version
of his father’s art
for the remainder of his life,
and was considered one of
the world leaders in the field
of karate development, instruction,
and popularization. In the
early 1950’s, he moved
the dojo to Ginowan, and later
to Futenma (1956). He passed
away in early 1991 after a
long term of illness. Uechi
Kanei Sensei was 79 years
old, and had achieved 10th
Dan.
There are now more than fifty
associations on Okinawa directly
related to UechiRyu, all teaching
slightly different but equally
valid styles of the same system.
There are no comparisons such
as “better – worse
– greater – lesser”,
there is only the choice of
the individual. Students of
KarateDo will seek out the
style or system that suits
them.
Browse
the Journal