I translated this article about Uechi-ryu founder Uechi Kanbun several years ago, but am reposting it here as readers may find it interesting. It was originally written by Mabuni Sho and published in the magazine Karate Kenkyu, 1934 pg. 92-93. Enjoy. Read more →
Author: M M (page 1 of 3)
I am still chipping away at translating Mabuni and Nakasone’s Karate-do Nyumon and wanted to share the following few paragraphs on Karate “styles”. I find what they said on this topic, over 80 years ago, still relevant today and hope Karateka will take their words to heart.
Here’s a little bit from the introduction of Mabuni and Nakasone’s “Karate-do Nyumon” that talks about Itosu Anko sensei.
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Another week and another onslaught of videos on the web showing hopelessly unskilled, out-of- shape “Kurodee” masters demonstrating kata or technique on hapless students, reinforcing my feeling that the internet is like reading the worst book on Karate ever written. Read more →
Taira Shinken (R) demonstrating soto uke and ura nage on Mabuni Kenwa (L) From Nakasone G & Mabuni K (1938) Kobo Kenpo Karatedo Nyumon
I rarely talk about specific applications of techniques from kata in this blog mostly because I feel they need to be practiced in the dojo over and over again under the watchful eyes of a good teacher. That said since I’ve been translating “Kobo Kenpo Karatedo Nyumon” so I don’t think I’m giving anything away by showing this photo of the application of “soto uke, ura nage” or “outside deflection, rear throw” (外受裏投) from the same book. Read more →
Kanzaki sensei performing Kanyu no Sesan kataFrom time to time Kanzaki sensei would recollect to me about his time learning Tou’on-ryu from Kyoda Juhatsu in the 1950s and 1960s. He shared some great stories, but often he would tell me how much of an influence Higaonna Kanryo had on Kyoda. I don’t doubt this as there are many anecdotes and much circumstantial evidence to support this. One only has to look at the name of Kyoda’s style Tou’on-ryu [東恩流] which uses the first two kanji of Kanryo’s last name, Higaonna [東恩納]. However, I think there is more going on in that name than meets the eye. Read more →
Things are slowly returning to normal in some places and I’m happy to see that, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for Karateka and Kobudoka. It will probably be some time before we are able to practice together and even then, we won’t be sure what that will consist of. In the meantime we can continue to practice and study by ourselves.
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I was surfing on the web the other day and stumbled on a karate video on Youtube where a teacher referred to himself as “zokucho”; then another one where a different teacher called himself “gunshi”. I almost fell out of my seat laughing. It was an absolutely brilliant display of using Japanese completely wrong.