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Does anyone know whether Kanbun Sensei was the oldest son, or an only child ? If he had brother/s and/or sister/s, is there a record of their name/s and placement in the family?

Please cite a source or reference, if there is one...

Good question. I searched everywhere and couldn't find any hint of his brothers and sisters, which I find strange. Kanbun was born from a Samurai clan and I would expect better record keeping for his family tree. Unfortunately, I cannot read Japanese, so can't do any more research. Maybe someone else can answer.

Erik,

Tskasa Higa's translation of Takamiyagi Sensei's "Footprints of Kanbun Uechi" article states:

"The founder of Uechi Ryu karate was born on 1 May I877, the first son of a Samurai clan in Izumi, Motobu Township, Kunigami Gun, Okinawa."

This is the only reference I found regarding the size of the Uechi Family in Kanbun Sensei's youth. Other than that, I have found no evidence that he was one of several children, or an only child.

I will ask Sumako to look through the 1977 Kyohon again. If this information came directly from Kanei Sensei and is quoted as such in the Kyohon, he would have had it read to him over and over to ensure factuality. But I tend to disregard a "someone once said" sort of thing, and much information found in the Kyohon has been found to be incorrect.

My other direct sources of information (students of Kanbun Sensei, friends and neighbors while he was living on Ie Jima, etc.) told me that Kanbun Sensei seldom spoke of his youth.

"Kanbun Sensei seldom spoke of his youth"

Not just childhood. No reliable facts about Uechi’s years in Southern China are recorded. See:
https://forums.uechi-ryu.com/viewtopic.php?t=23023

He doesn't appear to have any childhood trauma, living with a kind mother and father. He had nothing painful to escape from. See:
https://forums.uechi-ryu.com/viewtopic.php?t=22931

Maybe he's simply not a historian/writer type, instead focusing everything in martial arts.

According to interviews with people who knew him directly, Kanbun Sensei could neither read not write, didn't speak Japanese well if at all, and was not fluent in any Chinese language or dialect. It is possible that his use of badly-pronounced and half-forgotten terms in Chinese (Mandarin, maybe), comprising only a few words here and there while teaching, may have led to some hearsay stories that he was "fluent in Chinese". But most reliable evidence I have uncovered has shown this "fluency" to be highly improbable.

He was closed-mouth about his youth, did not write a book about his training or life in China, and was definitely not the "historian" type.

This will be covered in detail, citing references and sources, in UechiRyu Bunburyodo Vol. 4.

According to Robert Garone's English translation of The Untold Story of Kanbun Uechi by Keisuke Fujimoto, "(Kanbun) had only one sibling, his younger brother Kanso, who was something of a troublemaker and liked to provoke and play tricks on the more reserved Kanbun." (p. It then goes into a story of a confrontation between Kanbun and Kanso after Kanbun's return from China. No direct citation is given for this information, which also includes a "Uechi Family, Genealogy Chart" that displays from Kanbun's paternal grandfather through Kanbun's grandchildren. It possibly comes from the 1977 Uechi Kyohan (referred to as "Comprehensive Okinawan Karate-Its History and Techniques") which is said to contain "...a detailed account of Kanbun Uechi's life" (p. 4).

Hi Glenn,

As per my response regarding the establishment of the Uechi Domicile in Nago, I do not use any information found in the Kyohon or the "Untold Story" books.