3. The Mystery of Pan Gai Noon (D)

[emattson]

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By Graham Noble

The history of karate and martial arts styles is almost never straightforward. There is such a lack of documentation and so many cultural and personal factors involved, but the quest for neat, simple answers obscures the complexity and untidiness of the historical process involved. It could be that Kanbum Uechi felt he had to give his art a Chinese origin because of some lineage issue and the prestige that a Chinese origin would bring to his teaching. He wouldn’t have been alone in doing this, there are numerous examples in karate and martial arts history of people embroidering their personal history and lineage.

I have no idea where Kanbum Uechi learned his kata, or who from; in many ways he was a man of mystery, and in fact I don’t believe anyone knows the origins of his art. Apparently Pangainoon is a Southern Chinese term, and if Uechi really was fluent in Chinese then he must have spent a significant amount of time in China, but it’s questionable what he learned there. It’s hard to get round the fact that nothing like the kata he taught can be found in China, and yet there are closely related forms in Okinawa. The unique features of his kata – the use of open-hand and finger strikes throughout, for example – may reflect an older tradition, or, as Lawrence Tan wondered years ago, perhaps Uechi himself modified kata to produce a style that suited his own ideas and favoured techniques. That might explain the distinctive appearance of his style, and such features as the reappearance in his Sanseiru of techniques from Seisan (two elbow-strike sequences), Sanseiru’s right-side predominance, including the series of three one-knuckle thrusts, and the use of a one-knuckle thrust after the elbow-backfist combination in both Seisan and Sanseiru. The elbow and backfist is seen in both Goju and some Fujian styles, but the addition of the one-knuckle thrust seems to be unique to Uechi Ryu, as is the hand formation in the Uechi rising elbow strike, where the forearm is flexed in something like the bodybuilder’s “goose neck” position. Maybe such variations reflect Uechi’s own ideas . . . or maybe not.

Sometimes, chance comments stick in your mind, rightly or wrongly. In the 1984 taped interview between George Mattson and Ryuko Tomoyose, Tomoyose mentioned that Kanbum Uechi had said that “this style of karate would not be studied just by normal Chinese, even normal Chinese cannot study this style, very precise, and kept secret, never shown to the public. This particular style was only taught inside the temple.” “The central temple?” asks Mattson. “I don’t know the name of the Temple,” Tomoyose replies, “(but) he was very proud of this, Kanbum Uechi Sensei.”

I don’t believe the story of the temple, (or monastery), but the idea that Kanbum Uechi was very proud of his style, and stressed that it was very rarely taught – Might that indicate that he had developed it himself?

If there is any truth in all of this it doesn’t mean that Kanbum Uechi was a false master. Evidently he loved his art and he trained hard, but he may have lacked confidence in proclaiming the techniques he taught as his own. For whatever reason, he may have wished to disguise his own contributions and felt that attributing a Chinese lineage to his teaching would bring it greater authority and acceptance. And actually, if there is anything at all to this idea then the focus on Uechi Ryu’s origins shifts away from China and some obscure master of an unknown style and back to Kanbum Uechi himself, and in a way he becomes a more interesting and important figure in Uechi Ryu: the master responsible for both its origin and its success today.

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