NOTES ON UECHI

[emattson]

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By Graham Noble

John D. Mills – His thesis, “An Introduction to the Historic, Cultural, and Social Phenomenon of Okinawan Karate”, June 1985, (A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts) gives a valuable early history of Uechi Ryu.

Kanbum Uechi bending a coin – This story was told by James Thompson in an article in the American “Dojo” magazine. I didn’t make a note of the issue date.

Mabuni and Konishi’s visit to Uechi in Wakayama – The translation of Mabuni’s memoir is by Brian Sekiya. Mario McKenna has also published translations of both Mabuni and Konishi’s accounts. Mario wote an article of the Wakayama meeting for “Dragon Times”, No. 22, (2002).

The Okinawan orthodoxy that Chinese styles concentrate on the use of the open hands and finger strikes – This came up in the discussion between Uechi and Mabuni, but as noted, it was a commonplace in Okinawan karate tradition. It is refererred to in a number of places, for example: in a memoir of Ankoh Itosu in the “Ryukyu Shimpo”, 18 March, 1915, (Itosu met an expert called Chinen who had studied in China and had learned the Chinese technique of thrusting with the fingers); by Gogai Sasaki in his 1921 magazine article on karate; by Chotoku Kyan and Chojun Miyagi, both quoted in Miki and Takada’s “Kempo Gaisetsu”; by Shosin Nagamine in his 1957 interview with Chosin Chibana, and so on. Katsuya Miyahira in “Karate Bushido”, December 1991 also stated that “In China, one practises with the open hand. In Okinawa, one uses the closed fist, which supposes a training on the makiwara. Without the makiwara, there is no Okinawan karate.”

As a more recent example of this idea, in an article on Okinawan karateka Shozen Sunabe by Charles Goodin, (“Classical Fighting Arts”, No. 46, 2012), Sunabe stated that Chinese ‘karate’ uses the open hand while Okinawan karate generally uses the fist. Sunabe, a student of Chotoku Kyan in the 1930s, also told Charles stories about a Mr. Kina and the powerful nukite (spearhand) techniques he had learned in China.

Morinobu Itoman, in his 1934 book “Karate no Kenkyu” (translated by Mario McKenna as “The Study of China Hand Techniques”, 2012) had an interesting take on this. “The fingertip strike”, he wrote “is a technique that resembles a spear where the fingers are thrust out. This technique is prominent in Southern Chinese boxing systems as well as in and around Taiwan. Furthermore, there are many disease-ridden areas in Southern China and Taiwan that have malaria, and the lower abdomen will swell and become weak in those infected. Striking such an individual on the side of the abdomen with the fingertips will cause severe or fatal injury. It is necessary to train the fingers to perform a fingertip strike but doing so on the makiwara is not good.

“Training the fingertips: Fill a small wooden box with sand, pebbles, or rice and thrust the fingertips into the box repeatedly to harden them. You should progress through the following materials: millet, sand, walnut, shells, pebbles. After completing the cycle with pebbles, you will have lost most of your fingernails, and will have transformed your fingers into a substantial weapon. Another method of training the fingertips is to repeatedly strike a bundle of wrapped leaves.”

Anyway . . . when Kanbum Uechi spoke about the Chinese use of finger strikes he was not necessarily demonstrating any special or personal knowledge of Chinese kempo technique; rather he was repeating an Okinawan commonplace, which was not that accurate anyway: the author of the old 1801 reference to Ryukyuan breaking with the fist found by Andreas Gast (“Satsuya Kiko Zen”) also noted that “Experts thrust with extended fingers” - and this was many decades before Kanbum Uechi, Kanryo Higaonna or various others supposedly studied in China.

The name Pangainoon – The discussion thread containing Bob Campbell’s comments, entitled “Hello Pwangainoon”, was on Uechi-Ryu.com/forums, moderator Van Canna. Bob Campbell’s posts were on August 17, 20 and 23, 2012.

Campbell further noted (17 August 2012): “In the late 1800’s, around 1890, there was a Boxer Group known as the White Lotus Society. The White Lotus operated in the Canton region of southern China including the area around the city of Fuzhou.

“There was a sub group within the White Lotus Society, called or known as Pwangainoon. In Hakka, Pwangainoon means ‘Attack Hard – Retreat Quick’.

There was a curious reference by Harry Cook in an article “Some Notes on the Evolution of Traditional Karate,” (“Classical Fighting Arts” No. 2 (2003)). This article refers to “a document from the archives of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force dated 1909” which mentioned a sect of the White Lotus Secret Society in Fuzhou “secretly funded by the Empress Dowager and the Prince Regent which was commissioned to attack foreign business interests.” The article goes on to say that “One such group from Fuchou was in fact led by a man who was a tea merchant. They were called by their secret name in the Hakka dialect, Pan Gai Noon, which means strike hard – retreat quick((ly).”

This seemed an unusual and intriguing reference; Hakka is a Fujian dialect and again, curiously, the translation of Pangainoon as “strike and retreat quickly”, corresponds more closely to Kanbum Uechi’s explanation that “It means that the kempo kata are done very fast” than to the generally accepted, more modern translation of “Half hard soft”.

But overall this Hong Kong Police reference is baffling: it does not refer to Pangainoon as a specific martial arts style, and in fact it makes no reference to martial arts, although secret societies were often linked to martial arts practice. I doubt that Kanbum Uechi had much if anything to do with Chinese secret societies, but if the quote is genuine then it suggests that he may have had a knowledge of, or was at least aware of, certain areas of Fujian society and terminology. Possibly, even if there was no specific martial arts style called Pangainoon in Fujian, it may have been a term used in Fujian/Hakka styles and one which Uechi rather liked and used thereafter. But unfortunately, although the Harry Cook article lists thirty four sources, no source is given for the old Hong Kong Police reference.

However, this subject too appeared on the Uechi-Ryu.com forums, under the thread “Uechi Kanbun & Royal Hong Kong Police Archives” (May 2006). Bob Campbell questioned the source for the 1909 text, noting that the archives of the Hong Kong Police were not, and had never been, open to the public, that records are only kept for a maximum of twenty years, and that in response to his enquiries, he (Bob Campbell) had been informed by the Hong Kong Police itself that early 1900s records would not have survived. Campbell wrote that “Within all the available history records at hand of the former Royal Hong Kong Police and Hong Kong Police and today’s Hong Kong Police Force, there has never been a recorded document noting the names Pwangainoon or Uechi.”

Harry Cook joined this thread himself (May 23, 2006), stating that “The information regarding the Hong Kong Police files came to me in a collection of comments and observations from a multitude of sources regarded the use of 'hard hard, hard soft' in Chinese and Okinawan styles. If this is in error I look forward to Mr. Campbell's correction of the material.” He later added (May 24) that the material in questions was made up of a collection of translations from people like Katsumi Murakami and others discussing primarily the hard/soft idea” . . . but I’ m not aware of Katsumi Murakami having written anything on Pangainoon, Uechi Ryu, or the Hong Kong Police Archives, so this takes us no closer to the elusive 1909 source material. In a post of 26 May, Cook seemed to accept that “the information I referred to is spurious. I will amend the next edition of my Shotokan history accordingly.” So the whole thing fizzled out. . . . another dead end.

George Mattson’s 1984 interview with Ryuko Tomoyose – This interesting interview is on You Tube: http://www.uechi-ryu.com/videos/masters.html

Fujian Tiger Boxing – For anyone wishing to pursue the supposed connection between Tiger Boxing and Uechi Ryu, the book “Tiger Form Boxing (in Chinese, Fujian Peoples Publishng House, 1985) does show a few movements which recall Uechi Ryu technique, for example: page 140 (double open hand block and right front kick); page 141 (right elbow strike and backfist); pages 173 to 177 (series of open hand blocks and spearhand strikes); pages 197 to 198 (jump forward to elbow strike and backfist). But these are isolated, specifically searched for, examples, probably arising from coincidence or some faded general similarity between Fujian boxing and some old Okinawan styles. Again, there is no similarity between the Tiger-style forms shown in the book and the Uechi Ryu kata. A link is impossible to establish from this material.

The 1965 Wakayama dojo footage - Interestingly, one of the senior students performs a sai kata, but it’s a puzzle how this came into the style.

The post-war technical developments - George Mattson recalled, in a response to queries about training in 1950s Okinawa: “I don’t know exactly when Kanei Uechi created the additional kata of Kanshiwa, Kanshu, Seichin, Seiryu and Kanchin, but I do recall that Kanshiwa and Seichin were part of my original training back in 1957/58. Additionally, Kanei had already created a two-person drill (yakusoku kumite) which I called Kumite No.1. When I returned to Okinawa in 1965, Uechi Sensei had just introduced kyu and dan kumite, (which replaced the old Kumite No.1) and the kata Kanshu, Seryu, and Kanchin. He also formalised the exercises. He had created a set of ten warm up exercises (junbi undo) and supplementary exercise (hojo undo). The junbi undo were the original ones I had learned, simple stretching exercises, beginning with the feet and finishing with the neck. The hojo undo were movements from the kata . . . blocks, punches, kicks and elbow strikes . . . with the steps thrown in.”

The order of the kata shown in Mattson’s 1974 “Uechi Ryu Karate Do” is Sanchin, Kanshiwa, Kanshu (Daini Sesan), Seichin, Sesan, Seryu, Kanchin, Sanseru.

According to Alan Dollar, Kanshiwa, Seiryu, and Kanchin were put together by Kanei Uechi. Kanshu (Daini Seisan) was developed by Seiki Itokazu and Seichin by Saburo Uehara. The same derivations are given by Takao Nakaya (“KarateDo History and Philosophy”). According to Ryukyu Tomoyose, some of these kata were developed for the various demonstrations that the Uechi school gave in the post-war years. That sounds quite likely.

Tomoyose also told “Classical Fighting Arts “ (No. 41) that karate gis started to come into use around 1956 when uniforms were imported to Okinawa, judogi at first, and Shinyu Gushi recalled (“Dragon Times” No. 8, 1997) the first Uechi Ryu gradings in 1958 in which he did Sanchin, Sanseru and kumite/fighting and was awarded his 2nd dan. “This was the beginning to the changes in karate,” Gushi told the magazine. “Up to this point we practised in the dojo individually under the supervision of a senior; there were no organised classes as such, or grades. From this point, modern karate developed along sport lines.” Gushi had started training at Saburo Uehara’s dojo in Oroku City at age fifteen. For the first six months there he did just Sanchin and some parts of Seisan.

The development of Uechi Ryu technique was a continuing process. This is from an interview with Dave Scott in “Fighting Arts International”, No. 74, (1992), regarding changes he noticed in return visits to Okinawa:

“What they have done is they’ve become technically aware. Not that they weren’t aware before, but they’ve made it much more definitive. They have made a decision that this is the way it should be done and they have produced a big book with it all in. So they have made a conscious decision to look at technical aspects of the business and make decisions about how and when they wanted people to do things.

“It’s much more organised now and there is also a much bigger emphasis on sparring, and in fact Uechi Ryu has been incredibly successful in Okinawa and I think they pretty much ‘clean up’ most years in the island fighting competitions, which they now invite foreigners over to. For whatever reason it turns out that the style lends itself quite well to sparring, although when I trained in Okinawa, there was never any particular emphasis on competition sparring. I would say that was the main change.”

Incidentally, Dave Scott told me in 1978 that although most instructors’ Sanchin testing would be quite physical, with full power punches to the stomach for example, Kanei Uechi would often test just using finger pressure. Dave also observed that the Okinawans generally found the big American servicemen difficult to handle in kumite and competition. A 4th dan, say, could go out and find that a big American, below black belt level, would pose real problems in kumite, just in terms of size, reach and basic physical power.

Kanei Uechi and ki - Mark Bishop, (“Zen Odyssey, A Martial Arts Journey”, 2008) wrote: “When I asked him (Kanei Uechi) about ki (or ch’I in Chinese) he seemed mystified and appeared to not know what I meant, asking me if I meant chi-shei, a term that was connected with using the body effectively.”

The Okinawan Karate Championships 1 – The fragmented information on the results of the championships are from “Black Belt”, June 1983 and June 1990, and “Australasian Fghting Arts”, February and November 1993.

The Okinawan Karate Championships 2 - Mark Bishop, (“Zen Odyssey”, 2008) took a negative view of the tournaments and thought they were “far removed from what Kanei (Uechi) had told me.” Bishop wrote that the first first All Okinawan Tournament, organised by Shigeru Takamiyagi, was held at International University in 1978, with the result being “undisciplined blood and guts mayhem.” Contestants included” a hotchpotch of foreigners, labelled the U.S. Team, along with several teams representing some of the individual Okinawan styles, but not all.

“What made the tournament decisively unfair was that the Uechi-ryu team was obviously destined to win from the beginning with referees who appeared to be making up the rules as the competition progressed. Foreigners were penalised, even disqualified, for the slightest infringement of these rules, while the top Uechi-ryu contestant, called Shinjo, who bore the cartoon-like good looks and persona of an Amero-Okinawan, was getting away with near murder, right through to the final. This he won to a far superior fighter from the U.S. team, causing more than one foreign observer at the end to say ‘If that was not favouritism by the referees, I would like to know what favouritism is.’ Neither were there lessons learned from this disorganised folly, for violence built up on violence and, by the early 1990s, free sparring competitions in Okinawa were becoming so bizarre that the shameful death of a gaijin contestant was the abysmal result.”

On breaking – Some years back (April 1979) there was a seminar in Liverpool with Joe Lewis, the famous American karate champion. He was teaching his principles of competitive fighting and at one point someone asked “What about power?” Actually, Joe had demonstrated his speed and power throughout his competitive career, including in kick boxing and contact karate, but I remember his response. “Let me ask you a question”, he said. “If you cannot hit the opponent, what use is your power? You’re getting hit, and your power is still waiting there, but you cannot use it.”

Joe was never into breaking. On some tapes showing footage of his old fights, both non-contact and contact, (“The Legendary Tapes”) he did a commentary with Jay T. Will, and at one point the name of Count Dante, the Chicago karateman, came up. “That Count Dante,” Joe said, “. . . John Keehan. He was a hairdresser. I remember watching him break bricks. He’d lay two bricks flat against the ground, he didn’t raise them up. He’d hit the top and break both of them. He had hands like a woman’s, and I used to talk about his hands and say ‘How could this guy hurt anybody with hands like that?’ But he sure could slap through those bricks.” But then Joe added: “I just wished people wouldn’t hokey up karate with all this nonsense.”

In the early days of kick boxing (early 1970s) and contact karate (mid-1970s) there were some fighters who could do impressive feats of breaking, but their skill in breaking didn’t help them in the ring: they couldn’t apply that power in fighting and often floundered. Actually, in the now almost forgotten mid-‘70s series of fights between Thai boxers and Chinese kung fu practitioners (from Hong Kong etc), some of the Chinese representatives were also noted breakers, but anyway all the kung fu fighters were defeated by the Thais, often, or usually, in the first round. I no longer have all the clippings, but if I remember correctly, one of the Chinese was an expert in Iron Palm.

In the modern era of professional fighting and mixed martial arts, demonstrations of breaking seem antiquated, but they still have an attraction.

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Graham Noble, revised February 2023.