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Kongzi (Confucius) once said, in response to a how karate was originally introduced and its
question from one of his students: 名不正则言不 sources from Chinese roots the research remains
顺, 言不顺则事不成 – «if the names are not cor- quite ambiguous. This is understandable due to
rect, the speech is chaotic, if the speech is the absence of any reliable written English
chaotic, the achievements are poor...». Later this sources about this subject. All the stories, which
saying of his (正名 – «correct the names») be- were continuously reproduced in the books were
came a motto for generations of Chinese politi- in fact based on vague speculations about myth-
cians and officials: undeniably, there is a need to ical masters called Ryuryuko, Sushiwa or so-
establish right connotations and references in called »Chinese” wushu styles like «kingai»,
every single domain of human culture. «pangainoon», «shorin» etc. Sometimes you can
Starting from the second part of the XXth century, find amazing «pearls» in the works of certain »re-
there have been a lot of attempts to classify the searchers” of Uechiryu’s history! Here is a quote
many existing styles of Japanese and Okinawan from one such research: «Uechi's teacher, Zhou
karate. This has arisen because of the growing Zhi He ...was a student of Li Zhao Bei and Ke Xi
public interest for these martial arts and martial Di and was a master in a variety of boxing styles.
arts culture in general. In the majority of cases, According to other sources Zhou learned from
the authors of many books dedicated to this sub- Chou Pei and Ko Hsi Ti ». Actually, put aside the
ject have been mostly referring to Japanese incorrect transliteration of the name Zhou Zihe
sources and some books in English, such as the (周 子 和 – zhōu zi hé) I challenge the findings
studies of Marc Bishop, Patrick McCarthy and based on what I see as an unreliable approach to
later on, of George Mattson and Alan Dollar. The the process of the research itself. Would the au-
Okinawan period of karate’s history is relatively thor have had a basic knowledge of the Chinese
clear, however there would appear to be a basic language, he would immediately see that the
flaw in the facts related to the starting point. »other sources” are talking about the same two
When the authors came down to the origins of people: Ke Xidi (柯细弟 – kē xì dì) and Li Zhaobei
strangers», and, in addition, Okinawans were as-
similated to become part of the Japanese Empire.
During this period Japan was the enemy of the
Qing Empire because of the Sino-Japanese war,
which China lost and in 1895 was forced to sign
the humiliating «Shimonseki treaty», allowing
Japan to occupy Taiwan and the Liaodong penin-
sula. During this very difficult period of Chinese
history, all foreigners were considered to be 洋鬼
– «yangguizi» (foreign devils) and the popular
motto was 扶清灭洋 «Revive the Qing (Dynasty)
and destroy the foreigners». The groups called 义
和拳 (yihequan – «Fists United in Righteousness»
A shocking photo of chinese wushu masters – members of Yihe- were beginning to appear as a prelude to the fa-
quan beheaded by japanese officers during «Boxers uprising». mous «Boxers uprising». Under those circum-
What would you imagine the general feeling towards the japanese stances It would seem inconceivable for any
there would be by that time in China?
Chinese wushu school to accept a Japanese as
(李昭北 – lǐ zhāo běi). In the first case the names a 家人 (jia ren) – «member of clan».
were transcribed using the most common pinyin To further understand this we must appreciate the
(拼音 – pīnyīn) system, and in the second case teaching philosophy and acceptance of different
– using an obsolete Wade-Giles system with the levels of students. A basic student would learn
name of Li Zhaobei cut to Zhaobei (Chou Pei in under the master, but not necessarily directly from
Wade’s)... the master. They would learn the basics, the fun-
Unfortunately, the example given here is very damentals of the style. More senior students
often a general mistake of western researchers might expect more direct interaction with the mas-
of Martial Arts, which has led to a lot of confu- ter but traditionally the full explanations of the
sion... master’s style would only be passed to a dedi-
If you add to the confusing «versions» of karate’s cated group of students, who the master deemed
evolution the fact that the history of a school on «acceptable». These are frequently referred to as
Okinawa was passed down from master to «disciples» and would be taught directly by the
teacher in a way, which in China is called 口傳 master. Even then in most situations where a
(kǒuchuán) – «oral transmission», you could un- larger number of disciples existed there would be
derstand the general level of credibility of such an «inner chamber» of disciples, who would re-
«history». As very few authors tried to make fur- ceive the final instruction and have the true mean-
ther research in this field, the situation remains ing and explanations given to them, the so called
quite confusing – hence, the need to «correct the «secrets» of the style. These were the students
names» as suggested by Kongzi! that inherited the tradition of the style.
The first question to answer is why the Okinawan There is a very popular story about Kanei Uechi
students have never brought home written concerning his father Kanbun Uechi (the founder
sources about the styles of wushu they had learnt of Uechiryu who studied in China). Supposedly,
in China (mostly in Fujian)? Such sources, known Kanbun’s [Chinese] teacher Zhou Zihe had writ-
as 拳譜 (quán pǔ), are a part of the legacy of ten a manuscript expressly for Kanbun. In this
every traditional wushu school in China, cher- document were recorded the history of Pangai-
ished by generations of practitioners and kept as noon, the names of many past masters, their
a core secret of mastery. So why have the Oki- philosophies and a study of Chinese medicine.
nawan students, supposedly accepted as regular The story tells that Kanbun Uechi planned to give
students in Chinese wushu schools, never been this manuscript to Kanei at the time of his death,
given such records. The answer is quite simple: but, soon after it happened, the manuscript was
because although accepted in a school (most destroyed, and thus, Kanei was not able to study
often to a minor position), they were still consid- the contents of this manuscript.
ered to be 外 人 – (wai ren) – «outsiders, This story seems to be quite incredible. It is my
saw the original text himself. It is therefore rea-
sonable to surmise that this is the reason why
Kanbun Uechi did not bring home the original ver-
sions of the Chinese styles and what he did bring
home was restricted to only 3 basic forms. In ad-
dition to that, he never disclosed to anyone the
original names of those kata/taolu, giving to those
forms the names reflecting the number of techni-
cal actions they contained. That’s why all
Uechiryu practitioners call those forms «sanchin»
(三战), «seisan» (十三) and «sanseiru» (三十六).
Many of today’s uechiryu practitioners consider
the names of the kata as unimportant except for
their historical value. For me, this point of view
looks like a spiritual harakiri, as by adopting such
a position they cut the roots and any references
to the original Chinese styles. On the other hand,
the practitioners of Uechiryu are very keen to em-
phasize their «Chinese legacy» talking about the
style called Pangai-noon (半硬软 – bàn yìng ruǎn
– «half soft, half hard» or «half-hard softness»),
supposedly taught to Kanbun Uechi by a Chinese
master 周 子 和 (Zhou Zihe, «Sushiwa» in Oki-
The modified calligraphy of a quote from 虎尊总决(hǔzūn zǒng nawan dialect 沖縄方言 – Okinawa hōgen). How-
jué – «main verses of huzun» by Kanei Uechi. In the original chi-
nese text the characters are different: 眼真手速 (yǎn zhēn shǒu ever, as I have already mentioned, in the
sù). absence of any written evidence those stories
personal belief that this famous manuscript, sup- have more a look of a legend than truth.
posedly written expressly for Kanbun Uechi, sim-
ply never existed. The story might have been told
by Kanei Uechi to his students to hide the evi-
dence that the Chinese teacher of Kanbun never
gave him any record on the style he had taught
him. The obvious reasons for that were explained
above...
Kanbun Uechi still explained to his son some
basic principles of the southern wushu styles he
learnt in Fujian. We can clearly see this by refer-
ring to the calligraphy of master Kanei Uechi 眼
精手快 (yǎn jīng shǒu kuài – «sharp gaze, quick
hands»). In fact, in the 虎尊总决 – (hǔzūn zǒng
jué – «Main verses of worshiping the tiger») – a
reference text from 虎尊拳谱 – (hǔzūn quán pǔ –
«the annals of huzun») we can find this principle,
but formulated with different characters 眼真手速
脚要灵 (yǎn zhēn shǒu sù jiǎo yào líng «clear
view, quick hands, agile footwork»). The fact that
the citation from the original Chinese text was al-
tered so much means that either Kanbun had a
restricted access to the written Chinese text or
he simply remembered the meaning of what his Uechi Kanei sensei. Son of the founder and the second generation
teacher was explaining to him orally and never master of the Uechiryu karate. (courtesy of Feodor Tamarsky©)
space in the history of this school and help its
practitioners to rediscover their more or less au-
thentic roots...
The Tiger
The Dragon
Master Zhang Jinzhong (張金忠) performing The roots of the Dragon in Uechiryu are the most
Shihequan sanzhan (食鹤拳三战) difficult part of the research because of the ab-
«soft dragon boxing» directly from him.
The Crane