Bill,
I see McKenna Sensei has mentioned The Birthplace of Uechi Kanbun on his blog. While the article links to Japanese sites the photos should be checked out. The McKenna Sensei blog Kowakan can be found at.
http://www.kowakan.com/archives/3710
Moderator: Bill Glasheen
f.Channell wrote:There is a historical inaccuracy here from what I have read.
Kanbun Uechi did not name the style after himself.
It was given that name by his students after his death.
Ryuko Tomoyose, twenty years old, learned from his father, Ryuyu, that Kanei was back in Okinawa. In April, 1949, he helped Kanei Uechi establish the Uechi ryu Karate jutsu Kenkyu-jo in Ginowan-son, Aza Nodake, known as the Nodake dojo. The style name was then changed from Pangainoon karate jutsu to Ueci ryu karate jutsu in honor of Kanbun Uechi.
Mabuni: Sensei, your style is called Pangainuun in Chinese, what does this mean?
Uechi: It means that the chu’an-fa kata are extremely quick. Lately instead of calling the style Pangainuun, I have been thinking a little that it might be better writing it Uechi-ryu.
that Uechi sensei could not speak Japanese very well, and lived like a recluse.
Bill Glasheen wrote:Thanks for this, Victor. I'm not a big history buff. But this is an important finding. "Kanbun's style" in my opinion is something not quite fully understood and appreciated when looked at strictly with Okinawan glasses. Remembering that he is the style's founder gives us all reason to go in myriad directions in history to uncover all that "it" can be. And this includes both grappling concepts (not taught) and southern China gung fu infighting concepts (lost to many of the distance sport fighters).
- Bill
f.Channell wrote:Looking at the timeline on the link I attached, it seems the name was changed by this record in 1940.
In the Autumn of 1940, almost 15 years after the establishment of the Pan-gai-nun-ryu Karate-jutsu Institute, Kanbun Uechi made the long awaited change in his school's name upon the recommendation of his students and acquaintances. It was changed to Uechiryu Karate-do Institute. This, being named for the founder, Kanbun Uechi's surname, marked the birth of Uechiryu. This was to become a turning point in making Uechiryu KarateDo's remarkable development a reality both in name and in fact, this honor was a great pleasure for the founder Kanbun Uechi and the other people concerned (Kanei Uechi, senior and junior students and acquaintances) because it was a historical product 31 years in the making since Kanbun's return from China in 1910. Kanbun was 63 years old and given the name grandmaster. Thereafter, the number of Uechiryu students in both Wakayama and Hyogo prefectures continued increasing.[93]
There was a whole host of pro Japanese/bushido sentiment going on at this time obviously.
Always best in any kind of history to go as far back as possible and peel off all the layers of everyone else's intepretation.
That's why I'd rather see the original article than a reprint or interpretation of it.
Shuri, the second town of Okinawa, lay in utter ruin. There was no other city, town, or village in the Ryukyus that had been destroyed so completely. Naha too had been laid waste. Certain villages which had been strong points in the enemy's defense, such as Kakazu, Dakeshi, Kochi, Arakachi, and Kunishi, had been fought over and leveled to the ground. But none of these compared with the ancient capital of the Ryukyus. It was estimated that about 200,000 rounds of artillery and naval gunfire had struck Shuri. Numerous air strikes had dropped 1,000-pound bombs on it. Mortar shells by the thousands had arched their way into the town area. Only two structures, both of concrete-the big normal school at the southwestern corner and the little Methodist church, built in 1937, in the center of Shuri-had enough of their walls standing to form silhouettes on the skyline. The rest was flattened rubble. The narrow paved and dirt streets, churned by high explosives and pitted with shell craters, were impassable to any vehicle. The stone walls of the numerous little terraces were battered down. The rubble and broken red tile of the houses lay in heaps. The frame portion of buildings had been reduced to kindling wood.
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