Shana
Please change all references to boshiken. Bushiken is incorrect. Again, this is the product of bad Japanese from the old guard. There is no such word.
The first generation of Americans who went to Okinawa (around WW II with the armed forces) to learn karate had not previously learned the Japanese language. Consequently they came back with badly-mangled pronunciations of the karate terminology, much the same way that you hear a transplant to the U.S. badly mangle the English language.
I still remember how my physiology teacher - born in France - used to say "smoose muscle" (smooth muscle, as in what causes peristaltic motion in the gut). My biophysics teacher, born in Taiwan, could never say the Greek letter rho. It always came out as "lo".
I had a year of Japanese at UVa, complete with language lab. While I don't speak fluent Japanese, the education has served me well.
Good secondary references/authorities on Uechi Ryu Japanese are the following.
Alan Dollar's book
Nestor Folta knows both Japanese and some Hogen - the Okinawan dialect. He teaches karate in northern Virginia, and has an Okinawan wife. I cannot overstate the importance of understanding how both Hogen and some Fujou dialect have crept into Uechi Ryu terminology.
Also Gary Khoury. This is a great product to have.
Gordi Breyette - when he shows up online - can be helpful. He has an Okinawan wife, and works out with Toyama Sensei in Okinawa. If you get a hold of Van, he might be able to slip some questions in through the back door.
The problem with karate language (that I have found) is that much of the terminology cannot be found in standard Japanese dictionaries. However some words are an amalgm of common words, such as boshiken.
The ultimate primary reference is
Kanei Uechi's book. The "ghost writer" of that book was Shigeru Takamiyagi - a professor and Uechi Ryu master. I have a copy. But it is in Japanese, and the damned thing is too valuable now to take out. The names of all our techniques are in the book in
katakana - the phonetic Japanese written language. I can read the
katakana. The reason why Alan Dollar's book is so good is because he translated parts of that master text for his own book.
There are several working versions of a translated Kanei Uechi Kyohon. Hopefully it'll only be a matter of time before one (or more) is published.
- Bill
