Uechi-Ryu.com

Kuniba, not being a UechiRyu practitioner
and possibly knowing only the briefest history of Uechi Ryu, simply trusted
the word of someone who gave him erroneous information and a picture.
Likely, neither that person nor Kuniba intended to deceive or mislead, just
made a mistake and didn't do the research very well. The focus of his book
on Budo wasn't the detailed proved history of Uechi Ryu, nor would such an
irrelevant mistake have much impact on the book's content.

1. The etching of this man, he is holding a opium pipe in his left hand.

2. His clothing is NOT Chinese, NOT southern Chinese and NOT Japanese.

3. His clothing depicts a student monk of Thai or Kampuchean ( Cambodian ) origins & that part of Asia has absolutely ZERO to do with the History of Uechi Ryu.

Hi Van,
How are you? I hope all is well. My dojo keeps getting bigger and I find myself a prisoner of my own success in terms of getting out and about to other dojo.

I also as you may know, returned to college, and graduated In the top 5% of my class in history. So I look very critically at these things. I routinely examine documents from the 17th and 18th century.

Last year I was reading an invitation to dinner and found at the bottom it was from George Washington, that was quite exciting.

My most recent project has been authoring a book about an ancestor, the driving force of writing it has been based upon a rare photo of a Revolutionary soldier. Less than thirty of these men existed long enough to be captured in photographs.

Here is my pre-release website http://www.immortalpatriot.com

https://sites.google.com/site/theimmortalpatriot/

Shushiwa was of course far after this time period.

That image looks entirely too modern to be Shushiwa or even from the time period. It is obviously not a photograph but some type of drawing. Photography began in 1837 and by the 1850's was widespread, although I am not entirely sure about the availability of it to men in remote villages in China. There could in theory be many photographs of Shushiwa.

A mystery does however exist with the picture we all hang in the dojo. I was talking to a retired police officer and student of Jack Summers who told me he was involved in the caravan that took Kanei Uechi and some Chinese guests to
Thompson Island.

I was told by him that the picture was presented to someone at that time by a Chinese master. On the back of the photo was some writing. From there the photo was supposedly taken to a police crime lab and multiple copies were duplicated.

At this time of course photos were tough to copy, especially without negatives. So maybe if this original someday turns up we may have something.

Most historical writings on Uechi and the system are based upon secondary information and not the primary evidence historians build books and thesis upon.

Even the excellent information given to us by Toyama before his death is so far after the fact that it would be brought to question by an impartial scholar. I myself are glad we have it, because I don't know if better evidence will ever surface.

Your student,
Fred Channell

Dear Sensei Van

have opportunities to consult Sensei R. Campbell, to see if this has any degree of accuracy?

Zheng Bu Su (also known as Zheng Xianji (郑仙纪, 1854-1929)) was one of the most famous masters (5th Generation) who opened a school in Fuzhou and had taught many
disciples however many became associated with the
Taiping Tianguo uprisings and during the tme Zheng Xianji reduced his teachings in favor of conducting revolutionary activities. In his later years, his most well known disciple was Zhou Zi He (周子和,) also know in Japanese as Shushiwa.

2nd Picture of Shushiwa_
100% correct for the period 1900's, China, male, elder, Chinese man
100% correct r/e clothing, shoes, room decor, head dress which is typical of a elder man sporting a Que.....

Zero proof its Shushiwa

Does this man look like a person that could hold two other men, one on each of his arms, using only his Fingers ??