American Uechi-ryu Masters Lineage Chart

[LenTesta]

Does anyone have a lineage chart of the American Uechi-ryu practioners?

I would like to have this for my dojo.

I know that Tomoyose taught George Mattson.
George taught Van Canna, Jim Maloney, Arthur Rabesa, Bob Campbell, etc. The list goes on and on as I know that there are many, many people who were taught by Sensei Mattson. I am only concerned with the Masters who learned directly from George and are currently involved in the IUKF.

I want to trace my training back to Tomoyose Sensei as such...Tomoyose-Mattson-Rabesa-Bethoney-Testa.

I would like to have at least three generations to carry out past Sensei Mattson

For example there is:
Tomoyose-Mattson-Maloney-Macleod-Hunt

Or at least two generations that would include Sensei Khoury...Tomoyose-Mattson-Canna-Khoury

If there is no chart I would like to begin to create it.

If anyone/everyone could respond to this thread with their Sensei's name and their Sensei's Sensei's name I would be deeply grateful.

Or if anyone has such a chart could they send me a copy?

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Len


[This message has been edited by LenTesta (edited August 01, 2001).]

[David Kahn]

Len:

A good idea and quite noble of you to offer to spearhead this.

You might need to think about a few kinks that might present themselves. Namely, a person's sensei-student lineage is not necessarily static like the organizational chart of a company. Many people began with one sensei, but then trained under one or more other senseis.

For instance, in my case, Richard Baptista was my first sensei, and he continues to be my primary sensei. However, I have also worked extensively with Vinny Christiano, Jerry Gross, Tony Silvestri and Bob Guen since my early days of Uechi training, as well as spending time with Sensei Mattson.

I know of many others who trained under one sensei for years, or even decades before leaving to train under another sensei. How would you chart these students' lineages?

Just playing devil's advocate here. I'd be interested to see how others respond.

David Kahn

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email: <A HREF="mailto:chgouechi1@aol.com">chgouechi1@aol.com</A>
website: http://members.aol.com/chgouechi1

[Van Canna]

Agree with David. The waters can get a bit murky.

For example, Gary Khoury sensei, was initially taught by Durkin sensei, a student of Mattson sensei.

Then Khoury sensei spent time on Okinawa under the tutelage of Nakahodo sensei.

Just recently he became my student.



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Van Canna

[Bill Glasheen]

Perhaps this is still manageable. I think a geneology chart isn't quite the way to go. Instead, I'd talk to an I.T. person who is a database specialist. While you may not be able to do a nice neat chart on a wall, you might still be able to plug a request into some software and get some simple lineages printed out.

A database specialist would understand how to structure one-to-one and one-to-many relationships into a proper database structure. From there you enter data at a person level. Then you query the database to get what you want. You might be able to put something like this together in Microsoft Access. And if you write the code properly, you might be able to package and sell it to other martial arts groups!

Any good MS Access programmers out there interested in a project?

- Bill

[Dukie]

Any good MS Access programmers out there interested in a project?
- Bill

I don't know Access or C for that matter but I do program so I thought I take a s.w.a.g. at this one for kicks and giggles. Thought of the layout on my commute home.
I would think that you would want to have two master files. The first being a "Sensei" file, the second being a "Student" file. Sensei would contain first and last name as two separate fields, then 9 date fields in YYYYMMDD format corresponding to their respective promotions.
The Student file would have first and last name same as Sensei file. Start date(if possible) in YYYYMMDD format, date fields for each promotion up to and including all black belt levels. Also corresponding to each promotion date field I would have a field for who the Sensei was.
??? Are you a Sensei if you have reached black belt or if you have a dojo???? Someone please school me on that.
I digress, assuming Sensei is defined as one with a dojo then the file layouts would allow for a person to be in both files.
You could then write a front end program to allow the user to specify how they wish to see the data. The programs for producing the output wouldn't be complicated either. I think you have to have programs in conjuction with the database as opposed to using just query functions.
The whole task in and of itself is easy no matter what platform or language. It is gathering and entering the initial data that is a drag.

Sorry if this bored anyone to tears.
If anyone is truly interested in pursuing this I would be more than happy to help out.
And I would be glad to get into the real depth of just how useful this would be. I think it is a great idea myself.

*References furnished upon request*



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Peace Out......

[Allen M.]

If anyone's interested, I have the expertise necessary to do a nice graphical interface front end using Visual C++ with as complicated or as simple menus and screens as desired, and attach it to an Access database engine. Not everone has, or can use Access, so I have a few generic methods up my sleve that would exclude no one, using the KISS principle.

I've got some "free" time coming up in two weeks and can avail myself. I also be reached at uechi@ici.net

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Allen Moulton from Uechi-ryu Etcetera

[LenTesta]

I think that a lineage chart should only include Sensei's that own dojo or at least teach at a place that is open to the public and fees have to be paid to the Sensei by the students or by the facility.

I am not an expert on Access. I have used Foxpro for a few years now. I agree with Dukie. A progam should be written to use the Access database properly. It could be as simple as a few queries or more complex such as many queries. It all depends on how detailed you want to be. I agree that it may be difficult to capture the correct information.

I have studied under one Sensei for my whole training. Mostly because there was only one dojo that I was paying my tuition to.
Then I became an Instructor at the Brockton Community Schools and also at the same dojo. However, I went to Clarence Wilder's class that he taught at Bob Bethoney's dojo on Tuesday at least twice a month for 10 years. I also had the privelege of learning from Van, and Arthur many times. Sensei Cambell made an appearance every time he was in the neighborhood. When Sensei George came down and taught, I was almost always there. Now I have the pleasure of calling Van my Sensei because he has been teaching me at the TC class for 17 months now!

It might be wise to say a person's Sensei is the one who signed their certificate. But I know that may not be the case in some instances. Some might consider their first instructor as their Sensei. Especialy if they started as a child and went through their whole adolesence with him or her.

I taught Christen and Greg Murphy when they were 7 and 11 years old. Greg reached brown belt under my tutalege and Christen was tested for brown shortly after they joined Bob Bethoneys Dojo, because of my LOA for Baseball. They proceed to get their dan certificates with Bob Bethoney. Christen still considers me her Sensei although my name is not on her certificate. Now that she is an instructor at the BUKA and I am preparing her for Sandan, I will be the Sensei who signs her next certificate.

I would at least like to have a lineage chart of "primary" Sensei's. If there are a many who have been with with more than one Sensei, the rank of order could be the primary first and maybe outweghed only if there is an other Sensei who was determined to be more beneficial in the student's training. How to determine this is probably a harder task.

How do we collect the data?



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Len

[LAC]

How do we collect the data?
- Len

I'm going to assume that most of the historical data is in paper format. You could kindly request your specific information from your previous Sensei. Or you could take your data from memory.
If you are looking to do this for the "U.S. Uechi-Ryu" communitee as a whole I would suggest getting permission to collect the data firstly. After you have all the hard copy data you can get your hands on, I would then try contacting people directly to get the data to fill in the gaps from the missing hard copy data.
For simplicity and straightforwardness I would recommend you consider the Sensei who set up your belt test and signed the cert. as the Sensei at the time of your promotion.

As far as the "murky waters" this is my spin:
It is infinite the many wonderful feelings, moments, and memories you have shared with a Sensei that you can carry in your heart, but there is only so much information you can put on a piece of paper.
It is wonderful that this communitee is so open to movement among dojo's and Sensei. Sensei and students alike know in their hearts who has helped them to grow, learn, and acheive. I woud be surprised if there were hard feelings about what is on a piece of paper when they know that what is in the heart is what is most important.

Len, if you wish to contact me further my email is 109ers@mediaone.net
I am from your area, I would be willing to drop by your dojo for a meeting to outline this in detail. Please don't hesitate to contact me, it would be a pleasure to meet you.



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L.A.C.

[Bill Glasheen]

I have some suggestions on how to collect the data. This would take advantage of formats we use in our health insurance databases - particularly membership databases.

The raw data should look like this:

**********Joe Smith

**********INSTRUCTORS
Name*************From*************To
Mike Johnson*****19-Jun-1977******20-Apr-1984
Hiroshi Suzuki****21-Apr-1984******15-Dec-1998
John Carter******27-Jun-1989******15-Jul-2000
Mike Paloni*******01-Jan-2000******present

Note the flexibility in the raw data. It is actually possible for someone to have two instructors. From there, software (or a manual process...) could be used to string together the lineage.

We actually have databases like this on the members we cover in our health insurance. Yes...it is possible for someone to be double-covered (a state law allows it). When we look to create membership files to find out who is continuously enrolled for a certain period of time, proper software operations will do that. We can also have "gaps" in coverage, just as someone in this database could have gaps where there was no instructor.

Another important consideration is getting some kind of unique identifier for each person and instructor. Trust me...you really want to do that. Names can be spelled so many ways, and they can be spelled badly. A social security number would work if this were only the US. Unfortunately, that doesn't. So you would have the unique ID numbers in this instructor file. Then you would have to create a separate person file that has the following:

UNIQUE ID
NAME
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
CERT#---RANK---DATE---ORGANIZATION
CERT#---RANK---DATE---ORGANIZATION
Etc.

Think about it... Again, this would be the raw data you would collect from people. The forms would be very easy to fill out, and you wouldn't need any special instructions. I'm sure most people would make it easy on you and not have gaps or overlaps in instruction. But reality is never simple, and this raw structure accomodates that.

- Bill

[This message has been edited by Bill Glasheen (edited August 02, 2001).]

[Bill Glasheen]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote

If you are looking to do this for the "U.S. Uechi-Ryu" communitee as a whole I would suggest getting permission to collect the data firstly.

- LAC

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote

Act now, apologize later.

- Bill Glasheen

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote

Just do it.

- Nike

[Socrates]

Being a programmer I couldn't stay quiet on this one.

I see 3 tables.
Format is Tablename -> Fields

Table 1 <Person> -> ID, Name, Address, Phone, Email, Date_Started, IsTeacher(y/n), Date_started_teaching

Table 2 <Person_Rank> -> ID, Rank, Date, Organization

Table 3 <Person_Teachers> -> ID, Teachers_ID, From_DAte. To_Date

If you wanted you could do a couple more like: Table 4 <Ranks> -> Rank_ID, Rank_Description, and Table 5 <Orgs> -> Organization_ID, Organization_Desc. These last two just make filling in the forms easier and cut down on variable data input ( ex Shodan is different than shodan is different than ShoDan)

Those should be your base tables. Forms and reports can be constructed from there to provide ease of data entry and output info.

Just my change...

[Socrates]

Hmm... I can't edit the message. It dropped my tablenames out because I stuck them in tags. The tablenames should be Person, Person_Rank, Person_Teachers, Rank_Desc, Org_Desc

[Bill Glasheen]

I agree; you only need one table.

[LAC]

Bill,
I apologize, I read your post about data collection without clearing my thoughts first. After reading it again without file layout on my mind, the light is now on.
The flexibitlity you mention is definitely right on.

Socrates,
Because of the platform and language I work on I didn't initially see that you were saying the same thing as I was trying to say. I think that your suggestion for Table 4 and 5 are covered with your first 3 tables as far as the data. You could create 4 & 5 with programs or query.

Thanks both of you for further explaining your initial posts and answering my question.
This written discussion on database layout is proving very difficult for me. I am coming across in my posts like I don't know the first thing about this stuff. Ugh!!!
But I think we are all saying the same thing.

Please be patient with me, I do know what I am talking about. I just don't know how to put it in writing.

Oh and you're right Bill about the contact info, I didn't consider updating the information. Wasn't looking at the big picture.



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L.A.C.

[Socrates]

LAC
You don't need to excuse anything. I was having difficulty trying to explain it myself. This is one of those things that is easier to do in person, and in front of a computer. In fact looking back on my original post I got some minor confusion in my own head between Oracle DB's and MS Access.

LenTesta, I guess the question now is what would you want the program to handle? We've got these ideas kicking around and all we need is a design spec