He hesitated for just a moment, then with eyes glaring, he performed his favorite kata Seisan, fast and beautifully, with strength and power. The plot worked, for when the mayor asked Kanbun to demonstrate, the other teachers who were standing close by playfully pushed Kanbun onto the stage. With so many people watching there was no escape for Kanbun. There was applause, then silence. Kanbun still denied showing anyone karate and offered no explanation. The question of draft-evasion never came up and Kanbun was never indicted. He continued to farm his land as if he had never been away and taught bo-staff technique at village gatherings and festivals but no karate.Įvery year in Okinawa, the Motobu police department held a large celebration. It was customary for all the local schools to demonstrate their skills. Tricking Kanbun into attending this demonstration, the idea came up to have the mayor of Motobu announce that Kanbun Uechi would demonstrate by performing a Kata. They were anxious to see proof of his ability, and so saw to it that he was seated so near to the stage, that if he refused the mayor's request, he would lose face. Gokenki confronted Kanbun, and Kanbun could not deny his identity any longer. Martial artists would visit Kanbun in Izumi with a letter of introduction from Gokenki looking for instruction. Kanbun would reply to the prospective students that they must have mistaken him for someone else. These men in turn disclosed Gokenki's whereabouts and Kanbun then sometimes visited Gokenki at the Eiko Tea Store located in Naha. Gokenki highly praised Kanbun's consummate skills in Kung-Fu technique to his customers. Uechi was consequently known as a Chinese Kung-Fu expert to the martial artists in the Naha vicinity.įinally, the townspeople with Mr.
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Gokenki made it known that his teacher in China was actually an Okinawan after all, and lived on the northern end of the island.
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Prospective students began to show up asking Gokenki for instruction. Gokenki made no secret of his preference for Chinese-style training and its superiority over other Okinawan methods. He got into a brawl with another karate teacher from Naha and defeated him. After this defeat, the reputation of several other teachers and systems were at stake to save face and challenged Gokenki, but none were able to beat him. With the possibility that his recent connections with Chinese training might help to identify him as a draft-evader, Kanbun refused to teach.
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Gokenki, the Chinese tea merchant, former friend and student, often visited Okinawa on business. He soon located his friend and teacher, and tried to persuade him to teach again. Three years later, Kanbun Uechi returned to Okinawa, determined never to teach again because one of his Chinese students had killed a neighbor with an open-hand technique in a dispute over land irrigation.Īfter Kanbun's return to Okinawa, Mr. After studying 10 years under Shu Shiwa, Kanbun Uechi opened his own school in Nanjing.
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Kanbun Uechi studied Pangai-noon (half-hard, half-soft) under Shu Shiwa in the Fujian province of mainland China in the late 19th century and early 20th century. After his death, in 1948, the style was refined, expanded, and popularized by Kanbun Uechi's son, Kanei Uechi. Kanbun was an Okinawan who went to Fuzhou in Fujian Province, China to study martial arts and Chinese medicine when he was 19 years old. Originally called Pangai-noon which translates to English as "half-hard, half-soft", the style was renamed Uechi-ryū after the founder of the style, Kanbun Uechi. Uechi-ryū means "Style of Uechi" or "School of Uechi". Is a traditional style of Okinawan karate