Unsu: the minimax kata

Unsu is a very old kata. It is simple and short but very efficient to teach the practical principles of Naha kempo. Personally, I think it's much better to teach it to students after Sanchin because it gives them a real fighting skill. I think it's much better than the Gekisai, who to me are just kihon.

The version below was transmitted by Choyu Motobu (the "master in the shadows" of Miyagi) and still taught today in the old Goju / Naha-te schools. André Mucci, 5th dan, performs the kata.

"Shikan-ryu" - The Akamine Karate

Seiichi "Shikan" Akamine called his style informally "Shikan-ryu". It was a combination of effective techniques of Naha-te (Izumigawa/Higa lineage) and Shuri-te (Kishimoto/Higa Seitoku's lineage). His kumite system used open hands and nekoashi in quick, elusive attacks. Today, followers of Akamine changed his style bringing it closer to orthodox goju-ryu. Shoreijikan remains still followimg the original Akamine system taught in the ABK period (1958-1964).. The original Shikan-ryu style is closer to Shito-ryu than to Goju-ryu.

I am the second ABK generation and was taught in the Shikan's system by Moritoshi Nakaema, Iwao Yokote, Nelson dos Santos, all Akamine top disciples who integrated the first generation (1957-1964). Akamine was also a respected kobudo master and taught his art to few people, of whom I knew only the masters Yoshiide Shinzato and Nelson dos Santos. I started karate in the early 60's and later joined ABK karate. In 1983 I founded the Shoreijikan. I was associated to Nakaema/ABK until his death, in 2019.

Okinawa Karate in Brazil - a rare historical document

The video below shows a summary of the demonstration of Karate organized by Master Motoku Yabiku in São Paulo, Brazil, in the year 1951. The location was the Pacaembu Gymnasium. Motoku Yabiku was then the president of Okinawa Kenjinkai of Brazil. The three students were (from left to right) the Kukuba brothers and Toguchi.

In the video you can see parts of the kata Naifanchi, Gojushiho (Useishi), Passai and Kusanku, as they were practiced at that time and still preserved in some dojos.

Okinawa Karate demo in São Paulo, Brazil, 1951

Who was Takemura? Is there a Kusanku from Takemura?

Akamine taught a karate that was a combination of Naha-te and an old version of Shuri-te attributed to Kijun Kishimoto (1862-1945), supposed disciple of Takemura (1814-1896). Personally, Akamine used the techniques of the later system and had Ryufa (Liufa) and Kusukun as his personal katas. Subsequently, he discontinued this forms and they become "secret katas" (Okugi kata).  He learned these kata with Seitoku Higa, who at that time was Kishimoto's successor, before founding his own organization, the Bugeikan.

(Azato-no-Kusanku ou "Takemura"-no-Kusanku, as taught in Shoreijikan)

 
 
In the later 80s I decided to teach both systems separately, reserving the Shuri-te Kishimoto-ha only for more senior students. This system is build on two basics kata, Naifanchi and Nipabu, and the avanced Ryufa and Azato-no-Kusukun, as they was passed to Akamine from Seitoku Higa.Seitoku Higa said that Kishimoto's master was the only student of Takemura "Bushi", but the story of this master was transmitted by Seitoku himself. We have fragmentary information from him, but nothing we can assert with a certainty beyond all reasonable doubt. I would like to put some of my doubts here:

1. Apparently, Kishimoto never mentioned his master. Higa Seitoku claimed to have been Takemura (or Tachimura), a contemporary of "Bushi" Matsumura. Shukomine never mentioned Takemura, and said that Kishimoto learned his karate in the streets and in nature, in the same way that Motobu "zaru".
 
2. It is said that Takemura was a disciple of Sakugawa "Tode", but I do not found evidences that. If Takemura was a disciple of Sakugawa, why is his Kusukun so different from that of Chatan Yara (another disciple of the famous "Tuidi" master)? In this later, as in all Kusanku from Shuri lineage, the nidan-geri is at the end of the kata, but in the Takemura’s it's in the beginning of the kata.

3. The kata of Shukomine and Akamine are different in some important aspects and interpretations. I believe that Shukomine revised the katas to bring him closer to the contemporary forms of Okinawa, while Akamine apparently taught them as learnt.

4. Shukomine's Kosokun (Kusanku) has a spin that ends in the ground, as the other Kusanku, but in the Akamine’s version this movement is replaced by a very difficult technique in the ground (the "dog's technique"), in which one uses the legs to take down the opponent. This technique is unique of this kata, it is not found in any version of Kusanku I have seen.

5. There is no any relationship between the Takemura and Matsumura systems. I think that Takemura and/or Kishimoto-ha is tipically a kenpo style from Tomari area, not Shuri.

Ryufa and the dragon's hand

A rare footage of Shukomine teaching the orignal kata Ryufa, showing the use of dragon's hand (ryu-no-te). This technique was characteristic of Izumigawa/Akamine/Higa's old Goju-ryu teaching, and it was one of the personal technique of Akamine in kumite. It is found also in the Ichikawa/Ohtsuka's teaching (Izumigawa lineage). It is a typical Naha-te technique. Notice that in the original Akamine style, the Goju (pre-war) was diferent of today in the kata program and in he use of open hand and nekoashi-dachi in kumite.

This passage is transmitted wrongly by some schools supposedly from the Akamine's lineage. See as do it rightly below.

Kosaku Matsumora, the forgotten master

Old movie about Tomari-te.

Kosaku Matsumora

What is Tomari-te (Tumai-di)

One of my teachers, Moritoshi Nakaema is a descending of the Tomari-te grandmaster Seikichi Nakaema, from Nago, Okinawa. He tolds me sometimes that “Tomari” was a passage between Naha and Shuri. Something similar to those small village where diligences used to stop for lunch and resume their travels, as we see in old western movies. He explained me that Tomari means “a place where the men stop a punch”, to say that man of Tomari were very strong. Tomari was a place where the King frequently recruited soldiers for his militias. I know that many of readers of this blog will be surprised by this, very different from what they are accustomed to hearing. Tomari is today regarded as the “dream land” of Ryukyu's martial arts, a small piece of land that does not exist anymore since the Meiji restoration.