Motobu-ryū

Motobu-ryū
(本部流)

Motobu-ryū in 1926.
Date founded	1922[1]
Country of origin	Japan
Founder	Choki Motobu (1870–1944)
Current head	Chosei Motobu
Arts taught	Karate, Kobudō
Ancestor schools	Shuri-te[2]• Tomari-te[2]
Descendant schools	Wadō-ryū[2] • Shindō jinen-ryū[2]• Matsubayashi Ryu[2] • Nihon Kenpo Karatedo[2] • Tōon-ryū
Official website	Motobu-ryu

Motobu-ryū (本部流) is a school of karate founded by Choki Motobu in 1922. The official full name is Nihon Denryu Heiho Motobu Kenpo ("Japan's traditional tactics Motobu Kenpo").

Motobu Udun-di (本部御殿手), a Motobu family style of Karate, is also sometimes called Motobu-ryu or Motobu-ryu Udundi. It is a combination of the native Okinawan martial arts Te (an earlier name for Karate), Okinawan kobudō and Ryukyuan Dance.

Chosei Motobu is the inheritor of both Motobu-Ryu (his father's art) and Motobu Udundi (the art of his uncle, Choyu Motobu).^[3]

Biography[]

His father, Lord Motobu Chōshin (Motobu Aji Chōsin) was a descendant of the sixth son of the Okinawan King, Shō Shitsu (1629–1668), namely Shō Kōshin, also known as Prince Motobu Chōhei (1655–1687). Chōki was the third son of Motobu Udun ("Motobu Palace"), one of the cadet branches of the Ryūkyūan royal family. As the last of three sons, Motobu Chōki was not entitled to an education in his family's style of Te (an earlier name for karate). Despite this Motobu was very interested in the art, spending much of his youth training on his own, hitting the makiwara, pushing and lifting heavy stones to increase his strength. He is reported to have been very agile, which gained him the nickname Motobu no Saru, or "Motobu the Monkey." He began practicing karate at age 12 Ankō Itosu, despite being 13 years younger than Choyu sensei, Choki sensei always lost to him in Kumite; therefore he sought to train under legendary masters such as Matsumura Sōkon and continued under Ankō Itosu, Sakuma Pechin and Kōsaku Matsumora.^[4][5][6]

Although he was reputed by his detractors to have been a violent and crude street fighter, with no formal training, Motobu was a student of several of Okinawa's most prominent karate practitioners.^[7] Ankō Itosu (1831–1915), Sōkon Matsumura (1809–1899), Sakuma Pechin, Kōsaku Matsumora (1829–1898), and Tokumine Pechin (1860–1910) all taught Motobu at one time or another. Many teachers found his habit of testing his fighting prowess via street fights in the Tsuji (red-light district) undesirable, but his noble birth (as a descendant of the royal Okinawan Shō family)^[7] may have made it hard for them to refuse.[1]^[8]

History[]

Motobu-ryū) is a style founded by Choki Motobu in 1922. Motobu-ryū) focuses on self-defenses, and fighting.^[9]

In the early 1920s Choki Motobu moved to Osaka to open his dojo. Some of his students didn't last long due to not enough teaching materials and when they had the basics it was all just Kumite and fighting. After a number of failed business enterprises, a friend convinced Motobu to enter boxing vs judo match to fight a foreign boxer; These matches were popular at the time, and often pitted a visiting foreign boxer against a jujutsu or judo man. According to an account of the fight from a 1925 King magazine article, Motobu is said to have entered into a challenge match with a foreign boxer, described as a Russian boxer or strongman. Early rounds involved evasion by the smaller man. Motobu recalls the boxer fought very sluggishly. Taking advantage of this, after a few rounds, according to the account, Motobu moved in on the taller, larger boxer and knocked him out with a single hand strike to the head. Since reporters were not familiar with karate at that time, it is also possible that Motobu kicked the taller man in the groin to enable striking the head. Motobu was then 52 years old. The King article detailed Motobu's surprising victory, although the illustrations clearly show Funakoshi Gichin as the Okinawan fighter in question. The two were often at odds in their opinions about how karate ought to be taught and used.^[10]

The popularity generated by this unexpected victory propelled both Motobu and karate to a degree of fame that neither had previously known in Japan. Motobu was petitioned by several prominent individuals, including boxing champ "Piston" Horiguchi, to begin teaching. He opened a dojo, the Daidokan, where he taught until the onset of World War II in 1941. Motobu faced considerable difficulties in his teaching.

Chief among those was his inability to read and speak mainland Japanese. As a result, much of his instruction was through translators, which led to the rumor that he was illiterate. This rumor has been largely discredited by the existence of samples of Motobu's handwriting, which is in a clear and literate hand. In a Tsunami video production on the Motobu style, Motobu Chōsei comments that his father's language difficulties may have been motivated more by protest at being a displaced member (by the Japanese annexation of Okinawa) of the Ryukyuan aristocracy than by inability.

He went to Tokyo to fight Funakoshi Gichin. When Motobu Choki went to Funakoshi Gichin dojo in Tokyo, he went up to him and crossed hands with him assuming the classical position (used to test someone skills); then Motobu decided to twist his wrist and throw him down; according to Funakoshi Gichin student's he said "Funakoshi Gichin jumped back up," and said "Lets go again" and then Motobu Choki twist his wrist then throw him down again, then the third time Funakoshi Gichin said again and for the third time he was thrown to the ground by Motobu Choki. After that Motobu Choki didn't have anything else to demonstrate and left.^[11]

Training and Exercises[]

Motobu's karate is marked by a series of two man kumite drills, which were an advancement in the popular thinking and instructional methods of the time. His curriculum heavily favored the Naihanchi kata because of the correspondence between its applications (bunkai) and actual fighting, which he experienced in brawls as a young man. Below are some of his ideas regarding the kata:^[12][13]

• "The position of the legs and hips in Naifuanchin (the old name for Naihanchi) no Kata is the basics of karate."[2][3]
• "Twisting to the left or right from the Naifuanchin stance will give you the stance used in a real confrontation. Twisting one's way of thinking about Naifuanchin left and right, the various meanings in each movement of the kata will also become clear."[4][5]
• "The blocking hand must be able to become the attacking hand in an instant. Blocking with one hand and then countering with the other is not true bujutsu. Real bujutsu presses forward and blocks and counters in the same motion."^[14][6]

Katas[]

• Naihanchi,^[15]
• Shiro Kuma (White Bear) ^[16]

Kubudo[]

Kobudo translates as "old martial arts ways". The weapon art is commonly practiced by Okinawan Karate martial arts and the most common weapon practiced is Bō. Motobu Choki went back to Okinawa to study orthodox kata and Kobudo in effort to preserve the traditional forms of art and also implemented into his karate style Motobu-ryu

Students of Motobu
Front row(l-r):Yamada, Ohtsuka, Konishi, Ueshima. (1938)

Students[]

Motobu trained many students who went on to become noteworthy practitioners of karate in their own right, including:

• Nakamura Shigeru, founder of Okinawa Kenpo
• Tatsuo Yamada, founder of Nihon Kenpo Karate-dō
• Sannosuke Ueshima, founder of Kushin-ryū
• Yasuhiro Konishi, founder of Shindō jinen-ryū
• Kōsei Kokuba (Japanese: Yukimori Kuniba), founder of Seishin Kai
• Hironori Ōtsuka, founder of Wadō-ryū
• Tatsuo Shimabuku, founder of Isshin-ryū
• Shōshin Nagamine, founder of Matsubayashi-ryū
• Katsuya Miyahira, founder of Shōrin-ryū Shidōkan
• Juhatsu Kyoda, founder of Tōon-ryū

Motobu published two books on karate, Okinawa Kenpo Karate-Jutsu Kumite-hen (1926) and Watashi no Karate Jutsu (1933. Available in translation by Patrick and Yuriko McCarthy).

References[]

https://www.motobu-ryu.org/motobu-kenpo/motobu-choki-sensei/

http://www.fightingarts.com/reading/article.php?id=211

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfXWu4AteXg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0JWBSa7qfM

External links[]

• Motobu-ryu

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