A history of the "schism"?

[jfinnivan]

I've heard through a number of sources about the schism that took place after the death of Sensei Kanei Uechi in 1991, but no single source I've seen seems to relate more than a passing reference to it. Does anybody know of a succint and impartial summary of what actually happened? I am trying to understand the history of my style, both the good and the bad.

[Bill Glasheen]

Nobody has written much about it because many of the wounds haven't completely healed. Engaging in what might be regarded as tabolid history would be like picking at scabs. FWIW, all the parties involved are still alive and practicing.

The short of it is that there was no one person in the right place at the right time with the charisma of Uechi Kanei to pull off the incredible feat of keeping everyone together under one organization. Part of the problem lies in family-based systems vs. merit-based organizations. It is Uechi's style by name, but does that mean that the son automatically takes over the organization when dad dies? Does any corporation traded on Wall Street operate that way? Kanbun and Kanei produced many good students and leaders. It can be difficult to herd all those cats.

This schism isn't unique to the Uechi style. In fact Uechi Ryu was the exception rather than the rule in staying together (for the most part) as long as it did. Rather than a commentary on anyone after Uechi Kanei passed away, the fact that the organization stayed together as long as it did was a testament to how great a man Uechi Kanei was.

What you saw after Uechi Kanei passed away was the unraveling of existing networks within the organization. Kanmei represented the family (Soke). Takamiyagi is an educated man, and was personal secretary of Uechi Kanei. He represented one faction that many gravitated to. The Shinjo family/dojo was a strong karate competition group, with 5-time Okinawan Champion Kiyohide being the obvious leader. George tried very hard from The States to keep things together, but there was a lot of campaigning amongst the factions for members around the world. Ultimately a large faction evolved out of his group which has ties to many martial organizations. The Pangainoon group was a "purist" group (only the 3 kata) which existed in Kanei's time. Toyama Sensei has been around since Kanbun's time, and is still practicing.

Folks try to get along, but business is business. Things happen. Personalities gravitate to other personalities. Styles evolve.

Life goes on. And not all change is bad.

- Bill

[jfinnivan]

Thanks Bill.

[mhosea]

This schism isn't unique to the Uechi style. In fact Uechi Ryu was the exception rather than the rule in staying together (for the most part) as long as it did.

Indeed. When I started looking for a Matsubayashi Shorin Ryu dojo in the Boston area, I was confronted with the politics of that style. In the 25 years that had elapsed since I had last trained, the founder had passed away, and he had named his son as his successor, but the fact of the matter is that Matsubayashi had already fragmented even before the founder had passed away! One can read the tale of Ueshiro in the US, but there were some other organizations by the time of the founder's passing. In most cases tacit permission from Shoshin Nagamine had been obtained, and so in some philosophical sense the organizations were still part of a whole, but upon Nagamine's death they might as well have been completely independent. Nagamine's son was junior to a few of his surviving students. Pursuant to their devotion to Shoshin Nagamine and his specific wishes, some of these remained within the mother organization, but others did not. One gets no sense that reunification is possible, and, like the Uechi-Ryu situation, people just don't talk about it much.

Sometimes this stuff isn't even about karate. I remember reading somewhere that there were complaints about the handling of money by the All-Okinawan Karate-Do Association (or whatever it was called). The organization was at one time headed by Shoshin Nagamine and at another time by Kanei Uechi.

[M J Brelsford]

Bill,

Let me add and correct a few items you stated, not to be rude.

Quote: “Nobody has written much about it because many of the wounds haven't completely healed.”

I don’t see any wounds? The changes happened based on what people wanted.
Might I add that I lived through the split and attended many of the meetings both before and after the break up? I attended many a meeting with all the parties involved. Many have opinions on the split, many blame SOKE for taking a hard line stance, but I want to make one thing perfectly clear that many forget, Kanmei did what he did for what he thought was best at the time, few ever give him a break (at one point I was very close with him). People forget and must remember he was under a lot of strain, he just lost his father.

Quote: “What you saw after Uechi Kanei passed away was the unraveling of existing networks within the organization. Kanmei represented the family (Soke). Takamiyagi is an educated man, and was personal secretary of Uechi Kanei. He represented one faction that many gravitated to. The Shinjo family/dojo was a strong karate competition group, with 5-time Okinawan Champion Kiyohide being the obvious leader. George tried very hard from The States to keep things together, but there was a lot of campaigning amongst the factions for members around the world. Ultimately a large faction evolved out of his group, which has ties to many martial organizations. The Pangainoon group was a "purist" group (only the 3 kata), which existed in Kanei's time. Toyama Sensei has been around since Kanbun's time, and is still practicing.”

Yes Kanmei was Soke. Takamiyagi, was not the lone rep for OKK. Many times Tomoyose, Takara and Nakahodo had length meeting with Kanmei, Takamiyagi was in attendance sometimes not, but many give him more credit then is due. Kenyukai, was around way before the split, and in the initial stages of the split was with the Pangainoon faction, with Shirado sensei, (Toyoma was an advisor with Pangainoon) Kanmei was also at one point with this group. Ultimately, Kiyohide became independent, as did Kanmei. (FYI, PGN did not have only 3 kata, not sure where that info is from) Now Toyama has his group.

Quote: “Folks try to get along, but business is business. Things happen. Personalities gravitate to other personalities. Styles evolve. Life goes on. And not all change is bad”

This is the only statement can easily I agree with.


Mark

.

[Bill Glasheen]

Thanks for shedding more light on this, Mark. Indeed you had a unique view of it all from where you were.

It's difficult to talk about some of these details sometimes without casting aspersions towards anyone. But that's what I try to do. It's difficult for most to go through change. But change happens. Remember when the Beatles split up? Remember how people kept wanting them to get back together? Remember all the sordid details that came out of it?

But time marches on. Time heals all wounds, and wounds all heels.

It is however worth mentioning that many of us in The States saw the future schism as inevitable as far back as the 1970s. It was all conjecture of course, but those views turned out to be well-founded. If you study martial arts history, these kinds of changes are just the natural order of things.

I'm just amazed - and quite happy - that all our various Uechi factions get along so well in the Mid-Atlantic area. The present diversity IMO is our strength, and not anything to regret.

- Bill

[Glenn]

Pangainoon Ryu broke away from Uechi Ryu in 1978 and included Seiki Itokazu and Takashi Kinjo. (The name they chose, Pangainoon, of course comes from the name Kanbun Uechi used before the style was named Uechi Ryu.) Around 1990 the style was renamed to Konan Ryu (from the term hankonan, which I understand to have the same half hard-soft meaning as the term pangainoon). In a continuation of the fragmentation process, Kinjo has been using the name Kobu Ryu since about 2000. Regardless of the name, they utilize all 8 Uechi kata (with some minor variations in certain techniques and a different opening to Kanshu, which they still call Daini Seisan), plus there is a 9th called Kobuken (taught either before or after Kanshiwa, I forget which), created by Kinjo I believe.

According to Mark Bishop in his book Okinawan Karate, this 1978 split occurred due to some disagreements over certain students as well as whether kobudo could be taught in Uechi Ryu dojo...I do not know how accurate this info is though.

Here was a previous discussion on this branch:
http://forums.uechi-ryu.com/viewtopic.php?t=15919

[jfinnivan]

The more I read, the more interesting this is becoming. Has anyone ever heard of a timeline that illustrates the evolution and geneology of the various offshoots? I would love to see something that starts with Kanbun Uechi and moves forward from there. Sounds like it would take a lot of research, but it would be great to see how it all relates. Especially for us newcomers...

[Bill Glasheen]

Some of the foundation of this can be found in Master Uechi's Big Blue Book (a.k.a. the kyohon) Alas it's written in a mix of Japanese and Hogen. But there are various working translations floating around. Pretty soon we'll probably end up with more than one published translation - some better than others.

When I was at UVa, I used to encourage my students to blend their academic life in with their martial pursuit. I had a number of students who learned Japanese, and ended up teaching English in Japan via the JET program. Many wrote papers about various aspects of their work.

Along those lines, several decades back Jon Mills wrote a masters thesis on some of the history. But this was before the schism.

What I'm trying to say is that I think this area is ripe for students of history with multiple talents (can speak several lanaguages) to do further research. It most certainly would be welcomed when done in a rigorous fashion.

Hold your thought; it's a good one. And many of the resources needed are still living.

- Bill

[Glenn]

What I'm trying to say is that I think this area is ripe for students of history with multiple talents (can speak several lanaguages) to do further research. It most certainly would be welcomed when done in a rigorous fashion.

Actually I have found it interesting that as prominant as the martial arts are in Asian culture (and others), it is largely ignored by professional historians and cultural scientists researching those cultures in general. You pick up any history/anthropology/geography textbook or treatise on China, Japan, or Korea and at best you might find a single picture with passing mention, but nothing in depth on MA history or how it interrelates with the culture as a whole. The only work that currently seems to be done are by martial artists with an interest in history, and their publications only make it into martial arts magazines or specialized limited-interest books usually published by publishers that focus on MA books.

Or is it that because of my interest in them that MA only seem prominant in Asian culture to me? Do I have a biased view and the MA really are not that prominant? Then again, judging by the popularity of MA movies/stars in Asia, there is something there.

[Bill Glasheen]

Journal of Asian Martial Arts would be a good place for someone to start publishing short articles on it. It's the closest thing martial arts has to a peer-reviewed journal.

A series of such articles could be strung together into a book. That's how George did Uechiryu Karatedo. It existed first as a series of pamplets (which are probably valuable if you still have any of them). Those then got included pretty much unchanged into a book. Academics do the same. They publish bits and pieces of their work in peer-reviewed journals for immediacy of communication and validity of content. These then can get put together into review articles, and subsequently into books.

I can remember when I first started teaching that I would pass out a photocopy of Larry Tan's 1976 article on Uechi Ryu from Inside Kung Fu to students in my introductory meeting. A lot of folks had questions about what it was they would be studying, and this short little article got the ball rolling.

- Bill