A historical Perspective During the Reign of

Page of

The

Uechi-Ryu Karate-Do

Master Text

A Historical Perspective

During the Reign of

Uechi-Ryu
An

Unofficial

Translation

By
David W. Smith

20 Aug 2003

The information in this translation is © Copyrighted Material 1980-2003 David W. Smith. All rights reserved. All trademarks acknowledged. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission from the author.

DISCLAIMER
The translation of this book does not constitute an official endorsement from the Uechu-Ryu Karate-Do association on Okinawa, the Uechi family or any of the Japanese/Okinawan authors from the original text.
FORWARD
This book was translated because there is no other complete versions of this book translated so far into English that encompasses this much information. There was a need for this book to be translated to give the non-Japanese Uechi-Ryu practitioners a more thorough view of what was going on behind the scenes and through the years during the development of this art. There have been some tries to translate certain portions of this book, which were informative. But again these were only pieces of the giant puzzle that this book encompasses.
I hope that over the last 22 years I have been able to add the remaining unknown pieces of this complex art known as Uechi-Ryu Karate-Do. The information provided here will provide sustenance for practioners at all levels within the Uechi-Ryu Karate-Do community. For the serious student of this art this translation should offer ongoing guidance and give one a chance to understand in detail the what and why of what one has learned. I also hope that I translated the the Japanese and Okinawan names properly. I had very few reference books available but I tried my best so please excuse me if I had had mis-interpreted a name either in Japanese, Okinawan or Chinese. I was afforded little or no outside technical guidance in this translation. I had tried to solicitate help both in the US and in Japan and Okinawa. But to no avail as all my sources had other projects or priorities. Maybe they all thought as did others that this would never come to fruition over the last 25 years, but as Goober or was it Gomer that said ”Surprise, Surpise, Surpise”! However, I thank those sourcres for even considering the thought of help but could not. Anyway I concentrated on translating the commentaries in the beginning and then onto the historical portions. I believe as I did long ago that this book is guide to developing the mind, body and spirit.
Many people over the years helped me develop and urged that this book be translated in order to again help the non-Japanese speaking practitioners develop a better appreciation of what on behind the during the development of this art and hopefully will gain a better historical

perspective of the martial arts.

I would like to thank the following people Sensei Shinjo Seiyu (Deceased) and his son Shinjo Kiyohide (1970-1972) from the Kadena Dojo, Larry Mahar from the Allegan Michigan Dojo (1975-1980), Dave Sergeant at the San Jose, California Dojo 1980-1981, and Alan Dollar at his Antioch, California Dojo (1981-1984). Mr. Dollar after much training, blood, sweat and tears awarded me the rank of Shodan #2246 on 12 May 1986 I thank you very much. Also of late, I appreciate all the efforts and urgings of Gordi Breyette his wife Sumako and Sensei Toyama president and owner of the Okinawa Uechi-Ryu Zankai HQ of whom I have yet to meet. One day soon I hope. These people put a lot in hard work into my training. I will never forget them or their efforts at taking a lump of unformed clay and trying to mold it into a rough base that constitutes the basics of Uechi-Ryu, which is still with me today.
I would also like thank all my MPC Korean friends, PED folks and especially a very knowledgeable Korean named Paul at the MPC who taught history at SAHS who provided much needed guidance and wise counsel on Korean and Japanese history. I would also like to thank Ricky from FEDE Engineers who lent me the Chinese translation program to translate some of the harder Chinese portions of this book. I thank wholeheartedly all my American friends on Yongsan Army Base who patiently put up with my yammering at the MPC of my work on this and always asking when are we going to see a finished product like Paul C at Cp Market DRMO and all the dog pound guys Paul Menius, Dwight Duffield, Mike Lausell, Andre Penon, Charles T (AKA Hammie) Hamilton, Charlie Martinez AKA CAM, Fred Szoke, Ron Coleman and his wife Ms Na, Glen the bowler and his wife, DJ and his wife, Morris, Willy D, Steve Ray, Bob & John of the 41^st, Wes Booth, the two table James’s, Mike Dunning, Mike Bray, Dan Brickey, Gabrial, Sammy the Eagle Club DJ, Mr., Kim from Trent Gym, the SOG folks Tim and Sol, Josh, Kevin, and especially my parents Phyllis and Art and my loving wife Miok who put up with all the questions on Korean history and times spent away from her during this translation. Thank you all very much.
NOTE: On the translation most all the pictures, diagrams and descriptives of the Kata, hand and foot techniques, Kumite etc were not translated or shown here, as most of the practitioners today know all this information and who is who by heart.

So I stuck to the meat of the book all for example the commentaries and historical sections and their associated commentaries. This book is only a best take on an unofficial translation of the Master Text. Also please note that I refer to the Fist Way as Kobushi-Ho instead of Kenpo.
That was my choice in the literal translation. The Kanji for this is represented by the words Ken or Kobushi and the Kanji for Law is was given as Po or Ho. So I chose to represent the Fist way as Kobushi-Ho instead of Kenpo. Also the information in this book has changed since it was written many years ago. The information in this text was all based on the time period this book was written. There probably have been many changes since the writing of this book however; I have not updated anything to date. For all intents and purposes one could say this translation happened after this book was initially printed.

Please forgive me for not updating it accordingly this would have taken another 20 years to track down and change all the required information for example names, dates, grades etc, etc.