Discussion about Okinawan Kobudo

 

 

 

 

 

Leonard Pellman The bo (six-foot staff) and sai were both constabulary weapons in Okinawa. The bo was also a significant weapon used by both samurai and Buddhist monks. Nearly every school of samurai swordsmanship practices a system of bojutsu, as well. Of course, nearly every household also had a six-foot pole laying around, since they were useful for drying clothes, skins, meat, and fish, as well as carrying heavy loads between two people.

 

The kama (sickle), kuwa (hoe), eku (oar), tonfa (handle), and nunte (gaff) were common tools. The origins of nunchaku are still under discussion and dispute, possibly being a flail for separating grains from their stalks, modified wood bridles, or simply a makeshift weapon. Others, like the tekko (knuckledusters) and timbe-rochin (tortoise shell shield and short spear) were clearly home-made weapons that served no other purpose but defence. So, while there may have been SOME independent development of Okinawa kobujutsu techniques, it is most likely karate-ka long ago assimilated kobujutsu and the two developed primarily as companion arts based on common principles and enemies.

 

Some of the evidence for this is the fact that most of the kobujutsu kata were created by well-known karate-ka (Chatan Yara no Sai, Hamahiga no Tonfa, Sakugawa no Kon, Maezato no Nunchaku, etc.). And the arts were are preserved into the 20th century and beyond chiefly through the efforts of karate-ka, like Mabuni Kenwa, Aragaki Seisho, Aragaki Ankichi, Yabiku Moden, and Taira Shinken, who cataloged and taught them to their students. Few, if any, Okinawa kobujutsu experts do not also practice karate.

 

 

 

Geoffrey Wingard Funakoshi wrote that his father was a bojutsu expert, but sent him for karate tutelage to Azato and Itosu. Azato was both a karate and kobudo person, but trained in kenjutsu as a separate art. Funakoshi demonstrated both bo and sai as part of his karate in Okinawa, but rarely demonstrated kobudo once he moved to Japan. My thesis is that some karate (often Naha karate) was village or merchant class karate and it included kobudo using common implements. Other karate (such as most Shuri karate) was pechin or upper class karate and did not use village weapons such as eku, kama and some bo, but did include sai and some particular bojutsu that the upper class would have used as constables and court officers. When karate moved to Japan, which had its own kobudo from the upper classes, pechin kobudo wasn't necessary and village kobudo wasn't quite the thing, so most of it was not passed along. That is, until Taira Shinken made it popular again.

 

 

Victor Donald Smith I understand what both of you have written, however I am thinking what was possible in the years prior to the inclusion of those kobudo into karate systems.. The odds are non of the karate-ka,, those where police possible excepted, ever used those kobudo weapons in conditions extremis. And in their earlier village use was likely based on actual experiences. At the same time in the villages, they probably did not stop at what items they used. I realize kama were present in every household as they were the preferred home gardening tool. But any thing they could hold in their hands were potential weapons. So even brooms etc. may be part of what they used. None of this was written down, just speculation, but when karate did pick and choose which weapons to include, they probably were more likely to go with ones that loosed less common, especially when you consider the class many of them represented. I am not doubting the contribution kobudo adds to karate training, or what that power entails. Just speculation of an earlier age. Then a different issue are what the sailors and fishers may have used.