Shutō Uke

 

Motobu Naoki

When I posted the English translation of “Shutō Uke in Old Style” that I wrote in 2018 this week, I received a variety of responses from overseas karate practitioners. For example, it was pointed out that the photos I presented as “shutō uke” might be a mistake of “haishu uke” (back hand block).

 

To tell the truth, this is the first time I heard the term “haishu uke.” I looked it up on the Internet and found that some schools and organizations, such as Shōtōkan, use this term. These schools distinguish between shutō uke with the palm facing downward and haishu uke with the palm facing to the sideways. The reasoning seems to be that the uke (block) with the palm facing sideways is actually to block the opponent’s thrust with the back of the hand, not with the shutō (the side of the little finger).

 

It is certainly a reasonable distinction. In Okinawa, however, they did not make this distinction and regarded them all as “shutō uke.” For example, in Karatedo Taikan (1938), edited by Nakasone Genwa, there is a photo and an illustrated explanation as follows.

 

 

Figure 30. Shutō Uke

 

The person in the photo is Gusukuma Shinpan (1891–1957), a student of Itosu Ankō. He wrote “shutō uke” below the illustration on the right. Gusukuma Sensei also introduces an application of shutō uke as follows.

 

Figure 31. Shutō Uchi Uke (shutō inside block)

 

This is the shutō uchi uke (inside block with the shutō) which the opponent’s thrust is blocked with the shutō. In this case, the back of the hand is used to block the opponent’s thrust, but it is called shutō. He also gives an example of soto uke (outside block) with the shutō.

 

Figure 33. Shutō Soto Uke Henka (shutō outside block variation)

This is a “shutō soto uke henka (variation of outside block with the shutō),” which has been transformed into a grabbing hand after being blocked with the shutō. Thus, shutō uke…