Chōki Motobu
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| Motobu Choki | |
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| Born | April 5, 1870 Akahira Village, Shuri,  Ryūkyū Kingdom |
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| Died | April 15, 1944 Shuri, Okinawa, Japan  |
| Martial art practiced | Shuri-te and Tomari-te |
| Teacher(s) | Sokon Matsumura,Sakuma Pechin, Anko Itosu,Kosaku Matsumora |
| Rank | Sōke, Founder of Motobu-ryu |
| Notable students | His son Chosei Motobu, Tatsuo Yamada, Sannosuke Ueshima, Yasuhiro Konishi, Hironori Ohtsuka, Tatsuo Shimabuku, Shoshin Nagamine, Katsuya Miyahira |
The Okinawan karateka Motobu Choki (本部 朝基 Motobu Chōki ?, 1870 - 1944), younger brother of karateka Choyu Motobu, was born in Akahira Village in Shuri, Okinawa. His father, Lord Motobu Choshin (Motobu Aji Chōsin) was a descendent of the sixth son of the Okinawan King, Sho Shitsu (1629 - 1668), namely Sho Koshin, also known as Prince Motobu Chohei (1655 - 1687). As the last of three sons, Motobu Choki 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, 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."
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[edit] Training and career
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.[1] Anko Itosu (1831 - 1915), Sokon Matsumura (1809 - 1899), Sakuma Pechin, Kosaku 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 Sho family)[2] may have made it hard for them to refuse.
Popular myth holds that Motobu only knew one kata, Naifanchi (Naihanchi). Although he favored this kata, and called it "the fundamental of karate," he also made comments on the practice of Passai, Chinto, and Rohai. Other sources describe Sanchin, Kusanku, and Ueseishi as having been part of his repertoire. He apparently developed his own kata, Shiro Kuma (White Bear), which seems not to have been handed down. Motobu lived and taught karate in Japan until 1941, when he returned to Okinawa, dying shortly thereafter. Prior to this, he had made several trips there to study orthodox kata and kobudo in an effort to preserve the traditional forms of the art.
[edit] The boxing match
(From left)Toyama Kanken, Ohtsuka Hironori, Shimoda Takeshi, Funakoshi Gichin, Motobu Choki, Mabuni Kenwa, Nakasone Genwa and Taira Shinken
After a number of failed business enterprises, Motobu moved to Osaka, Japan, in 1921. A friend convinced Motobu to enter a "boxing vs judo" match which was taking place. 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. After a few rounds, Motobu moved in on the taller, larger boxer and knocked him out with a single hand strike to the head. Motobu was then 52 years old.
The King article detailed Motobu's surprising victory, although the illustrations clearly show Gichin Funakoshi as the Okinawan fighter in question. This publication error increased the bitter rivalry between the two men, and led to an apparent confrontation. The two were often at odds in their opinions about how karate ought to be taught and used.
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. Okinawan dialects are nearly incomprehensible to mainlanders. 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 Chosei 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.
[edit] Motobu's legacy and notable students
Motobu Choki's third son, Chosei Motobu(1925- ), still teaches the style that his father passed on to him. As a point of reference, it is important to distinguish between the "Motobu Ryu" which Chosei teaches, and "Motobu Udun Di", the unique style of the Motobu family, which bears a resemblance to aikijutsu.Now Chosei Motobu is the second Soke of Motobu Ryu and the 14th Soke of Motobu Udun Di.
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:
- "The position of the legs and hips in Naifuanchin (the old name for Naihanchi) no Kata is the basics of karate."
- "Twisting to the left or right from the Naifuanchin stance will give you the stance used in a real confrontation. Twisting ones way of thinking about Naifuanchin left and right, the various meanings in each movement of the kata will also become clear."
- "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."
Front row(l-r):Yamada, Ohtsuka, Konishi, Ueshima. (1938)
Motobu trained many students who went on to become noteworthy practitioners of karate in their own right, including:
- Tatsuo Yamada, founder of Nihon Kenpo Karatedo
- Sannosuke Ueshima, founder of Kushin Ryu
- Yasuhiro Konishi, founder of Shindo Jinen Ryu
- Kose Kokuba (Japanese: Yukimori Kuniba), founder of Seishin Kai
- Hironori Ohtsuka, founder of Wado Ryu
- Tatsuo Shimabuku, founder of Isshin Ryu
- Shoshin Nagamine, founder of Matsubayashi Ryu
- Katsuya Miyahira, founder of Shorin-ryu Shido-kan
Motobu published two books on karate, Okinawa Kenpo Karatejutsu Kumite-hen (1926) and Watashi no Karate Jutsu (1933. Available in translation by Patrick and Yuriko McCarthy).
[edit] Notes
- ^ McCarthy, Patrick and Yuriko. "Motobu Choki: Karate, My Art. International Ryukyu Karate Research Group. 2002
- ^ McCarthy, Patrick and Yuriko. "Motobu Choki: Karate, My Art. International Ryukyu Karate Research Group. 2002
[edit] References
- McCarthy, Patrick and Yuriko. "Motobu Choki: Karate, My Art. International Ryukyu Karate Research Group. 2002
- Noble, Graham. "Master Motobu Choki: A Real Fighter." Dragon-Times, 2003. Available at: [1]
[edit] External links
