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Evolution Jūjutsu

Evolution Jūjutsu

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It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. This idea can also be applied to Jūjutsu..

It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. - Charles Darwin.

30/10/2021
31/08/2021
03/07/2020

Okinawan Karate Masters: Peasants or Pechin…

We all know the folklore.

In 1609 that Satsuma invaded Okinawa and militarily occupied the islands by force. They banned all conventional weapons and subjugated the population, which consisted mostly of farmers, peasants and fishermen. But they practiced the native arts of Todi (aka To Te) and traveled to China (primarily Fukien province) to learn Chinese boxing methods, which they brought back to Okinawa and all of these were taught in secret to the population of Okinawa so they could resist and defend themselves against the Samurai invaders.

Indeed the Okinawa’s became so expert that they learned how to defeat the invaders with weapons improvised from farming tools and sometimes even with nothing more than their bare hands. They trained constantly until they could kill with a single blow, even a warrior wearing full armor.

They learned to counter the spear, halberd and even the fearsome katana with simple tools designed to thresh rice, turn a millstone and even a nifty hand held pitchfork.

And it’s a good story, problem is with a few notable exceptions, it’s largely just that…a story. It almost never happened and when it was attempted it was usually an Okinawan that lay dead at the feet of a trained Japanese soldier.

So why do these tales exist. The first reason is a man called Shinken Taira who was introducing Okinawan weapon arts to Japan on the heels of those who were popularizing karate styles in Japan in the early 20th century. And in addition to being a master of weapons, Taira was a master of presentation. He understood how to make the Japanese populace interested in his obscure weapon arts…these were after all the methods that allowed the lowly underdog to defeat even the mighty Samurai who was armed with his legendary katana.

If you don’t think that made the Japanese people take notice, you don’t understand how the Japanese view the martial arts. Despite their tendency for conformity, they do love an underdog and that is why Musashi is the most famous swordsman in Japanese history despite the fact that he was never actually a Samurai. What made him famous, aside from his personal growth and enlightenment, is a man with almost no formal training defeated some of the most respected Samurai of his day.

And so it came to be with the kobudo, and by association, the karate masters who used their secret methods to humble one of the most formidable Samurai families in Japanese history. This presentation of events made those “secret methods” very appealing to the average Japanese martial artist of the 1920s and 1930s to the extent that even the Okinawan teachers who knew there was some level of exaggeration going on, mostly went along with the program because it was working.

Now certainly, if a Samurai attacked a Japanese fisherman who happened to be holding a boat oar, the fisherman would use what was at hand to try and save his life as most people would use anything at hand to try and defeat somebody who was trying to kill them or their family with a sword. Sticks, rocks and you name it, probably at some point somebody tried it but it was usually a futile effort that ended in disaster.

The fact that the Satsuma remained in power until 1879 shows that their military occupation was mostly a successful one and they weren’t being devastated by farmers and fisherman who were taking them out by the dozens every day with simple staffs, nunchaku and sai. And the only reason things changed in 1879 was when Japan officially annexed Okinawan into the Japanese empire.

Now certainly sometimes it happened, there is a famous incident where Chatan Yara came to the assistance of a girl that was being attacked by a Samurai and used a boat oar to disarm and kill him. But Chatan Yara was not a peasant farmer. Around the age of 12, sometime in 1680, he was sent to China where he studied martial arts and weapons such as the bo and the sai. He trained with the Chinese masters, and he was from a family prosperous enough to send him away for such training.

And famously, after this incident, he was one of the first early masters to disseminate what he had learned and teach other Okinawan’s. But his students weren’t farmers, fishermen or peasants…his most notable student was Takahara Pechin. And Pechin wasn’t just a name…it was a title.
Pechin was a rank among the Yukatchu class of the Ryukyu Kingdom, above the rank of Satunushi and below the rank of Ueekata. As scholar-officials, they often served in administrative positions in the Ryukyuan government. Placed in the upper class, the Pechin would often travel with a servant at their side.

There were three ranks of Pechin: Chikudun Pechin, Satunushi Pechin and Pechin.

These were the people who had money, opportunity to travel, opportunity to train and in some cases permission to practice martial arts. Research the name of many famous karate masters of old Okinawa and you will see Pechin is a common title that is used in their name.

By contrast the farmers and fishermen of Okinawa tended to work from sunrise to sunset in order to sustain themselves and their families and didn’t have the opportunity to learn or practice the martial arts. Again there are exceptions, but it was hard to harvest crops all day and then master kata. They tended to be landlocked and existed at a subsistence level, especially during time of military occupation by the Satsuma who expected sufficient tribute from the population in terms of rice and fish.

Additionally a lot of the weapons attributed to the Okinawan farmer such as the tonfa and sai were already known in the arsenals of Chinese boxing styles of the time. Given the scarcity of metals on the island, an item like the sai would have been as out of place as a quality sword and would have attracted the same kind of attention. Farm tool origins may have been an attempt to explain away why an Okinawan possessed such a dubious looking item but the real answer it Taira Shinken knowing how to present such esoteric looking items to his newly fascinated Japanese audience.
Now certainly there were farm tools repurposed for weapons, sickles (k**a), hoe (kuwa), oars (eku) and any kind of long stick or staff (hanbo / bo) became logical weapons of defense and many kata for their use were developed by masters but these masters tended to not actually be lowly fishermen or farmers. It was just a matter of using anything from any source that might work, especially if it was proven to be effective.

So why did Shinken Taira feel the need to stretch the truth? The obvious answer is if he taught kobudo / kobujutsu with much of our modern understanding of history, it might have disappeared completely. Even with a lot of modern teachers still promoting the peasant master of weapons idea, it’s hard enough to find people dedicated to learning authentic martial arts the correct way…it’s even harder to find people who want to devote decades to correct use of the sai. So suffice to say, Taira probably saved Kobudo from extinction and had he not engaged in a bit of sensationalism we might not know what a nunchaku is and we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.

Knowledge of sai might be as obscure as people who are expert with the kongo vajra.

And of course this isn’t exactly new information, when Fumio Demura was writing his books in the early 70s complete with Taira genesis stories, guys like Draeger were also writing books in English and separating fact from fiction. Then came Patrick McCarthy and later guys like John Sells who completely explored the subject like archeologists with multiple PhDs and we eventually arrived at something much, much closer to the truth by the end of the 20th century.
But that didn’t really diminish our devotion to correct and orthodox study of the sai, tonfa or suruchin. Indeed to seemed to make us appreciate the actual histories and we in the US began to discover other weapons such as tinbe / rochin which in the 1970s were almost completely unheard of and few people would have even cared. Now there is an entire subculture of the martial arts community devoted to a more correct kobudo / kobujutsu and we probably have Taira’s “stories” to thank for that

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