Samurai & Kempo

[dori_kin_86]

I have read one time that some samurai began to to practice the Okinawan te-jitsu system after the Ryukyu islands were under the protection of the samurai. Is this true? I tend to believe this because tribal/clan leaders that were experts in te-jitsu styles were treated as if they were samurai. Also, I read a fictional story based in 1400s Northwestern mainland Japan, and one of the main characters was a samurai that used Okinawan Te. Please tell me if some of the samurai used what is known today a Ryukyu Kempo.

[Gene Williams]

I don't think so, but there was a lot of cultural syncretism that went on. If the samurai did use anything of Okinawan origin you can be sure they didn't call it Ryukyu anything because they considered the Okinawans beneath them.

[Chuck.Gordon]

There are also systems of jujutsu described as 'kempo' -- and which exhibit striking and kicking tactics similar to karate, or many other fist/foot arts.

Some say they migrated to Japan from China (the Chin Gempin story amongst others). More likely, it was cultural interchange through a variety of sources.

The Japanese took what they gleaned from the Okinawans, Chinese, whoever, and slapped a coat of paint on it, called it kempo and ba-da-bing, there's a new system of jujutsu.

This process was not uncommon anywhere in the East (in the world, truly).

However, for many of the warrior class, for much of Japanese history, ANY unarmed art was a relatively minor subset of their primary thrust (pardon the pun), which was weapons.

Some sources say that only during the later years before Meiji and during the Meiji Era itself, did jujutsu actually begin flourish seperate from the armed practices.

Despite that, some systems of budo (such as Kashima Shinryu) do include fairly well developed jujutsu components (in the case of KSR, there's also a kempo component, according to Karl Friday), and some sogo budo are best described, today, anyway, as jujutsu arts (for instance, Takenouchi Ryu) which in their more modern incarnations focus on the unarmed and lightly armed aspects of their systems, but which still include some sword, etc training.

As Gene said, the average Ryukyuan folks and the Japanese didn't really get on too well, despite the long history of trade and the relationship between some Japanese (for instance, the Satsuma) and the ruling class of Okinawa.

Way back when, pre-Funakoshi, it would have been unusual for a Japanese fighter to append something blatantly Okinawan to his repetoire, I think.

Chuck

[Troll Basher]

Originally posted by Chuck.Gordon
........As Gene said, the average Ryukyuan folks and the Japanese didn't really get on too well, despite the long history of trade and the relationship between some Japanese (for instance, the Satsuma) and the ruling class of Okinawa.

Way back when, pre-Funakoshi, it would have been unusual for a Japanese fighter to append something blatantly Okinawan to his repetoire, I think.

Chuck

This is a very Japanese way of doing things?c?c.take the best of another country?fs culture then ?gJapanify?h to make it ?gpalatable?h for Japanese consumption, claim they ?gimproved?h it then look down on the culture they just copied. They have done this for centuries with Korea, China, Okinawa, etc.
Case in point, Karate. Japanese claim to have expounded and improved Karate as a MA?c.however I have yet to see how or where they have done this.