The Origin of Nunchaku

[dsomers]

Well, hopefully you will get to see it soon, & you can let me know, always been curious. BTW, that would make sense that he made it up. He told me himself, besides Eiku as you see him demonstrating most of the time, Nunchaku is also one of his favorites.
Mario, ck u'r PM's.

David

[harleyt26]

I am not sure that Mr. Jurgens and Sanseru are referring to the same nunchaku kata.I have a black and white video of Akamine sensei teaching the second kata quite differently than the way it is now taught in the Tesshinkan.Is it possible that Akamine sensei made some changes to the second kata before his students renamed it as Akamine no Nunchaku?In the earlier version after turning and dropping to your left knee you step up and straight forward,in the version we are taught now you step up and immediately turn to your left.Does this sound familiar to anybody?I have always wondered about these kata.I first learned the kata by video(big mistake,early version)and was quickly corrected by Tamayose sensei.But was never explained why Akamine did it differently in the old video,any guesses? Tom Hodges

[Sanseru]

Hello Tom:

Thank you for the clarification. The version that I learned from Minowa sensei that he called Maezato no nunchaku dai was the first one you described, i.e. turning and dropping to your left knee, you step up and straight forward, followed by a left thrust with the nunchaku. Minowa sensei was adamant that this kata was a creation of Taira Shinken.

When I moved back from Japan and saw some of the local Tesshinkan people perform this kata and refer to it as Akamine no nunchaku, I was quite surprised. However, I should have looked more closely as you have stated to notice that there are differences in the kata.

Kindest regards,

[TimJurgens]

I am just off for training with Kina Kensho Sensei in Tsurumi. He trained in Okinawa under Yonamine Sensei who is one of the original students of the system. If they used to call it Maezato no Nunchaku Dai he may remember that. I can also ask Akamine Hiroshi Sensei if he is aware of any other names of the Kata.

By the way my father was Mr. Jurgens I am just Tim ;-)

[TimJurgens]

I just asked Akamine Sensei and he said that originally there was just nunchaku sho and nunchaku dai. They changed the names to make remembering them a little easier and also to capture who had influence on the Katas.

[Sanseru]

Thanks for following up Tim. It still is a bit of a contradiction with respect to the names for myself personally, but so be it.

A rose by any other name is still a rose :-)

Kindest regards,