Inside The Martial Arts, Part 3 of 5

Inside The Martial Arts, Part 3 of 5
MMA Zone

Uechi Ryu

One of the major styles of Okinawan karate, the system was created after its founder, Kanbun Uechi, spent an extended period studying martial arts in Fuzhou, China. He opened his first school in the early 1900s, in Nanjing, but it was closed almost immediately, after one of his students killed a neighbor with an open-hand strike.

System style

Returning to Japan, Uechi eventually started teaching again, and in 1925 he established his institute of martial arts in Wakayama city. The system is known for its spear hand strikes, toe kicks, and one-knuckle punches. The emphasis is on stability, and on minimizing the size of the striking object to increase the chance of causing serious damage to an opponent.

Tomari Te

This art form originates from the village of Tomari, in Okinawa, and is part of a collective body of martial arts known as to-de-jutsu, which takes fighting techniques based or Chinese arts and integrates them into Okinawan fighting traditions

Chinese influence

Surprisingly little is actually know about the art as practiced in its original form. It is known that training involved students walking around the dojo with a companion on their back, and that the use of "kata" (set forms) was important. The style was acrobatic; similar in nature to northern Chinese styles.

Contact was light, quick, and spontaneous, in contrast to modern Japanese karate styles, which favor heavy, focused, and calculated strikes.

Tegumi

This traditional form of Okinawan wrestling emphasizes throws, trips, sweeps, joint locks, holds, traps, chokes, and parries. It marries both sporting and self-defense elements, and is believed to be the forerunner of the island's own version of sumo.

Evolved from a very primitive form of grappling, it is arguably one of the earliest forms of unarmed combat in Japan. It is thought that when striking elements were introduced from the Chinese kung fu arts, modern karate was born.

Today, there are many rules that ensure participants' safety. Competitions are refereed and victory is decided by a submission; achieved through either a joint lock, a stranglehold, or a hold-down pinning.