WHY DID MABUNI CHOOSE TO TEACH KARATE IN OSAKA?

As everyone knows, many okinawan karateka moved to "mainland" Japan in search of work. Some of them then began to teach Karate in the cities where they had moved. In this regard we can mention, for example, Motobu Choki in Osaka, or Uechi Kanbun in Wakayama.

Different is the case of Funakoshi Gichin who, once he had made the decision not to return to Okinawa and to remain in Tokyo to teach Karate, had to support himself in the imperial capital by working, sometimes agreeing to do even humble jobs which were very different from his profession of school teacher. In fact, the majority of these karateka, despite coming from noble and/or wealthy families, after the Meiji renewal (which began in 1868) and the abolition of the Ryukyu Kingdom (1872), also had to carry out menial jobs to provide for their livelihood. For example, Funakoshi himself says that he recognized a rickshaw driver as a former Okinawan nobleman who had emigrated to "mainland" Japan. The subsequent global economic crisis of the late 1920s worsened the situation, as Japan particularly suffered from a sharp decline in exports, which profoundly damaged the economy of the Japanese empire, and which worsened the already difficult conditions of an Okinawa already damaged by the dissolution of its kingdom.

 

Even the karatekas who remained in Okinawa at the beginning of the Showa period (25 December 1926 and 7 January 1989), although belonging to noble families or even related to the former royal family, had to carry out all kinds of work. Chibana Choshin sensei himself found employment at a coal company, and this greatly changed the fate of a large part of Karate…

 

Chibana Choshin sensei

 

According to what was written by Miyahira Katsuya sensei, second President of the Okinawa Shorin-ryu Karatedo Kyokai, in the article “In memory of Chibana Choshin sensei” (04/19/1981), at the beginning of the Showa period Chibana received a request to go to Kansai to teach Karate. The master, however, precisely because he had found work at the aforementioned company, declined the invitation and recommended Mabuni Kenwa in his place, who accepted the offer. As already highlighted by Miyahira sensei in the aforementioned article, this had major consequences for the development of Karate. In fact, Mabuni sensei was very successful in spreading his Shito-ryu, one of the most practiced styles of Karate in the world today, which would not have happened if Mabuni had remained in Okinawa instead of going to Osaka.

 

 

However, it is easy to imagine that if Chibana sensei had accepted the offer, or if he had not recommended Mabuni sensei, things would have been very different. In fact, Shito-ryu would not have had its current popularity and, perhaps, Chibana sensei's Shorin-ryu would have spread more, and/or would have suffered the fate of the other styles that spread in "mainland" Japan, undergoing profound technical changes. Furthermore, Chibana sensei would not have been able to carry out his work as a promoter of Traditional Okinawan Karate as the first President of the Okinawa Karatedo Renmei, the first Okinawan Karate federation. History is obviously not made with "ifs" and "buts", but it is interesting to discover the causes of certain events, as well as hypothesize what could have happened if things had gone differently.