page_title: Motobu Chōki
section_title: Motobu's legacy and notable students
hierarchical_section_title: Motobu Chōki / Motobu's legacy and notable students
caption_attribution_description: 昭和13年、大日本武徳会で開催された武徳祭後の記念写真。(A photo after a Butoku festival held in Dai Nippon Butokukai in 1938).
context_page_description: Motobu Chōki was an Okinawan karateka from Akahira Village in Shuri, Okinawa, capital of the Ryūkyū Kingdom when he was born. His older brother Motobu Chōyū was also a noted karateka.
  His father, Lord Motobu Chōshin was a descendant of the sixth son of the Okinawan King, Shō Shitsu, namely Shō Kōshin, also known as Prince Motobu Chōhei. Chōki was the third son of Motobu Udun, one of the cadet branches of the Ryūkyūan royal family.
  As the last of three sons, Motobu Chōki was not entitled to an education in his family's style of Te. Despite this Motobu was very interested in the art, spending much of his youth training on his own, hitting the makiwara, pushing and lifting heavy stones to increase his strength. He is reported to have been very agile, which gained him the nickname Motobu no Saru, or "Motobu the Monkey." He began practicing karate under Matsumura Sōkon and continued under Ankō Itosu, Sakuma Pechin and Kōsaku Matsumora.
context_section_description: Motobu Chōki's third son, Chōsei Motobu (1925- ), still teaches the style that his father passed on to him. As a point of reference, it is important to distinguish between the "Motobu-ryū" which Chōsei teaches, and "Motobu Udun Di", the unique style of the Motobu family, which bears a resemblance to aikijutsu. Now Chōsei Motobu is the second Sōke of Motobu-ryū and the 14th Sōke of Motobu Udun Di.
  Motobu's karate is marked by a series of two man kumite drills, which were an advancement in the popular thinking and instructional methods of the time. His curriculum heavily favored the Naihanchi kata because of the correspondence between its applications (bunkai) and actual fighting, which he experienced in brawls as a young man. Below are some of his ideas regarding the 'kata:
  "The position of the legs and hips in Naifuanchin (the old name for Naihanchi) no Kata is the basics of karate."
  "Twisting to the left or right from the Naifuanchin stance will give you the stance used in a real confrontation. Twisting one's way of thinking about Naifuanchin left and right, the various meanings in each movement of the kata will also become clear."
  "The blocking hand must be able to become the attacking hand in an instant. Blocking with one hand and then countering with the other is not true bujutsu. Real bujutsu presses forward and blocks and counters in the same motion."
  Motobu trained many students who went on to become noteworthy practitioners of karate in their own right, including:
  Nakamura Shigeru, founder of Okinawa Kenpo
  Tatsuo Yamada, founder of Nihon Kenpo Karate-dō
  Sannosuke Ueshima, founder of Kushin-ryū
  Yasuhiro Konishi, founder of Shindō jinen-ryū
  Kōsei Kokuba (Japanese: Yukimori Kuniba), founder of Seishin Kai
  Hironori Ōtsuka, founder of Wadō-ryū
  Tatsuo Shimabuku, founder of Isshin-ryū
  Shōshin Nagamine, founder of Matsubayashi-ryū
  Katsuya Miyahira, founder of Shōrin-ryū Shidōkan
  Motobu published two books on karate, Okinawa Kenpo Karate-jutsu Kumite-hen (1926)  and Watashi no Karate Jutsu (1933. Available in translation by Patrick and Yuriko McCarthy).
caption: Students of Motobu
  Front row(l-r):Yamada, Ohtsuka, Konishi, Ueshima. (1938)
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