Investigations into the history of karate

Over the years several authors portrayed Yabu Kentsū 屋部憲通 (1866–1937). Probably the first in English language was Richard Kim (1917–2001) in his book The Weaponless Warriors, which was published in 1974 and reprinted many times afterwards. My copy is the 19th printing dated 1996. Kim certainly did not want to present an academic work but rather entertain the reader with a list of portrays of various Okinawan karate protagonists. His work, however, was criticized for using many parts of the 1964 book Okinawa Karate-Dō Ōtōki by Shimabukuro Eizō (1925–2017) without acknowledging the source.

In fact, a comparative analysis of the two books has shown that a large part of Shimabukuro’s stories is found slightly modified in Kim who additionally embellished the stories for his readers. However, as Shimabukuro did not feature Yabu Kentsū in his book, Kim based his account mainly on an article that appeared in Kinjō Hiroshi’s Gekkan Karatedō magazine from 1956. This article contains several anecdotes of Okinawan karate masters. It is also not intended to be an academic study but an entertaining read. That all is important to understand the source basis for Richard Kim’s work. 

Kim’s article about Yabu Kentsū is nearly three page long. But it unfortunately features some mistakes, that I want to clarify today.

(1) Kim writes that around 1903, “karate was incorporated into the Okinawa public school physical education programme.” It was already Donn F. Draeger and Robert W. Smith who in their book Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts (first published in 1969) wrongfully mentioned the year 1903. Today, based on academic research and documentation, we can say for sure that karate had been introduced at first into the school curriculum of the Prefectural Middle School in Shuri in January 1905.

(2) Kim writes that Yabu “was a graduate of the Kashi-Yoseisho.” This certainly is a mispronunciation as Yabu in fact attended the Rikugun Kyōdōdan 陸軍教導団, a NCO-school located in Chiba Prefecture.

(3) Kim writes that Yabu, when he returned from the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. Today we know that Yabu was appointed Second Lieutenant only in December 1904 and was ranked Sergeant until then.

(4) Kim wrote that Yabu, around 1927 made a trip to Los Angeles. In fact, Yabu traveled to the United States already in 1919 where he stayed until 1927. On his way back, he stopped in Hawaii for a couple of months. His stay there is well documented.

It is important to address these points. Kim himself says in preface to the book reviewed here that “in studying the history of karate, one is frustrated every inch of the way by conflicting testimony and a general sparsity of information.” Today we have a wide range of research possibilities that Kim and his contemporaries did not have back then. On this basis, numerous new insights into the development of karate and its protagonists have fortunately been brought to light in recent years.