Kobudo

The term Kobudō comes from KB (古) which means old, drunk (武), the war, and dō (道) the way. The modern acceptance of the term recovers all the practices of weapons associated with the Japanese martial arts.

Different Kobudō

Two principal currents are to be distinguished, on the one hand that of the martial arts practiced on the principal island Honshū, and on the other hand that of insular martial arts resulting from the archipelago of Okinawa and the islands Ryū-Kyū. A quite distinct third running but to the more confidential diffusion was transmitted within the royal family of Okinawa, Motobu-ha .

Kobudō of Honshū

On the principal island ( Honshū ), martial education included/understood the study of the saber regarded as noble, as of complementary weapons such as the lance Yari , the long stick bō (approximately 1m80), or the stick runs OJ . Schools specialized in some exotic weapons such as the sickle-chain kusarigama for example. This education addressed to a easy elite . One finds in all these schools of typical displacements of the handling of the saber, as in arts which there are affiliated such as the aikidō or the ju jutsu .

One thus speaks about kobudō to indicate the practice of the weapons of the aikidō , or that of the multidisciplinary schools of saber (such as the Araki Ryu , Sekiguichi Ryu , Shinto Muso Ryu , Katori Shintō Ryu and Yamate Ryu ) or of the schools of Ju jutsu which integrate weapons in their curriculum vitae ( Hakko-Ryu Jujutsu 1941).

The most current weapons of the kobudō of Honshū are:

the long saber: Katana
the saber runs: Wakizashi
the knife: Tantō
the long stick: bō
the stick runs: OJ (see OJ-jutsu)
the right blade lance: Yari (generally symmetrical, with double edge)
the curved blade lance: Naginata
the large curved blade lance: Nagamaki

Kobudō of the southernmost islands

In the southernmost islands of the archipelago of Japan and in particular with Okinawa, several military occupants, sometimes Chinese, sometimes Japanese, prohibited the use of the saber to the occupied population. The use of the weapons rises thus from a pragmatic need, just as the thorough development of the techniques of combat with naked hands To-with , and later of the karate. Moreover, the character subversive of the practice a long time confined it with the secrecy, which, added to the compartmental geography of the islands, explains why there does not exist a kobudō but kobudō - several ways of doing by weapon, by island, by expert.

This time, the practice does not relate to any more the privileged classes, but rather the rural population which finds in its daily tools a natural extension.

The most current weapons of the kobudō of Okinawa are:

the long stick: bō
small the Trident (by pair): (nicho) sai
the Tonfa (by pair)
the Plague: Nunchaku
the Sickle (by pair): (nicho) Kama
the oar: Eku
the Plague with three sections: Sansetsukon
the long cord ballasted at each end: Suruchin
the hoe of the gardener: kue
the harpoon of the fisherman: nunti
the Machete and the shield in carapace of tortoise: timbe and seiryuto

Kobudō of Motobu-ha

There exists finally a third kobudō within Motobu-ha (style of the Motobu family), transmitted by the royal family of Okinawa, which was influenced by the Chinese and Japanese experts at the time of the various occupations. In addition to the weapons of the kobudō of Okinawa, it integrates sharp weapons of Chinese origin.

Nowadays

With the {{XXe}} century, two figures synthesized the fragments of teaching éparts in the archipelago, in two systems distinct from weapons and progression: Matayoshi Shinko (1888-1947) and Will conceal Shinken (1897-1970). The teaching of the kobudō of Okinawa is thus found in:

schools of Karate of Okinawa
Motobu-ha of the royal family of Okinawa
dōjō of the current Matayoshi
dōjō of the current Ryū-Kyū Kobudō (Shinken Will conceal)

Like in the recent syntheses:

Yoseikan Budō, goshin-budō (of Kuniba Shogo)

References

Kenyu Chinen, Kobudo d' Okinawa , Sedirep, 1985
Gift Cunningham, Secret let us weapons off jujutsu , Tuttle Publishing, 2002
Roland Habersetzer, KB-budo, the weapons of okinawa, Sai , Amphora, 1985 (exhausted)
Gansho Inoue, Bō, Sai, Tonfa, and nunchaku, ancient arts off the Ryūkyū Islands , Keibunsha, 1987
Patrick McCarthy, Ancient Okinawan martial arts , Tuttle Publishing, 1985
Serge Mol, Classical weaponry off Japan, special weapons and tactics off the martial arts , Kodansha International, 2003
Soshin Nagamine, The gasoline off Okinawan karate-C , Tuttle Publishing, 1976

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