Maezato no Nunchaku

Quick Facts

About the kata

Maezato no Nunchaku is a kata with nunchaku, a weapon of two short sticks joined by a cord or chain, and belongs to Okinawan kobudo. The WUKF federation's official kobudo kata list places it among the nunchaku kata and also gives the names Miyazato and Taira no Nunchaku. On the list of traditional Okinawan kobudo kata published by nkkf.org, it appears among the recognised kata of Ryukyu kobudo. According to the English Wikipedia, the kata was created by Shinken Taira (1897–1970), a kobudo master who over his lifetime gathered over forty traditional weapon kata from across Okinawa. The British association JKR-UK, which still teaches it today, calls it Taira no Nunchaku. Taira is also, per Wikipedia, the author of Maezato no Tekko for the tekko, metal knuckle-guards; the two kata thus share both a name and an author. In the Ryukyu Kobudo Shinkokai association, it stands in the nunchaku syllabus alongside Nakamoto no Nicho Nunchaku, created by Nakamoto Masahiro for a pair of nunchaku. We have not been able to establish the number of movements, the floor-pattern shape, or a step-by-step breakdown of Maezato no Nunchaku in the available sources.

The kata in different styles

Meaning of the name

The name literally means Maezato's nunchaku. Maezato was the maiden surname of Shinken Taira's mother, which, according to the English Wikipedia, he adopted as his own in his youth. The British association JKR-UK states explicitly, regarding his kata Maezato no Tekko, that the name refers to Taira's birth name. We believe the same holds here, since the WUKF list also records this kata as Taira no Nunchaku.

Creator and history

Shinken Taira was born in 1897 on Kume island. In 1922 he met Funakoshi Gichin in Tokyo, from 1929 studied kobudo under Yabiku Moden, and in 1934 became a student of Mabuni Kenwa. According to the English Wikipedia, he opened a dojo in Naha in 1940 and founded the Ryukyu Kobudo Hozon Shinkokai in 1955. The Ryukyu Kobujutsu Hozon Shinkokai association's website dates the founding as early as 1940 and states he compiled 42 weapon kata in total.

Differences between styles

The Ryukyu Kobudo Shinkokai association, per its website, teaches Maezato no Nunchaku in two versions, sho and dai. Matayoshi Kobudo, per the English Wikipedia, has only one nunchaku kata, Nunchaku no Kata; we found no Maezato no Nunchaku in its syllabus.