Sanchin Uechi-ryu

Quick Facts

About the kata

Uechi-ryu places Sanchin first. It is the first kata a student learns, and per the Uechi-ryu Karate-do Rengokai association, no other kata may precede it in practice. Per the Okinawan association Hozonkai it should be practiced strictly three times a day. Its founder, Kanbun Uechi, is credited with the saying "Everything is in Sanchin." Rengokai sums up what it should build: a solid stance, a sharp gaze, a body resistant to blows, and concentration free of distraction. Uechiryu-kenkyujo.com calls it a teaching kata: it teaches the sanchin dachi stance, the style's movements and the mutual positioning of body parts recurring in higher kata, and it first introduces the circular block wa uke. Training includes testing the body. Per the Shimoji-ha school's website, during the kata the teacher gives the practitioner punches and kicks, and the kata is repeated three times; Japanese Wikipedia names the areas struck, shoulders, abdomen and legs, and the muscles tensed by breathing. English Wikipedia also mentions Sanchin steps performed while holding heavy ceramic jars, nigiri game. We did not find Sanchin among the Uechi-ryu kata on the 2024 WUKF list.

The kata in different styles

Meaning of the name

The English Wikipedia's article on Uechi-ryu translates the name 三戦 as "three battles" and usually explains it as mind, body and spirit. Uechiryu-kenkyujo.com adds an interpretation tied to the practice itself: the three clashes can also be those the practitioner faces in performing the kata, namely flexibility, timing and power. The Okinawan association Uechi-ryu Karate-do Hozonkai presents Sanchin as the fundamental kata for the level of mind, technique and body, as against Seisan, which per it hones techniques for real combat.

Creator and history

English Wikipedia lists Sanchin among the three kata Uechi-ryu took from Pangai-noon, alongside Seisan and Sanseiryu; the style's other five kata were added by Kanei Uechi and other senior students of Kanbun Uechi. Around the turn of the twentieth century Kanbun studied in Fuzhou under a teacher the Japanese know as Shu Shiwa (Zhou Zihe in Chinese). Rengokai speaks of direct transmission from Pangai-noon, a branch of southern Chinese Shaolin boxing. Whether Kanbun changed the material could not be clearly established: per Wikipedia the manual Uechi-ryu Kihon claims he changed nothing, whereas the Fujian wushu association, comparing it with schools descended from Zhou Zihe, concludes he made his own changes. According to Wikipedia, in Sanchin Kanei Uechi appeared deceptively soft and relaxed, yet his body was hard as rock. Justin Testa (uechi-insights.com) writes that George Mattson, who trained on Okinawa in the nineteen-fifties, called the practice "OldWay", based on the principle of half hard, half soft, without excessive tension, as taught by Kanei Uechi and Tomoyose Ryuko. Shime Testa describes it as a paired exercise in which a teacher, a senior student or a partner tests the body's structure, balance and concentration.

Differences between styles

The main difference from Goju-ryu is in the hand: per English Wikipedia, Uechi-ryu thrusts with the open hand nukite zuki, while Goju-ryu and Chito-ryu use the fist. Higaonna's Sanchin (dai ni) in Goju-ryu also had open hands, before Kyoda Juhatsu changed it to fists and Miyagi Chojun adopted that version. Its place in the curriculum also differs: in Uechi-ryu, Sanchin is the first kata, while other styles, per Wikipedia, place it later. The sanchin dachi stance is the starting stance of every kata of the Uechi-ryu style.

Techniques in the kata

Related katas

• Variant of: Sanchin