Sanseiryu Uechi-ryu

Quick Facts

About the kata

Sanseiryu is the eighth and final kata of Uechi-ryu. The English Wikipedia states that only three of the style's katas, Sanchin, Seisan and Sanseiryu, come from the Pangai-noon system that Kanbun Uechi studied in Fuzhou, China. The other five were added after his death by his son Kanei Uechi and senior students as bridging katas between the three original Chinese forms, placing Sanseiryu at the end of the series. According to Uechi-ryu Karate-Do Oryukai, it is the most advanced of the three katas from China: it combines techniques from all earlier katas, so the school sees elements of the tiger, crane and dragon in it. The Serbian branch of Okinawa Karate-do Kyokai (Okikukai) ranks it as the fourth kata for dan holders and nicknames it the "form of endurance". According to Okikukai, the seventh kata, Kanchin, was created by Kanei Uechi as a stepping stone toward the more complex Sanseiryu. According to Wikipedia, the characters 三十六 were originally read Sandairyu; Oryukai also gives the reading Sanjuroku. The official WUKF kata list from April 2024 lists it for Uechi-ryu among the sentei katas as Sanseryu and among the tokui katas as Sanseiryu. We have not been able to confirm the number of movements from a reliable source.

The kata in different styles

Meaning of the name

The characters 三十六 literally mean "thirty-six". The English Wikipedia gives the common interpretation "thirty-six methods of attack and defence" or "36 positions from which one attacks and defends". Uechi-ryu Kenkyujo adds a 360-degree reading, i.e. the ability to face attacks from every direction. Kanei Uechi's 1977 book claims that Shu Shiwa was known as the "priest of the 36th chamber" and that the kata sums up techniques taught in the previous thirty-five chambers; the Serbian branch of Okikukai repeats this story with a reference to pages 307–308, while Wikipedia calls it apocryphal.

Creator and history

In 1897, at the age of nineteen, Kanbun Uechi went to Fuzhou, where, according to the English Wikipedia, he studied under Zhou Zihe, known in Japanese as Shu Shiwa (1874–1926). He earned a teaching licence in 1904 and returned to Okinawa in 1909. The 1977 Uechi-ryu Kihon manual claims that Kanbun did not modify Zhou Zihe's teaching in any way; the Fuzhou wushu association, after comparing it with styles that trace back to Zhou Zihe, holds instead that he adapted Pangai-noon himself. We have therefore not been able to confirm exactly what Sanseiryu looked like in China. The style was renamed Uechi-ryu in 1940, and after Kanbun's death in 1948 his son Kanei expanded it with further katas.

Differences between styles

Goju-ryu and Toon-ryu practise the kata Sanseiru, whose name contains the same number 36. Dan Djurdjevic, a Goju-ryu practitioner, writes on the blog Way of Least Resistance that the Uechi-ryu version appears completely unrelated to the Goju-ryu and Toon-ryu versions. The documented origin also differs: Uechi-ryu traces its kata to Kanbun Uechi's Pangai-noon, whereas GKR Karate states that Sanseru was taught, and probably also created, by Kanryo Higaonna. We found no common ancestor of the two forms in our sources; we therefore believe these are two separate katas that happen to share a numerical name.

Bunkai – applications

A fixed Sanseiryu bunkai analysis appeared only long after Kanbun's death. The Serbian Okikukai branch says it was first shown in 1981, at a memorial for Kanbun's 33rd death anniversary, without official adoption into the system at the time. Okikukai adopted it in the nineteen-nineties; it is now part of the fourth- and fifth-dan exams. It has 21 targets in 12 directions. The English Wikipedia adds that videos and a book document the sequence's development from the nineteen-nineties into the new millennium, and that a government-backed Okinawan manual shows a version with slight differences from Okikukai's.

Competition status

• WUKF (World Union of Karate-Do Federations) – Uechi-ryu — Sentei (selected) · valid from 4/26/2024 ↗
• WUKF (World Union of Karate-Do Federations) – Uechi-ryu — Tokui (free choice) · valid from 4/26/2024 ↗