Okinawan Kobudo
沖縄古武道A body of Okinawan weapon schools alongside the empty-hand ti from which karate grew. The commonest weapons are the bo, sai, tonfa and nunchaku.
Quick Facts
JapanCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Catalogs & Databases for Okinawan Kobudo
About Okinawan Kobudo
Okinawan kobudo is a body of weapon schools practised on the Ryukyu Islands alongside the empty-hand ti from which karate grew. It is not one style but several lineages, each with its own forms and its own reading of the same weapon. The most common weapons are the bo (long staff), sai (metal truncheon fork), tonfa, nunchaku, kama (sickle), tekko, tinbe with rochin (shield and short spear) and surujin (weighted chain). Coastal schools add the eku, a boat oar. The popular explanation that these are farm tools repurposed by peasants after a weapons ban is only partly true. The sai is documented as the equipment of officials and constables, the tonfa and bo have counterparts across China and Southeast Asia, and many forms carry the names of nobles and royal officers rather than farmers. Weapon restrictions on the Ryukyus did exist, but the practice belonged more to the upper class than to the village. In the 20th century the scattered lineages were systematised above all by Taira Shinken, who founded a society for preserving Ryukyu kobudo and collected more than forty forms, and by Matayoshi Shinpo with the Matayoshi kobudo school. Yamanni-ryu stands apart as a distinct staff lineage. Most karateka today train kobudo as a complement to the empty hand.
Styles & Branches
The Okinawan kobudo line with the widest armoury, working with some twenty weapons. The father gathered them; the son made a system of them.
Major traditional Okinawan Kobudo lineage systematized by master Taira Shinken.
An Okinawan staff-fighting school recognizable by its flexible, swing-driven staff movement, used instead of fixed, stopped blocking positions.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.