Motokatsu Inoue
Japanese master of karate and kobudo from Tokyo (1918–1993), founder of the Yui Shin Kai style and the first holder of the title hanshi from Taira Shinken.
Quick Facts
JapanBiography
Motokatsu Inoue was a Japanese master of karate and Okinawan kobudo, founder of the Yui Shin Kai style. He was born in 1918 in Tokyo and died in 1993; we have not been able to verify the exact dates. He was the son of a general. Sources disagree on which prime minister his line traced to: some say he was a grandson of Katsura Taro, others that his mother was a granddaughter of Inoue Kaoru.
He began practising martial arts at the age of ten and by eighteen had mastered jujutsu, shurikenjutsu and the jojutsu of the Daien-ryu style with a fifty-inch staff; in 1941 he graduated from Keio University. Seiko Fujita (1898–1966), head of the Koga-ryu ninjutsu school, taught him jujutsu, aiki, shurikenjutsu and jobo-jutsu, while Yasuhiro Konishi taught him kata and kumite. He trained aikido under Gozo Shioda and reached 3rd dan. He learned Ryukyu kobujutsu from Taira Shinken in the Hozon Shinkokai organisation.
He was the first man to receive the title of hanshi (menkyo kaiden) from Taira Shinken, and in the summer of 1970 he conducted Taira's last examination. After Taira's death that same year, two sources say he was meant to lead the Ryukyu Kobujutsu Association, but it went to Akamine for political reasons.
He founded his own style, Yui Shin Kai, and was grandmaster of both Yui Shin Kai and Ryukyu kobujutsu. He passed on the kata Sakugawa no Kon, Kanegawa no Nicho Kama and Chatan Yara no Sai. He wrote several booklets on kobudo kata and a three-volume book series on them published in Japan, partly translated into English.
Teachers, students and family
Associated Martial Arts
Kata and forms
Organisations
- Yui Shin KaiFounder
Ranks and titles
- HanshiOkinawan Kobudo