Rare Styles: KishimotoDi, UdunDi, To'on-Ryu, Kojo-Ryu, etc.

[Wastelander]

We all know that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of martial arts styles from Okinawa, and there have almost certainly been many which have been lost to time. Today, there are still a few rare styles which I would say are at risk of dying out, and I think this is partially due to a shift in mindset among karateka over time. From what I've gathered, it seems like from the 80s through the early 2000s, karateka were very interested in learning the oldest, most rare styles and material they could find. This includes the Hakutsuru (White Crane) craze that resulted in a bunch of people fraudulently claiming to teach it, and several kata being made-up for profit. Sometime after that, though, it seems as though karateka lost interest in seeking out older, rarer systems and material. I can't help but wonder if the Hakutsuru mess had something to do with that, but I can't say for sure. I am curious to know if anyone else has seen or felt this shift in interest?

The reason I ask is, of course, largely driven by the fact that I personally train and teach a very rare style called KishimotoDi, which I generally consider to a system of Shuri-Te, but not karate, as it hasn't undergone the modernization process popularized by people like Itosu and Miyagi. It's a small system, with just 4 kata, and it aligns perfectly with what past masters wrote about the Ti/Todi of the past. It's something that I find incredibly interesting, and valuable to my understanding of karate, and yet it seems that almost no one is willing to even try learning it--they basically say they've never heard of it and ignore any opportunities to learn more about it.

Motobu Udundi had a bit of a popularity boom back when Uehara Seikichi began teaching and demonstrating it publicly, but you will be hard-pressed to find people teaching it, today. Even when people have heard of it, they seem to see that it doesn't really resemble karate and decide to ignore it. To'on-Ryu is a sister art to Goju-Ryu, and yet I rarely hear any Goju-Ryu practitioners talk about studying it. Kojo-Ryu essentially died out for a brief period of time, and now there is a bunch of political conflict surrounding it, but it's still an old and rare system, and yet people seem content to let it live in Mark Bishop's books and nowhere else.

Have you seen a drop-off in interest when it comes to rare systems and material? What are your thoughts on why this might be happening, or how we can promote these systems and material to help prevent them from dying out?

[Zaine]

I wonder to what extent the availability of information plays into this phenomenon that you are seeing. We often run to the internet, for better or worse, to find out whether something is legitimate. Most of what I find about Kishimoto-Di, for example, comes from you, even when I Google it. On the other hand, I can Google Shotokan, Shorin Ryu, etc., and find a plethora of information including dojos in my area (I live in a large metroplex, so finding dojos isn't exactly difficult). With this in mind, do you think these systems have become too bespoke? When we relied on word of mouth, there was a sense of mysticism around these rare styles. Now, I think that the general public, while absolutely wanting some amount of mysticism and secrecy, values empiricism far more. If someone whispers about a secret style, my first reaction is to look it up online and find out just how secret it is. If I find very little about it, my interest is peaked, but I hit the wall of no more information really quickly.

Also, I think the issue is that you have to seek these out. The people who know about these systems tend to be already enfranchised within the martial arts world. This can lead to 2 paths. Either they are happy with their own system and they don't care to cross-train, which seems to be the vast majority to me, or they are interested and have trouble finding instructors who can teach them due to the scarcity of the system. Some in the second bucket will find people like you and be in the right circumstances to learn, but those will be few and far between. I, for my part, find myself in the second bucket. I have seen your videos about Kishimoto-Di, both the historical and practical videos, and find myself very interested in learning it. However, you and I live far apart (although if the INKKS still intends to hold the Gashuku in July then trust that I will bug you for Tachimura no Naihanchi).

When it comes to promotion of a style, that becomes difficult. The internet seems to be the obvious option, but how do you set yourself apart from the millions (billions?) of other videos about martial arts and kata in the world? Then we hit the part where some rare systems will intentionally shroud itself in some secrecy so as to prevent others from just learning the materials online and making false claims of proficiency. Kishimoto-Di itself hides Tachimura no Passai for that exact reason, if I recall. I have mixed feelings about this, but at the end of the day it's up to us to hold on to these traditions and pass them down in what way we can. I feel this way about Matsumura-Seito sometimes. I know it's a fairly big branch of Shorin Ryu, but it is on the smaller side when compared to Kobayashi, Matsubayashi, and even Shobayashi. It's nice to see people do kata the way that you learned to do it, but the market is saturated with videos that focus on different branches of Shorin Ryu than my own. The question becomes, for me, do I evolve and change the way I do Shorin Ryu, or do I stick with tradition and push Matsumura-Seito. Largely, I have decided on the former, but I still preserve Matsumura-Seito where I can.

[KorroddyDude]

I think the first question to ask is whether or not the current Okinawan masters of these smaller arts even want them to be more widespread in the first place.

Think of the following example: many people from the West Coast who move to the East Coast miss really miss In-N-Out.  Does that mean that they want In-N-Out to expand to the East Coast?  Definitely not.  They take pride in In-N-Out being a West Coast thing, and they want to keep it that way.

There's an example of this happening in karate: Ryuei-ryu, which was developed by the Nakaima family in Okinawa just a few years before it was annexed.  Ryuei-ryu was kept within the Nakaima family for a century (the 1970's), before deciding to go public with it.  To this day, it's not a very widespread art.

That's the first hurdle.

The second hurdle is availability.  I live in a fairly large metropolitian area, where even some of the most ubiquitous arts are not present.  Around where I live, there's no American Kenpo, no Wado-ryu, no Kyokushin, and no Uechi-ryu.

If we don't even have those, then the likelihood of finding To'on-ryu or some of the others you mentioned just isn't there.

Furthermore on the second hurdle, I don't think most people are dismissing the rarer styles because they're rare.  Most people who've never trained in karate before who walk into a dojo for the first time to inquire know nothing about "styles," nor are aware that karate even has them.  To them, karate is karate.  Many new guys might actually be training for a few months (might make yellow or even orange belt) before even knowing what style they're actually training in (I'm not saying that this reflects negatively on them or their school.  In the initial stages of training, knowledge on how the new student's style of karate differs from others is not a priority, in my opinion).

Then there's the third hurdle, which applies to those with experience who are aware of styles: the days of people growing old and dying in the same town they were born and raised in are long gone.  People move.  And because of this, people are going to gravitate towards the more ubiquitous styles that they can continue training in, no matter where they go.  Although I've never seen it myself, I've heard many instructors lament about how previous students who begrudgly sign up because they're new to the area where the style they trained in prior isn't available - and they have a habit of disrupting the class with "back at my last dojo, we did it like this."

I'm not saying that people who switch to new styles when they move are likely to do this, but they really fell in love with their original style and there's always that part of them that refuses to let it go.  And that likely even applies to the people with enough social aptitude to not disrupt the class with how they did things before.

Why put myself in a position to get attached to a style that I'll never see again if I move out of town?  I'm not saying that I, personally, would feel that way.  If I moved out of town to where there was no Shotokan, I'll gladly sign up for whatever karate is available, as long as there's no Navy SEAL-style belt testing.  But what I will say is that I completely understand those who may not want to do that.

Edited January 2 by KorroddyDude

[Ezomatsu]

I have no idea if there is a resurgence or otherwise of interest in old, or lesser known styles, I don't have a starting point or anyway to measure that. I suspect though that there are more people now training in many of these old styles than there ever were. There also some styles that are just not seen online, or at least not in English.

I do wish many of these lesser known smaller styles had more people training in them, it would be tragic if they disappeared, and if the quality and depth of knowledge of them disappears, which certainly has happened.

This reminds me of something else kind of related. I've known several karateka that have trained extensive in Okinawa and they have said that there just is not a next generation of karateka coming up, and from my limited experience in Okinawa that seems like it might be true. I didn't see a single young black belt at a certain well known karate dojo in Okinawa. Has anyone else noticed this? This makes me think if that's it's true in more common Okinawan styles, perhaps it's also true in the lesser known ones.

[Wastelander]

On 1/2/2025 at 8:16 AM, Zaine said:

I wonder to what extent the availability of information plays into this phenomenon that you are seeing. We often run to the internet, for better or worse, to find out whether something is legitimate. Most of what I find about Kishimoto-Di, for example, comes from you, even when I Google it. On the other hand, I can Google Shotokan, Shorin Ryu, etc., and find a plethora of information including dojos in my area (I live in a large metroplex, so finding dojos isn't exactly difficult). With this in mind, do you think these systems have become too bespoke? When we relied on word of mouth, there was a sense of mysticism around these rare styles. Now, I think that the general public, while absolutely wanting some amount of mysticism and secrecy, values empiricism far more. If someone whispers about a secret style, my first reaction is to look it up online and find out just how secret it is. If I find very little about it, my interest is peaked, but I hit the wall of no more information really quickly.

Also, I think the issue is that you have to seek these out. The people who know about these systems tend to be already enfranchised within the martial arts world. This can lead to 2 paths. Either they are happy with their own system and they don't care to cross-train, which seems to be the vast majority to me, or they are interested and have trouble finding instructors who can teach them due to the scarcity of the system. Some in the second bucket will find people like you and be in the right circumstances to learn, but those will be few and far between. I, for my part, find myself in the second bucket. I have seen your videos about Kishimoto-Di, both the historical and practical videos, and find myself very interested in learning it. However, you and I live far apart (although if the INKKS still intends to hold the Gashuku in July then trust that I will bug you for Tachimura no Naihanchi).

When it comes to promotion of a style, that becomes difficult. The internet seems to be the obvious option, but how do you set yourself apart from the millions (billions?) of other videos about martial arts and kata in the world? Then we hit the part where some rare systems will intentionally shroud itself in some secrecy so as to prevent others from just learning the materials online and making false claims of proficiency. Kishimoto-Di itself hides Tachimura no Passai for that exact reason, if I recall. I have mixed feelings about this, but at the end of the day it's up to us to hold on to these traditions and pass them down in what way we can. I feel this way about Matsumura-Seito sometimes. I know it's a fairly big branch of Shorin Ryu, but it is on the smaller side when compared to Kobayashi, Matsubayashi, and even Shobayashi. It's nice to see people do kata the way that you learned to do it, but the market is saturated with videos that focus on different branches of Shorin Ryu than my own. The question becomes, for me, do I evolve and change the way I do Shorin Ryu, or do I stick with tradition and push Matsumura-Seito. Largely, I have decided on the former, but I still preserve Matsumura-Seito where I can.

I'm sure that availability plays a role, but at the same time, I would say that Hakutsuru material wasn't very available in the 90s, but people sought it out pretty extensively. Personally, I don't think keeping Tachimura no Passai private for direct students is really a barrier to entry for the system, since the other 3 kata are available to be seen publicly, but I suppose everyone has different ideas about that.

On 1/2/2025 at 8:22 AM, KorroddyDude said:

I think the first question to ask is whether or not the current Okinawan masters of these smaller arts even want them to be more widespread in the first place.

Think of the following example: many people from the West Coast who move to the East Coast miss really miss In-N-Out.  Does that mean that they want In-N-Out to expand to the East Coast?  Definitely not.  They take pride in In-N-Out being a West Coast thing, and they want to keep it that way.

There's an example of this happening in karate: Ryuei-ryu, which was developed by the Nakaima family in Okinawa just a few years before it was annexed.  Ryuei-ryu was kept within the Nakaima family for a century (the 1970's), before deciding to go public with it.  To this day, it's not a very widespread art.

That's the first hurdle.

The second hurdle is availability.  I live in a fairly large metropolitian area, where even some of the most ubiquitous arts are not present.  Around where I live, there's no American Kenpo, no Wado-ryu, no Kyokushin, and no Uechi-ryu.

If we don't even have those, then the likelihood of finding To'on-ryu or some of the others you mentioned just isn't there.

Furthermore on the second hurdle, I don't think most people are dismissing the rarer styles because they're rare.  Most people who've never trained in karate before who walk into a dojo for the first time to inquire know nothing about "styles," nor are aware that karate even has them.  To them, karate is karate.  Many new guys might actually be training for a few months (might make yellow or even orange belt) before even knowing what style they're actually training in (I'm not saying that this reflects negatively on them or their school.  In the initial stages of training, knowledge on how the new student's style of karate differs from others is not a priority, in my opinion).

Then there's the third hurdle, which applies to those with experience who are aware of styles: the days of people growing old and dying in the same town they were born and raised in are long gone.  People move.  And because of this, people are going to gravitate towards the more ubiquitous styles that they can continue training in, no matter where they go.  Although I've never seen it myself, I've heard many instructors lament about how previous students who begrudgly sign up because they're new to the area where the style they trained in prior isn't available - and they have a habit of disrupting the class with "back at my last dojo, we did it like this."

I'm not saying that people who switch to new styles when they move are likely to do this, but they really fell in love with their original style and there's always that part of them that refuses to let it go.  And that likely even applies to the people with enough social aptitude to not disrupt the class with how they did things before.

Why put myself in a position to get attached to a style that I'll never see again if I move out of town?  I'm not saying that I, personally, would feel that way.  If I moved out of town to where there was no Shotokan, I'll gladly sign up for whatever karate is available, as long as there's no Navy SEAL-style belt testing.  But what I will say is that I completely understand those who may not want to do that.

I definitely don't expect people who are new to karate will seek out rare systems, because as you say, they don't know anything about karate styles. It's always going to be people with experience who seek out rare systems. I will admit I didn't consider the relocation complication. You're right about that. People definitely do want to be able to transfer their rank and experience when they move, so they don't have to restart.

On 1/2/2025 at 7:31 PM, Ezomatsu said:

I have no idea if there is a resurgence or otherwise of interest in old, or lesser known styles, I don't have a starting point or anyway to measure that. I suspect though that there are more people now training in many of these old styles than there ever were. There also some styles that are just not seen online, or at least not in English.

I do wish many of these lesser known smaller styles had more people training in them, it would be tragic if they disappeared, and if the quality and depth of knowledge of them disappears, which certainly has happened.

This reminds me of something else kind of related. I've known several karateka that have trained extensive in Okinawa and they have said that there just is not a next generation of karateka coming up, and from my limited experience in Okinawa that seems like it might be true. I didn't see a single young black belt at a certain well known karate dojo in Okinawa. Has anyone else noticed this? This makes me think if that's it's true in more common Okinawan styles, perhaps it's also true in the lesser known ones.

Yeah, I've heard and seen that issue on Okinawa. Most Okinawan youth seem more interested in western activities, like baseball. There have also been seasoned instructors on Okinawa who have said you can find better karate in the west than on Okinawa, these days. It's unfortunate, and will likely result in the loss of knowledge and systems.

[DarthPenguin]

One other issue that might come up unfortunately is the issue of there being a lot of frauds out there. When i am interested in a club or style the very first thing i (as i think most people do nowadays) is google them and see what i can find out about the instructor, their lineage, the style etc. If i can't find anything it usually seems quite a red flag to me unless i can rely on word of mouth from someone i trust.

Unfortunately for a lot of frauds an easy way for them to try to escape detection is claim to be trained in a "rare and rarely seen style" and then make up whatever rank they want etc. If someone queries the lack of information they can either point to the rarity or all of the info will point back to them! Obviously there are "real" rare styles without much of an online presence but this is quite a potential issue i think.

I actually think that you, Wastelander, are a good example of how to go about teaching or keeping alive a smaller style: you have a clear online presence, you give clear lineage etc. and you regularly interact with other martial artists openly (of senior level) and put out technique videos. That gives people plenty to look at and give comfort - realistically most things i would find on Kishimoto-di are from you but then i can see that you interact with enough other senior people that if you had made it up yourself they could easily have called you out on it (which you haven't so they don't need to!!)

[sensei8]

Shindokan Saitou-ryu. Things are born and die once.

A “rare” Okinawan karate style that I practiced, trained, and taught for 60 years.

Its founder refused to bow to the powers that be in Okinawa Karate, so he moved as far away from them as he could…to the USA.

Its founder also refused to advertise beyond the word-of-mouth, the occasional local demonstrations, and passing out flyers. Even here at KF I was severely disappointed in the drillings I received as to why our founder didn’t have a website and utilize all of the modern marketing tools. Our founders reason were simple…he didn’t believe in them; he was very old school…our founder only had one student, my sensei, when he relocated to the USA.

 I adopted both our founders and my sensei’s marketing skills whenever I opened my own dojo/MA Supply store, and never once regretted it or seriously thought about going modern day school when it came to advertising/marketing Shindokan. Neither my founder, my sensei, myself, and many other dojo’s within the SKKA network cared about all of that or how we were perceived by anyone.

Shindokan Saitou-ryu is or has died, which started a snowballing effect whenever both our founder and my sensei passed away and whenever the tumultuous events that eventually followed after their passings. A civil war erupted within the SKKA, our once Governing Body, that ended with the complete collapse that followed. The SKKA network of its dojo’s have been disbanded for cause.

Perhaps, I’ve waisted 60 years of my life in training and teaching Shindokan when all that I still deeply care about is gone forever!! I suppose that many Okinawan MA styles has or will reach their own demise caused by their own rarity.

[KarateKen]

I've never heard of any of these.  As Mickey Mantle once said "it's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you have been playing your entire life."  It carries over the martial arts for sure. 

[bushido_man96]

This is a very interesting topic, and lots of good points have been made already.  I kind of feel the same way you do about this, @Wastelander, but for TKD.  I know TKD isn't as old as some Karate styles, but it has a rich history, which I feel has been mostly lost through the unification of the original kwans.  Most of the styles taught in these kwans were originally styles of Karate, Chinese styles, or Judo that were picked up by the practitioners during the Japanese occupation of Korea.  There are also the rumors that those that had studied (or played) Taekkyon when young in Korea also added that flavor to what they learned and taught.  I've spent some time researching these kwans, and information is hard to find.  It saddens me to think of what material and methods from those original kwans are no longer taught in modern dojangs.

Karate is luckier than Taekwondo in a way; at least there isn't one driving force trying to unify and codify everything under one umbrella.

I think the plight of rarer styles is like @sensei8 mentioned; they are born and die without much transition taking place, whether this is by hook or by crook.  Those, like you, @Wastelander, that are the gatekeepers of these rare styles, I think have to decide how it is preserved and how it moves forward.  Personally, I love to have written material to refer to, but not everyone is going to write a book.  Perhaps people aren't as interested or simply don't have the time and resources to seek these things out.  Where would I have to go meet up with you and seek out KishimotoDi?  Illinois?  That's quite a trip for me, and probably for most, except those who are local.  Hitting up a weekend seminar would be a great option, but how much can you pour into someone over the course of 8-15 hours of training?  Not enough to pass on a style.  Some concepts and technical aspects would be retained, for sure.  Hopefully you have a handful of good students that will be able to continue on the style, and perhaps it will grow more in time and therefore become a little more widespread and accessible to others.

If people aren't seeking out those styles anymore, perhaps the answer is for them to seek out others.  But I don't think that is in the nature for these rare styles to do.  I could be wrong; that happens all the time.  I hope this doesn't come across as a "pointing fingers" type of response; that's not my intention.  I'm just trying to put forth points to generate more discussion on the matter.  Something we don't see happen as much anymore is the uchi-deshi, the student who lives with a master for a length of time.  That seems like it would be harder to do nowadays.  I'm not sure if it would help out in this instance or not, but we just don't see that kind of commitment from those seeking to train with skilled and knowledgeable instructors.

[DarthPenguin]

It is definitely an interesting topic, how to preserve a style. I was actually talking about exactly this a couple of weeks ago with some friends i used to train with in another style. It is a TKD offshoot and for a while had gotten pretty big, plenty of clubs in Scotland, some in England, some in a few other countries but gradually that has reduced back down to a very small number of clubs in Scotland. What is a shame is most of the people i know of who left (including myself) did so for easily sortable reasons such as the GM forbidding any cross training - i had the choice between adding grappling to my training and leaving or staying there but nothing else. For myself i chose to leave! What makes it more of a shame is several people who left performed pretty well on a scottish or UK wide level in varying kickboxing orgs and MMA orgs, so permitting cross training would have allowed them to leverage these people's success into attracting more students.

My view on it was that unless the style manages to allow cross training and gets lucky with someone becoming a reasonably decorated fighter (thereby getting more people in) that the style will die out. A lot of people nowadays don't like the old fashioned rules such as only train here (i personally found it quite amusing as the GM used to mention his Black Belts in multiple styles as well as his Masters grade in TKD etc).

Unfortunately not all styles teach a syllabus that is well suited to utilisation in combat sports so it might not be a valid way of building up interest in them again which is a shame.

Not sure what the solution is there tbh - i am not a fan of online teaching assessment but, using @Wastelander style of KishimotoDi as an example is it similar enough to another style of karate/ another martial art whereby someone could learn it as variations to their technique once they had achieved a certain level (eg when someone is X dan in Style Y, the similarities are such that they could learn a lot of the material as adjustments to what they know and are already skilled enough to be shown it online?). Would be a real shame though if good styles vanish simply due to lack of awareness of their existence!