Masters Otsuka, Motobu, Konishi, Funakoshi etc.

A historical piece – (the free Substack posts will continue every Tuesday, but for this longer, in-depth post in its entirety, sign up for the premium (paid) section).

Trawling through my research pieces and resources I thought it was time to bring together a whole bunch of material and construct some kind of a basic analysis of the relationships and influences across the four masters mentioned in the title.

Bear in mind that this is not intended to be some kind of scholarly piece; particularly as some of my source material cannot be accurately verified or even tracked down. Add to that the tangled relationships of the times mentioned, as well as the erroneous assumptions we are inclined to make. I fear that in this piece I am probably guilty of making the same mistakes I warn some of my school students against; that is, to avoid speculation, guesswork and assumption.

You have to start somewhere and I am very much focussing this through the lens of the founder of Wado karate Otsuka Hironori. Master Otsuka’s story gives me the excuse I need to thread the other masters (mentioned in the title of this piece) into the story like pearls on a string.