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This Okinawan SKKA

Is dedicated to the memory of my teacher,
Grandmaster Shoshin Nagamine,
Hanshi 10th degree black belt and the founder of the Matsubayashi Shorin-ryu style of karate-do During his lifetime,the Okinawan Government declared Nagamine an intangible cultural treasure because of the rich legacy he established and because of the important position he holds in the history of the art of karate.
It is my sincere hope that this work will help to describe the genius and elegant beauty of Matsubayashi-ryu. It is also my sincere desire that this work will help to preserve the rich legacy
left behind by
Grandmaster Nagamine.Masao Shima Sensei:
I would like to thank Master Shima sensei for his ongoing support and encouragement over the past 40 years. Master Shima is the one
who promoted me to 9th degree black belt following Master Nagamine's
death.He has been a constant source of inspiration. This has providid me with the fortitude to tackle the enormous undertaking of completing such a comprehensive project as text of my life. THANK YOU
" EIHACHI OTA "

4.Ikken Hisatsu: To Stop the Opponent With One Blow,
(By EIHACHI OTA),
Michael Rovens and Mark Polland. bugeisha

Interview With Eihachi Ota of Matsubayashi Shorin Ryu

Eihachi Ota is one of the true pioneers of Okianwan karate in the United States. Like most of his countryman he is quiet, self-effacing, and modest, and as a result, is known only to long-term students of traditional karate. This interview was conducted in the Dragon Times office.

DT: Where do you come from originally?

EO: I was born on Yaeyama Island, one of the most southerly islands in the Okinawan chain. On a clear day we could look to the south and see Taiwan.

DT: What sort of upbringing did you have?

EO: My father was a farmer who supplemented his income by working as a carpenter. Our community, of which my father was the headman, was very small. Never more than100 people. Our island was so tiny that it was almost impossible to find a place on it from which you could not see the ocean.

DT: What made you move?

EO: My father insisted that his six children have an education so when I was about 13 we moved to Naha City on Okinawa. Shortly after that I came in contact with karate.

DT: Please tell me how that happened?

EO: Well, actually nothing happened, I suppose you could say that I was just exposed to karate for the first time. One of our neighbor’s friends did Goju-ryu and they used an old U.S. Army kitbag for punching practise. This got me interested enough to join the high school karate club. From there I became a member of Shima Sensei’s Matsubayashi Shorin ryu dojo.

DT: Shima the student of Nagamine?

EO: That’s right. Shima Sensei was one of Nagamine Sensei’s top students. Nagamine Sensei would not permit kumite so Shima Sensei and a few others opened a branch dojo where they could practice sparring by turning part of his house into a dojo. When I started training in the late 50s my instructors had just got their dan grades. The other senior instructor was Chokei Kishaba.

DT: What was training like?

EO: Like life at that time, very hard. We didn’t have any money, and food was less than abundant, so it followed our pastimes too were simple and hard. Shima sensei didn’t ask for a teaching fee, but we were expected to provide water. Okinawa is a small island in a vast ocean so there always has been a severe shortage of drinking water. Sometimes we didn’t even have the money for that.

DT: Describe to me, if you will, the training program.

EO:There were never more than ten members in the dojo, and by the early sixties we were taught as a class and not individually as before. However, we were expected to train on our own a great deal; classes were basucally for the instructor to correct you. I and my friend Nohara, practised before the group training often, sometime hitting the makiwara for thirty minutes at a time. Class training was gruelling and consisted mainly of basics and kata. After class we would do weight training―bench presses and squats―and we also used the chi’shi training weight like the Goju-ryu people do. We also studied the bo. As we had a close connection with the Nagamine Dojo there was never a problem getting an instructor.

DT: I understand that when you finished high school you went to mainland Japan.

EO: That’s right. One day Shima Sensei asked me what I was going to do when I graduated. I told him the truth―I had no idea. He urged me to study, and I am thankful that he did. Shortly after that I took his advice and enrolled in the Electronics Institute in Kamata on the mainland (a suburb of Tokyo).

DT: Did you still train.

EO: Of course, but I only trained by myself. Between college, study time and the various jobs necessary to keep body and soul together, I had no time for formal training at a dojo. After three years I graduated and went home.

 

DT: How did you end up in Los Angeles?

EO: About a year after I got back to Okinawa I moved to Los Angeles. I started out by helping a Kobayashi Shorin ryu instructor who had a dojo at Olympic and Crenshaw. At this time instructors Kubota, Oshima, and Nishiyama were already active on the West Coast and I often gave demostrations for them.

DT: What was it like being one of the first in the field?

EO: It was difficult teaching karate to Americans at this time so a lot of instructors modified the training to make it easier and less demanding. They had rent to pay and if you trained the students hard as we had been trained back home, they left and went to an “easier” dojo. Students wanted to learn quickly and easily which is not really possible in the case of karate. As a result there was a conflict of interests between the instructors, who knew the students had to work hard to improve, and the students who wanted to improve by didn't understand that they had to work really hard to do so.

DT: And yet karate spread very rapidly.

EO: Yes it did-although in many cases it was not real karate! Shorin-ryu became very strong on the East Coast, but in Los Angeles we continued to teach the old way and it was difficult therefore to keep students. Then I had a problem with the immigration people. I couldn't understand why they would bother with me as I was so poor, but decided that, under the circumstances the best idea might be to see a little more of America. With the help of Takayoshi Nagamine who sent me a ticket, I went to Ohio and together we toured around giving seminars and doing demonstrations.

DT: When did you come back to Los Angeles?

EO: In 73 or 74. My old students and friends wanted me back and helped me to re-establish myself on the West Coast. I was still so poor that I had to live in the dojo. Soon after karate became very popular and like mushrooms dojo sprouted everywhere. We kept it traditional however, so we were not greatly effected by the boom. It seemed to me the more popular karate became the lower the standard went, and the more the standard was lowered, the more popular karate became.

DT: Did you find this frustrating?

EO: Extremely! If you did your very best to teach people correctly and make them really strong, they would leave the dojo or even sue you for making contact. If you wasted their time and money by taking it easy and teaching them kid's stuff, they thought you were wonderful and would train regularly. This is why karate deteriorated so much in the U.S.

DT: Is this still the case.

EO: It was for a long time but it started to change several years ago, and now the trend is being reversed, and the standard is improving. Students are training harder and practising basics and kata more seriously, so I have great hopes for the future. There's also a lot of good material out there, videos, books and other serious publications, that we didn't have before and these help to educate and inform.

DT: Do you maintain your contacts with Okinawa.

EO: I did for a very long time, but became tired of the politics and let things loosen a little in the past few years. My seniors in Okinawa wanted to control everything in America as they do back home, but without any experience of America they didn't understand the different culture and customs and this caused a great deal of friction. I still respect them a great deal, especially as far as their knowledge of karate is concerned, but I'm not sure if their plans for the development of karate overseas will work.

DT: Do you ever regret beginning karate.

EO: No I don't. Karate has had a positive influence on me, and still does. I enjoy my training and wouldn't train if I didn't. Karate is for life, you never learn it completely you just keep practising in order to improve. Perhaps that is its fascination.

DT: How about your personal training. You look incredibly fit!

EO: I have been training intensively over the past year or so. I still train with weights, I run everyday very hard, and tomorrow I am running in the Los Angeles marathon.

DT: Anyone who has seen your video “Once A Secret” will want to know where you learned the twin kama method you demonstrate with one kama swinging free on the end of a cord. I know several people who have bought the video just for that! Where did that method come from

EO: A fellow student at Shima Sensei's dojo showed me when I was a brown belt. I thought it was fascinating and practised it a lot. I must warn you, however, it's dangerous. I have scars all over my body to prove it from my early days of training, and you need good instruction if you are to master it.

Sensei Eihachi Ota
It was in Naha City, the capital of Okinawa, After gaining
recognition as one of the strongest in his high schoolﾕs karate club; Mr.Ota was invited to join Sensei Shima, s private dojo.
And Sensei Nagamine (1907 - 1997).As a youth, Ota enjoyed playing baseball and boxing in nearby
gymnasiums.Yet, his passion for martial arts became evident at an early age. Today Sensei Ota vividly remembers his training in Okinawa under Master Shima, Nagamine and, considered the toughest streetfighter in the karate world...This Ota propounds, requires a different level of physical and mental commitment. Ota quietly intimates to his students that modern day emphasis on point fighting is very different from the way he trained in Okinawa. Sensei Ota, in his typical soft spoken and quiet demeanor, says that he realized that trainingin Master Shima
and Nagamineﾕs dojo was not enough.He likens this to academic studies as well. A student should attend classes, Ota asserts, to acquire knowledge, but must do homework and continual exercise outside the regular classes to hone and retain the knowledge, and martial arts is no different. Contemporaries of Ota in the Naha City dojo remember the story of how one evening a senior instructor went to Otaﾕs parents home because Ota had refused his promotion to Sho-dan (first degree black belt). Instead Ota was found practicing in nearby sugar cane fields in complete blackness.This was the first time people found out about Ota ﾕs private training. Mr. Ota explained to his senior that he did not intend any lack of respect to his contemporaries or seniors at the dojo, rather it was his desire to achieve a higher potential. Mr. Ota explains that the wonderful thing about karate is that you can never fully reach a state of perfection. That is, training is a process, an evolution of knowledge and technique where the practitioner can always keep improving. As soon as you achieve a goal, there is immediately a harder one that the student

must strive to achieve. Ota tells his students that complacency or the belief that you have maximized your potential or ability is the first step in your downfall.Mr. Ota constantly reminds his students of the importance of striving for more. According to Ota, getting to black belt level is relatively easy.However, most people stop there, even in Okinawa. Very few continue to develop their skills and can improve enough to move to the next level.Students of Otaﾕs attest that his speed and skill continues to improve over time, despite growing older, and that is what differentiates him from ordinary athletes. Whenever people complain that they are too old,they are reminded that master Nagamine is 90 years old and still trains for hours every day. Nagamine can easily throw students half his age to the floor with ease. Sensei Ota encourages students to make karate a way of life.The dojo in Okinawa is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even holidays. When Ota left Okinawa to pursue electronics degree at Tokyo University, he was forced to work during the days to pay for tuition, and devote evenings to study.He did not have time to join a dojo, but it did not deter him from practicing karate. His five feet by seven-foot apartment in Tokyo became his new dojo. It is said that he would practice so hard that other residents thought there was an earthquake outside. In Okinawa, karate men tease that it is safer to be in an earthquake then to have to face up against Ota in a sparring match.In 1969, Ota moved to the United States. Yet he always kept training.
His students remember that even following a motorcycle accident;Ota never missed a day in the dojo.
Students when they found out about their teaching meeting with an accident replied, We didnﾕt even know, it is impossible to tell from watching him train!ﾓ Often Mr. Ota tells injured students,If you hurt your right side, then use it as an opportunity to train with your left and build up your weaknesses. Always make yourself stronger by

working on your weaknesses. In 1973, Ota opened his first dojo in the United States. Still, he remembers the training as more serious in Okinawa. Classes in Okinawa would continue until students would get blood in their urine from training so seriously. The difficult part,
however, according to Ota, wasnﾕt the pain,but building up the toughness to go and do the same thing again the following day! Mr. Ota owned a sake bar for fifteen years in one of the roughest areas of central Los Angeles. It was such a tough neighborhood; police officers have been quoted as saying that the only
times they felt safe was in Sensei Otaﾕs bar.One neighborhood police officer who later became a student at the dojo recants stories of how assailants armed with firearms would unsuccessfully attempt to hold
up the bar. But, they just werenﾕt fast enough to handle Otaﾕs lightning speed. Currently one of his senior students is an instructor at the Police Academy. Mr. Ota is an expert in all the traditional Okinawan weapons of self-defense, which at one time were used in the fishing and farming industries: uncheck, Bo. As. Tonfa. And Kama. Sensei Ota is pictured with the traditional kobudo weaponsatright.Ota believes that Kobudo, the study of weapons, is an integral part of karate training,
and he encourages students to practice the various weapons. Ota says that weapons training present an opportunity for students from.

different tyles to train together because the techniques needed for weapons are the same, regardless of stylistic variations or a studentﾕs background. Always however, the student must first learn how to take care of the weapons, because in this way they develop respect and appreciation for the weapons, and, moreover, the responsibility and control to use it. Perhaps even more than his lightning speed or the forcefulness of his techniques, what differentiates Ota from all other sensei is his mastery of distanceﾓ. Ota explains that when opponents engage, they are already at a very short distance from one another.
But, the secret is learning to control that long distance before engaging an opponent. Students must work on their combinations in order to achieve a higher level of skill. Once Ota was challenged to a life and death fight by a champion kick boxer from Japan. Yet, after watching Ota execute several combinations while warming up before the duel, the Japanese fighter bowed out of the
contest, thinking it better to loose face than his life.
Ota explains that students who concentrate on techniques for short distances may indeed developdeadly blocks and punches, but can easily be defeated
because they `have not developed a strategy to cope with combinations,fakes, feints, and shifting movements.
Ota quickly overwhelms many senior students once they encounter his lightning fast combinations, shifting stances, and movements.Ota is frequently invited to
Okinawa to conduct sparring courses because of his mastery of these strategies。Indeed, mokarate masters on Okinawa feel he has taken the art of karate to levels last seen in the 18th century.

My name is Yoneko, I am Eihachi Ota's only daughter and I would like to give everyone some information about myself and my relationship with my father. I know that you all know all about His professional life but I would like to give you a little personal information about my dad and what he is like at home.

My father married my mother in 1975 they had me in 1976. I am the only child to both my parents, I have two children Armando (12) and Justin (7) "Grandpa's Boys" which I think my dad wanted a boy to begin with I am kidding.

My father started taking me to karate when I was about four or five years old and because of marital circumstances I was not able to be involved all the time in karate so I went when ever my dad had me in his care and we did this until I was about 12 or 13 yrs. old.

I have to be honest and say I did not advance very far into training because I did not spend the time enough in the dojo to advance. This is not because my father did not try to keep me in school it is because I personally lost interest as a teen. My dad was not very happy with that be he did not push me either. My dad is a very understanding man who has let me grow up with all the options in the world but I am my own person and he was very understanding and does his very best job as a father I could never ask for any more from him he has taken a very long journey with me and I owe him the world.

I would like to say for your understanding that my father is truly a great man with all the normal living situations as we all do, but I know for sure that his knowledge, experience and strength he has taught me allot and I don't know what I would do with out him. When I go through certain things you would not believe that I can call my dad at anytime of the night and he helps me get through what I am going through emotionally and I am like a little girl again who just wanted to hear my dads voice. He is a wonderful father and Grandfather, I am very proud to be his daughter.

I would like all of you to know that my dad is a very intelligent and strong man who has allot of knowledge and surely allot of energy to spend the time that he does for his particular profession and family life my dad is a great man and I love and respect him not just because he is my father but because he is a great man.

Thank you dad for all you do for us.

Your one and only,

Yoneko, Armando (Mikio), Justin