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Kobudo means an ancient budo.
Okinawa kobudo is a very unique weapon fighting art because its weapons are not conventional ones. Most of its arms are derived from farming or fishing instruments of the islanders. The origin of bo (stick) of Okinawa kobudo was a carrying pole of the peasants. They also used sickles and flailing tool to fight. Those instruments are practiced in Okinawa kobudo as kama jutsu (sickle fighting techniques) and nunchaku jutsu (nunchaku fighting techniques). Kai jutsu (oar fighting techniques) was invented by Okinawan fisher men.
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Tamano studied the art from Master Shinpo Matayoshi, the head master of Kingai ryu style Okinawa kobudo and Master Eisuke Akamine, the head master of Taira style Okinawa kobudo. The practitioners of Okinawa kobudo traditionally don’t do much sparring but kata. Accordingly, Tamano only learned kata of many kind of weapons from his masters. He thought Okinawa kobudo was not a true fighting art as it had no sparring exercise. Thus, he created a free sparring exercise, preset sparring exercises, new kata, etc in order to make it a budo.
He made a teaching system with those materials and called it Shoreikai Okinawa kobudo.
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Shinpo Matayoshi
Matayoshi was born in 1921. He studied Kingairyu Okinawa kobudo with his father Shinko Matayoshi. He established Okinawa kobudo renmei or the federation of Okinawa kobudo in 1970 and died in 1997.
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Eisuke Akamine
Akamine was born in 1925. He studied Okinawa kobudo of Taira style with Master Shinken Taira, the founder of Okinawa kobudo hozon shinkokai or the association of preserving and promoting Okinawa kobudo. Akamine was the second president of the association. He died in 1999.