Ozawa, Hiroshi. 1997. Kendô: The Definitive Guide.New York and Tokyo:
Kodansha International.
Sasamori, Junzo, and Gordon Warner. 1989. This Is Kendô: The Art of
Japanese Fencing.Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle.
Warner, Gordon, and Donn F. Draeger. 1987.Japanese Swordsmanship:
Technique and Practice. New York and Tokyo: John Weatherhill.Kenpô
A twentieth-century martial art based on the older kempô tradition of Oki-
nawa and Japan. Kenpô is primarily an empty-hand, fist art. It is translated
as “Law of the Fist” or “Fist Law.” The modern kenpô systems use a vari-
ety of hand strikes known to martial artists as finger thrusts, claws, half
fist, full fist (horizontal and vertical), hammer fist, shuto(Japanese; edge of
the hand “chop”), and ridge hand/reverse hand sword, among others. Ken-
pôists also may use low-line kicks that are directed below the opponent’s
waist. The basic five kicks employed are labeled the front snap, the side
thrust, the rear thrust, the roundhouse or wheel kick, and the front thrust
kick. Some kenpô styles include other kicks such as the flying side kick, in-
side crescent utilizing the inner edge of the kicking foot, outside crescent
with the outer edge of the foot, heel hook, and the spinning back kick.
Strikes with the knees, forearms, wrists, and elbows are also found within
some kenpô styles. It is quite common to find kenpô styles that are taught
in conjunction with jûjutsu techniques, featuring joint locking, throws,
takedowns, and submission chokes.
Early History
The exact origins of the art that gave rise to the systems that came to be
identified as kenpô are shrouded by myths and legends. There is, however,
sufficient circumstantial evidence of a long series of ministerial, cultural, re-
ligious, and commercial exchanges between China and Okinawa to sup-
port the contention that Chinese boxing had a major impact on the in-
digenous systems of Okinawa that emerged as karate in the nineteenth
century.
The Chinese martial arts that the Okinawans developed into kenpô
were collectively known by the Mandarin term quanfa(ch’uan’ fa) or the
Cantonese term ken-fat.This is romanized as kenpô(or, in the works of
some authors, kempô) in Japanese, and means “way of the fist,” or “fist
law.” It has been suggested that quanfa was first introduced to the Ryûkyû
Islands during the sixth and seventh centuries by visiting Buddhist monks
and seafaring traders. These arts were most likely from Fuzhou. In 1392,
thirty-six (signifying “many” in the Okinawan worldview rather than a pre-
cise number) Chinese families from Fujian province moved to Kumemura,
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