Flowing Hand

 Over the past 33 years, I have been continuously practicing and studying what I have been shown/taught by Taika Seiyu Oyata. Originally, he called what he was teaching Ryukyu Kempo. Being that it was a "Generic" term, it was soon being utilized by anyone who ever saw Taika (and not always by anyone who actually ever studied from him). 
 People began making the assumption, that if you were teaching "RK", then you were teaching the same thing as Oyata. This was simply not true (much less being in any way accurate). The attendance of a few of Taika's "seminars", does not equate to having studied from the man (much less being able to teach what/how Taika did his techniques).
 It reached the level, that Taika felt it necessary to rename what he was teaching to avoid his teachings being mistaken for what those individual's were hawking to their students. He chose to use the name Ryu Te (Okinawan Hand) to describe his system.
  Unfortunately (for "me", LOL) I was already using that name, to identify my own Japanese Calligraphy Classes! Of course the "Ryu" that I was using was different (the kanji that I was using represented Flowing), therefor "my" Ryu Te, meant "Flowing Hand" (being a reference to brushed calligraphy, and is exampled above on this Blog post ). Different, but none the less sounding alike. Regardless, Taika had registered "his" RyuTe, where as "I" hadn't, LOL.
 Similarly, those who were calling what they were teaching "Ryukyu Kempo" (very quickly) began claiming that theirs was the same thing as what Taika was teaching (it wasn't). This is most evidenced in what is being sold as (being) "Tuite Jutsu". 
 I've previously explained (here, on a prior blog) that (the word combination) "Tuite" was coined by Taika. Until that time, the words Tori te were utilized (though both utilize the same kanji). It's simply another case of illiterate ("Americans" initially) using Japanese/Okinawan terms incorrectly. 
 What the majority of those individual's are teaching, is not like Taika's (version of) Tuite. The more "popular" (or at least publicized) groups, have included their own "tuite principles" (which are ridiculous) they include numerous irrelevant subject additions (that serve no purpose, other than to mislead/confuse the student).
 Theirs are programs that were thrown together to produce seminars that are designed to extort the money of gullible attendee's. Even those student's of Taika years ago, are performing those techniques differently than were taught/performed during the later years of Taika's life/instruction. 
  I find it preposterous that people (actually) believe that Taika (or his students) didn't improve/progress upon what had been taught 20, 30 years later in their training. Taika was improving his methodology until the final week of his life. Is his "passing" supposed to signal some end to the progression of our study?, I think not.