# Chotoku Kyan



## chinto01 (Oct 2, 2007)

Hello all. I have been looking into Kyan Sensei and was wondering if anyone knows if he had children. Everything I have read never references his children. Any help would be great.

In the spirit of bushido!

Rob


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## chinto (Oct 3, 2007)

chinto01 said:


> Hello all. I have been looking into Kyan Sensei and was wondering if anyone knows if he had children. Everything I have read never references his children. Any help would be great.
> 
> In the spirit of bushido!
> 
> Rob


 

I unfortunently do not have any knowledge on that topic, BUT, I would be very, very, very interested myself in what you find out!

If I could go back in time and learn directly from any of the old masters, I think my Choice would be Kyan Sensei.


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## twendkata71 (Oct 3, 2007)

All of the historical information that I have found on Kyan Chotoku makes no mention of children. It mentions his wife, but no children. If he did have children perhaps they did not do karate.
In most historical accounts he apparently liked to visit brothels quite often. So, perhaps he had some children that were not recognized as his own, or not. 
There is a great article on Kyan on the Hawaiin Senekai website.


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## chinto01 (Oct 3, 2007)

Thanks for both of your replies. All the articles I have read have only mentioned his wife. I have also spoken with several others who have studied history and they have no idea wether he had children or not. The reason I find this interesting is to see if he did have children if they had an interest in his art.

In the spirit of bushido!

Rob


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## Kennedy_Shogen_Ryu (Oct 3, 2007)

I've done some research, asked some of my instructors, and as far as they know Kyan did not have any children, or, did not have any children that pursued martial arts in anyway. ​


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## chinto (Oct 6, 2007)

twendkata71 said:


> All of the historical information that I have found on Kyan Chotoku makes no mention of children. It mentions his wife, but no children. If he did have children perhaps they did not do karate.
> In most historical accounts he apparently liked to visit brothels quite often. So, perhaps he had some children that were not recognized as his own, or not.
> There is a great article on Kyan on the Hawaiin Senekai website.


 

Yep, I understand that visiting brothals and bars were considerd part of the coriculem of his students by Kyan. He was not a aparantly a chaist saint who did with out plesures and lived a spartian type life style, and did not aparently advise others to do so either.


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## chinto (Oct 6, 2007)

chinto01 said:


> Thanks for both of your replies. All the articles I have read have only mentioned his wife. I have also spoken with several others who have studied history and they have no idea wether he had children or not. The reason I find this interesting is to see if he did have children if they had an interest in his art.
> 
> In the spirit of bushido!
> 
> Rob


 
yep, I have found no mention of children in what I have been able to find on Kyan.


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## gspell68 (Jan 2, 2022)

I met Kyan’s great-granddaughter a couple of times while stationed in Colorado.
My karate teacher from the early 1990’s was once married Kyan’s granddaughter.
His name is Skip Ettinger and in the late 1960’s while in Okinawa he was a student of Zenryo Shimabukuro, who was a student of Kyan.


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