is a traditional style of Okinawan karate. Uechi-Ryū means "Style of Uechi" or "School of Uechi". Originally called Pangai-noon, which translates to English as "half-hard, half-soft", the style was renamed Uechi-Ryū after the founder of the style, Kanbun Uechi, an Okinawan who went to Fuzhou in Fujian Province, China to study martial arts and Chinese medicine when he was 19 years old. After his death, in 1948, the style was refined, expanded, and popularized by his son, Kanei Uechi. Early history Kanbun Uechi studied Southern Chinese kung fu and later would refer to the style as Pangai-noon (traditional Chinese characters: ) meaning "half-hard, half-soft". In the late 19th century and early 20th century Kanbun Uechi trained under a teacher and Chinese medicine hawker known in Japanese as Shū Shiwa (Chinese: Zhou Zihe 1874–1926). Shū Shiwa/Zhou Zihe's life is not well documented. Some have suspected without conclusive evidence that he had connection with the secret societies which worked for the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the restoration of Ming dynasty. Research by the Fuzhou Wushu Association reported in 1984 revealed that he was born in the Zhitian Village (直田村) in 1874 to family wealthy enough to have him educated in letters and fighting arts which included weapons and Tiger Fist Kung Fu or Huzunquan (虎尊拳, Fujian Tiger Boxing). The exact provenance of the romanization "Pangai-noon" is not clear, and it may be from the lesser-known Min Chinese language. It is not a Japanese, Okinawan, nor Mandarin Chinese pronunciation of the original characters. The standard Japanese pronunciation of the three characters is han kō nan (はんこうなん), while the standard Mandarin pronunciation is bàn yìng ruǎn. The Cantonese language pronunciation is bun ngaang yun. In modern times, the katakana version of pangainoon (パンガイヌーン・pangainūn) has been used in Japanese writing rather than the kanji (半硬軟). While the Fuzhou Wushu Association confirmed the meaning of "half-hard, half-soft" in interviews in 2012, in 1934, Kanbun Uechi explained to Kenwa Mabuni when asked about the meaning of "Pangai-noon" that it referred to the rapid speed of the kata. After studying about 10 years under Shū Shiwa/Zhou Zihe, Kanbun Uechi opened his own school in Nanjing in 1906, and he continued periodic training under Zhou Zihe for a total of 13 years. Three years later, Kanbun Uechi returned to Okinawa, determined never to teach again because reportedly one of his Chinese students had killed a neighbor with