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Agreeing to test their tobigeri (jumping kicks), the next event finally got under way. The location was changed from the courtyard into the guest house of the Makabe residence.

The guest house of the Taira residence. Photo from the Ryukyu Kenhoshi.

Committed from youth to a life of budo, Makabe Chaan had more than adequately trained his running and jumping skills. He believed that the essence of combative superiority existed in pliability, not in stationary postures, and Makabe found Mt. Hantan, and Mt. Torazu ideal terrain for strengthening such skills. The Taira family maintained that whenever Makabe returned home late at night, like a ninja, he would jump over the stone gate which surrounded the residence so as not to disturb his family. The umoteyaajou (front gate) was the symbol of an Okinawan kemochi (those with a chronicled lineage; the equivalent of a Japanese samurai family) during the Ryukyu Kingdom period. However, the gate, like so many other treasures of Okinawa, was destroyed during the war.