Our Style

Kobayashi Shorin-ryū Karate Do

Country of origin:Okinawa, Japan

Creator:Choshin Chibana
Famous practitioners:Katsuya Miyahira, Shugoro Nakazato, Nakama Chozo, and Yuchoku Higa just to name a few.
History
After the death of Anko Itosu in 1915, one of Itosu's most senior students, Choshin Chibana, wanted to continue to teach the Shorin-ryū style of karate he learned from his instructor. Chibana named his system Shorin-ryū, but using the Chinese characters for "small" and "forest" . Chibana lineage schools are commonly referred to as "kobayashi", but this is technically incorrect, as Chibana never used the term to refer to his karate. It was meant to be “Shorin” as tribute to the Shaolin temple (Shorin is the Japanese/Okinawan pronunciation of Shaolin). However, he believed strongly that Shorin Ryu was largely Okinawan and purposely modified the first character from the Chinese "Shao/Sho" so it would retain its originality. As other schools later adopted the name "Shorin-ryū", the term "kobayashi" was probably added to describe which exact characters were used to write the term "Shorin", but was never meant to be the official name of the style. In 1920, Chibana opened his first dojo in Torihori. Spellings such as Tottoribori or Tottori-cho are erroneous and incorrect. The old name of Torihori is Tunjumui, so it is unknown where these erroneous names came from. He later taught in places such as Gibo, Yamakawa, Naha, Kumoji and Asato, with the main Chibana dojo being in Yamakawa.

Chibana taught this style of Shorin-ryū until his death in 1969. Each of his top students went on to teach his own branch of Shorin-ryū: Nakama Chozo created Shubokan, Yuchoku Higa created Kyudokan, Katsuya Miyahira created Shidō-kan, Shugoro Nakazato created Shorinkan.

Instructors

Cliff Cochran - Shihan, Dojo Cho (Chief Instructor)

Ed Gadson - Dai Sempai (Senior Student)