is a branch of the Kobayashi

Shōrin-ryū Shōrin-ryū (少林流) is one of the major modern Okinawan martial arts and is one of the oldest styles of karate. It was named by Choshin Chibana in 1933, but the system itself is much older. The characters 少林, meaning "sparse" or "scant ...

style of Okinawan karate, developed by

Shūgorō Nakazato was an Okinawan martial artist. Described as a "one punch artist" by some of his American students, Nakazato developed his karate sparring into "a fine fighting art". He gave many demonstrations in Japan as well as abroad and had "many well-kno ...

Hanshi The Japanese language makes use of a system of honorific speech, called , which includes honorific suffixes and prefixes when referring to others in a conversation. Suffixes are often gender-specific at the end of names, while prefixes are att ...

10th

Dan Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), including a list of people with the name ** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark * Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa **Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoi ...

. Nakazato was a student of

Chōshin Chibana was an Okinawan martial artist who developed Shorin-ryū karate based on what he had learned from Ankō Itosu. He was the last of the pre-World War karate masters, also called the "Last Warrior of Shuri" He was the first to establish a Japa ...

. After Chibana's death in 1969, Nakazato assumed the title of Vice President of the Okinawa Shorin-Ryū Karate-do Association. In November 1975, Nakazato resigned from this association and formed the Okinawa Karate-do Shorin-Ryū Shorinkan Association. In the United States the senior teachers are Noel Smith (8th dan) and Eddie Bethea. Both Smith and Bethea trained directly under Nakazato in the early 1960s, and have first-hand knowledge of his teachings, philosophies and concepts of karate. In the early years, seven of Nakazato's black belts returned to the US to spread Okinawan Shorin-ryu to the States; they are referred to as the Original 7.North America Shorin-ryu Shorinkan lineage chart
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North America Shorinkan lineage

This lineage only reflects the Original 7 black belts from Shugoro Nakazato and their Kyoshis: Tadashi Yamashita, Nabil Noujaim, Eddie Bethea, Pat Haley, Noel Smith, C.D. Williamson, Neil Stolsmark, Sean Riley, Sam Ahtye, David Rogers, Robert Rowley, Claude Johnson, and Harunobu Chiba.

References

External links

United States Shorin-ryu Shorinkan website (Official North American Website. Senior North American Kyoshi Noel Smith

Shorinkan
Karate organizations Shōrin-ryū {{karate-stub