KENWA MABUNI

The formation of the Shito-Ryu school of karate is accredited to Soke Kenwa Mabuni. Mabuni, like many of the old karate masters, was descended from an Okinawan warrior class, known as Bushi. Mabuni family members served Okinawan lords for centuries.

Mabuni was taught principally by two masters. At the age of thirteen, he became a student of Yasutsune "Ankou" Itosu.

YASUTSUNE ITOSU

Itosu taught an Okinawan style called Shuri-Te. He is recognised as the founder of the Pinan Kata. and was also instrumental in the introduction of karate into the Okinawan school teaching syllabus. Itosu was a student of a famous Okinawan master, Sokon Mastsamura, the founder of a style called Shorin-Ryu. It is said that Mabuni developed a strong bond with Itosu, who shared his knowledge of twenty three katas with Mabuni. When Itosu died in 1915, Mabuni became the second master of the Itosu school. Mabuni erected a shrine in front of his master’s grave and would perform his daily kata training there.

KANRYO HIGAONNA

Kanryo Higaonna was a master who also heavily influenced Mabuni’s development. Higaonna was a master of a style called Naha-te, which was very strongly influenced by Chinese Martial Arts. Mabuni was introduced to Higoanna during his teens by Chojin Miyagi, his close friend. Miyagi later went on to found his own style, Goju-Ryu.

MABUNI DEVELOPS SHITO-RYU

In the 1920s, Mabuni and Miyagi trained together at a dojo known as Ryukyu Tode Kenyu-Kai (the Okinawan Karate Research Club). Many masters from diverse backgrounds trained there, including the legendary Woo Yin Gue, a Chinese tea merchant who was living in Okinawa at the time. Mabuni learnt some Fukien province "White Crane" kung fu from him. This is how the katas Rohai and Nipaipo found their way into our style and through them we can still feel Yin Gue’s influence. Mabuni, now a highly respected police officer, frequently visited Japan.
Following Funakoshi’s introduction of karate to Japan in 1922, Mabuni moved to Osaka in 1929 where he was to remain. Shortly after his re-location the Butokai, the governing body for martial arts in Japan, ruled that all karate schools should officially register their style by name. Mabuni originally registered his style as Han-ko, meaning "half-hard", but by the early 1930s he had started to use the name Shito-Ryu.
The Chinese characters, or Kan-ji, used to write Okinawan family names have two pronunciations; examples of this are Shi and Ito from Itosu, and To and Higa from Higaonna. Mabuni took the first two kan-ji from the family name of each of his two original masters, thus naming his style Shi-To; in this way, Mabuni acknowledged the influence of both of his masters upon his art. Mabuni devoted his life to the promotion of Shi-To karate. Before his death in 1952, he saw one of his students develop his style into Shukokai. This student’s name was Chojiro Tani.

CHOJIRO TANI AND THE BIRTH OF SHUKOKAI

Master Chojiro Tani was born in Kobe, Japan in 1921. His study of karate began during junior high school at the Goju school of karate. In 1940, he earned a place at Doshisha university where he began to train under the direction of Kenwa Mabuni. In 1948, Tani opened his first Shukokai school in Kobe. He then went on to open schools in many other academic institutions, such as Kyoto university and the Kobe university medical school.

EAST MEETS WEST

Tani’s style began to spread worldwide. Shigeru Kimura, one of Tani’s students, took Shukokai to the United states; Yoshinao Nambu and Keiji Tomiyama brought the style over to Europe. This is how Sensei Dave Morris, Elite’s president, discovered the style when he started his training in 1977.

SENSEI MORRIS BEGINS HIS CAREER

Sensei Morris started training with Sensei Tomiyama at the age of fifteen; Tomiyama’s school of karate was then known as the Shukokai World Karate Union. During his time there, Sensei Morris also had the privilege of training with Sensei Kimura and Sensei Nambu. During the late seventies, Sensei Morris met Sensei Tani, which was to leave a lasting impression upon him as a young karate-ka; now, two decades later, this meeting still remains the highlight of a successful and illustrious career.

ELITE: WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

Sensei Morris has a glittering career under his well-worn black belt; now a seventh Dan. He is Elite’s president and has co-founded Shuto- Ryu with Sensei John Salt, now a sixth Dan, Elite’s Chief Instructor. Sensei Morris has always believed that the history of any martial art has equal importance to its development and future. He and Sensei Salt aim to instil this sense of tradition into their students. Sensei Morris’ philosophy is simple; "When you choose to learn a martial art, you embark upon a journey. It is not sufficient merely to coast unquestioningly through it, or to take short cuts.
Unlike sport, martial arts training comes from within yourself; true, an instructor can guide you through from the beginning, but it is the student who ultimately decides whether the goal, ie arriving at your chosen destination, is achieved." Elite’s instructors are dedicated in their aim of allowing our style to evolve, whilst continuing to foster its original concepts and ideologies.