The History of Matsumura Kenpo (Cont'd)

In 1762 Sakugawa returned to Okinawa and was awarded the title of "Satonushi", a ranking samurai in service to the Kind of Okinawa. Sakugawa had many famous students including Bushi Sakamoto, Bushi Makabe, Bushi Ukuda, Kojo of Kumemura and Usume of Andaya.

The most famous student of Tode Sakugawa was Sokon Matsumura (1797-1889). Matsumura studied with Sakugawa from 4 to 8 years. Young Matsumura showed great promise and talent and was recruited to the service of the Sho family. Eventually he rose to the position of personal body guard to the King. He did much traveling and as part of his duties he traveled to China and Japan twice. While in China he trained at the Shaolin Temple. Upon his return to Okinawa, Matsumura established Shuri-Te or Suidi that later became known as Shorin Ryu.

Shorin Ryu is the Okinawan Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese writing characters called Shaolin in China. In both languages Shaolin means “pine forest”. Ryu means “methods handed down” such as learning methods in a school. Matsumura was the last Okinawan warrior to be awarded the title of Bushi. He lived a long and eventful life and fought several lethal duels but was never defeated. Since he was so famous, many samurai sought Bushi Matsumura out for instruction in Tode. Some of the more notable were Anko Itosu (1930-1915) and Yasutsune Azato (1827-1906). Bushi Matsumura was responsible for codifying many of the techniques and introducing the classical kata of Shorin Ryu karate. The most famous and secret technique that he introduced was the white crane or Hakutsuru system. He passed these techniques on to his grandson Nabe Matsumura or Tanme Nabe. Nabe did not teach outside of his own family and we know very little about him other than he was born sometime in the 1850’s and died in the 1930’s. The last part of his life he lived in Nishihara village. Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of Shotokan Ryu, asked for instruction in Hakutsuru but was refused. Nabe did teach the Hakutsuru system to his nephew Hohan Soken (1889-1982).

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