Seiken Shukumine
An Okinawan karateka who announced the Gensei-ryu style in 1953 and in 1965 introduced the new martial art taido based on rotational movements.
Quick Facts
JapanBiography
Seiken Shukumine was born on 9 December 1925 in Nago, Okinawa. He is the founder of the Gensei-ryu karate style and the martial art taido.
From the age of eight to twelve he learned martial arts under the koryu karate master Anko Sadoyama. From around the age of fourteen, after much urging, he became a student of a master named Kishimoto. After Kishimoto's death following the Second World War, he began privately developing his own style.
He first publicly demonstrated his art in 1949 in Ito, and in October 1950 he appeared in a karate exhibition on Nippon Television. In 1953 he began teaching officially and announced the Gensei-ryu style, which combined classical Shuri-te techniques with his own innovations; he also drew on his experience as a kaiten torpedo pilot in the Second World War. In 1964 he published the book Shin Karatedo Kyohan.
In 1965 he introduced taido, an art distinct from karate, based on rotational and gymnastic movements and a changing angle of the body. From then on he devoted himself mainly to taido, although he kept in touch with some Gensei-ryu students and wished for them to join him. He died on 26 November 2001 of cardiac arrest at the age of 75.
Associated Martial Arts
Okinawan karate of Seiken Shukumine from 1949–1953, built on unexpected movement in three dimensions and on its own kata, such as Sansai.
TaidoFounder→Taido is a modern Japanese budo by Seiken Shukumine, derived from gensei-ryu karate and built on dynamic movements around the body's own axis.