Shuri-te
首里手The historical Okinawan empty-hand art from the royal city of Shuri, predecessor of Shotokan. The Shuri-Naha-Tomari division is a later classification by researchers.
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About Shuri-te
Shuri-te is one of the three historical Okinawan empty-hand arts, named after Shuri, the royal city of the Ryukyu Islands. Beside it are distinguished Naha-te, from the port town, and Tomari-te, from the fishing quarter. That division is, however, a later classification by researchers, not a label the masters of the time used. In their own day people simply spoke of te, the hand; differences ran between individual teachers rather than between named schools. Shuri was the seat of the court, so Shuri-te belonged to the pechin class — the lower nobility and royal officials. That explains its character: light stances, work at longer range, direct and fast strikes, and movement that prefers to miss an attack rather than stop it. The key names are Sokon Matsumura, bodyguard to three kings, and his student Anko Itosu. Itosu is a turning point in the history of karate: between 1901 and 1905 he pushed through its introduction into Okinawan schools, softened the dangerous techniques and composed the five Pinan kata as a simplified entry for children. From Shuri-te came Shorin-ryu and, through Gichin Funakoshi, the Japanese Shotokan; it also left its mark on Shito-ryu.
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Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.