Shorinjiryu

Chronicle of Shorinjiryu

Dr. Masayoshi ¨Kori¨ Hisataka, Founder of Shorinjiryu Karatedo

Today in class we watched the documentary, The Chronicle of Shorinjiryu and the first thing we noticed was an interesting quote by Edmund Burke, “People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors”. It made me think about what Sensei Riley have been lecturing about since we began the course. We watched the documentary in a noisy atmosphere from the usual individuals so it was really hard to follow along. I actually wished I was somewhere else. The murmuring continued even after my efforts to bring about silence. Nonetheless, the documentary was about the unique martial arts system Sensei is teaching us about. It was basically talking about the history, the importance, and future of this martial arts style.

In The Chronicle of Shorinjiryu, we see the first man awarded his first and second-degree black belts from the founder of the style in the USA giving a testimony of his journey to getting his black belt in 1960. His journey into Shorinjiryu started when he came across a martial arts performance and he asked to be taught. It is without a doubt that Shorinjiryu is practiced worldwide. We saw several instructors giving testimonies of how Shorinjiryu martial arts have helped them in many aspects of their lives. The future of Shorinjiryu is not certainly guaranteed for no one knows what the future holds. In the documentary, I picked up some points where they said it is up to the sensei of Shorinjiryu to determine the future of the martial art. So far there are a lot of schools that focus on Shorinjiryu and they hope that it continues to grow.