The death of Shoshin Nagamine, 10th Dan, Hanshi a few years ago marked the end of an era in which karate was transformed from an activity so localized that its various forms were named after the villages in which they were practised, to an activity of truly international scope that will soon become an Olympic sport.

For all of that time Nagamine sensei was actively studying karate with teachers whose names have become legends: Chotoku Kyan, Chojun Miyagi, and Choki Motobu. By the 1940's he had become well enough known to be selected by the Governor of Okinawa to sit on a technical committee (see Dragon Times issue #15) and after the war he became the chief proponent of the school he founded, and one of the most respected elder statesman of Okinawan karate.

When he passed away in 1997 at the age of ninety he had been training for more than seventy years, yet little of a permanent nature was left to mark his achievements or provide a tangible legacy for those who followed. He had written several important books it is true, trained many talented intructors, yet the physical form of the teachings of Kyan, Motobu, Arakaki and the other masters with whom he had studied were known to only a few senior practitioners. To rectify this his successor, Takayoshi Nagamine, 9th Dan Hanshi and the senior members of the yudanshakai gathered together all the photos, documents, and old film footage for the purpose of making a video series with the assistance of Tsunami Productions.

As one would expect from the premiere martial arts video company, the production value of the resulting program, part one of a multi-part series is very high, and certainly does justice to the subject. Here the style is richly presented with beautiful photographs, many of them very rare, as well as films going back as far as the 1950's. The classical movie footage of kata, weapons training and bunkai by Shoshin Nagamine, Takeyoshi Nagamine, Yasuhiro Makishi and others is interwoven with historical and technical material in the most ingenious way so that everything is historically and technically accurate.

If you are interested in Okinawan Karate in general or Shorin Ryu in particular, this series is for you. Shotokan stylists will find the technical content fascinating as this is the well from which there style was drawn, a fact obvious from the performances of the kata.

Contents:

History of Shorin Ryu and Biography of Shoshin Nagamine, Hanshi, 10th Dan. Pinan Kata Bunkai; Naihanchi; Kusanku; Fukyugata 1; sai and bo kata.

Available in the following formats:
DVD

Running time approx 35 minutes. $30.00