Welcome students my name is U-Gene Yang and on the behalf Shaolin Shorin-Ryu Karate and Sensei Kevin we will like to introduce you to our history which we will talk about in this page the origin of our system. The true origin in respect to the Shorin-Ryu and Matsumura.

So the history will begin with Alexander the Great. The history goes the Greek empire under the authority of Alexander the Great expand all the way into India. During that time when the Greeks were in India they would bully the Indian Buddhist monks which causes them to find ways to defend themselves which was to learn from the Greeks their fighting arts which the Greek Martial Arts is call Pankration. After the reign of Alexander the Great in India was lifted the Indian Monks combined the Pankration and Yoga together and formed together an Indian Martial arts call Kalaripayattu which became the precursor to the Shaolin Kung-Fu.

So later down the history a buddhist monk by the name of batuo decided that he wanted a place of tranquility which came to the emperor of China of that time to request a place to meditate and the Emperor grant his request and created a temple in his honor in the Henan province of China in the Shaoshi mountains which became known as the Shaolin temple which he became the first Shaolin abbott and started a buddhist carrying many of the Indian Buddhist sutras with him.

Many years later after the death of Batuo another indian Buddhist monk by the name of Bodhidharma aka Dharma aka Tamo came to China to bring martial arts into the Chinese Buddhist temple. Upon arriving he saw a lot of fat buddhist monks and was offended by it because he believes that buddha requires that One most be both mentally and physically well to achieve enlightenment. So he taught them India Kalaripayattu to help them to get them in shape which became known as Shaolin Kung-Fu which in turn because of the buddhist practice believing that nature is the greatest teacher the Shaolin Monks because they are located in the forest gone out and learn as much from the animals. Like tiger, crane, monkey, leopard, snake, praying mantis, eagle in how they move, stand, act, the way they defend themselves and made them into martial arts also boxing techniques, and many others. As time went on they started to incorporate weapons into their systems when they were ask to help Emperor Tang to defend him from invaders. The influences of Shaolin spread among the Asian world like Vietnam, Korea, Thailand, Japan, Okinawa, Philippines. All were influence by their culture and fighting arts which form many martial arts such as, Karate, Kick boxing, Kung fu, Eskrima, Samurai Arts (jujistu, bojitsu, kenjutsu, taijitsu, ninjitsu), kyon the core of Korean martial arts like taekwondo or tang so do, or hapkido. These were all influence by Shaolin Kung-Fu. Even today our American Martial Arts like Brazilian Jujitsu are all influence by Shaolin. The Samurai arts were formed when the Japan was starting to becoming its on country and they didn't have their own writing systems or fighting systems so the sent a buddhist monk to China to learn from them and this how we get jujitsu. Same with Mauy Thai, Kyon and so on.

So how did our system was form? It was formed when Pechin Takahara came to Okinawa and started teaching people Shaolin Kung Fu because he was a Shaolin Monk. So he taught people like Tode Sagakawa who also had teacher name Kasunku. Who were both Shaolin Monks. Years later Tode Sagakawa acquire his own student whose is famously known as Sokon "Bushi" Matsumura. Sokon Bushi Matsumura is martial arts genius. He was taught by so many teachers. He was taught by Tode Sagakawa, Peichin Takahara, Kasunku, he was taught by jigen ryu masters which knew the ancient samurai arts, he was taught by kaizoku who was a Chinese pirate. So he took all of these martial arts and combined them and form Shaolin Shorin-Ryu Karate which every karate system came from including taekwondo, because Gechin Funakoshi the father of Shotokan Karate had a house servant who was watching his master Funakoshi in secret and later on fled to Korea and combined Kyon and Shoton together and create taekwondo which also created Tang Soo Do. So this is the history of our system and how it is connected with everyone else.