jon

Anybody familiar with Shorin Ryu Karate?

How is it unique from the other Karate styles?

What kind of sparring or competitions do they normally do?

Is it street effective in your opinion? Can you see someone realistically defending themselves adequately against an unarmed determined attacker with their shorin-ryu training?

Sensei Scandal

Smiling Jack - is this your take on Shorin Ryu as an art?

I study and practice Shorin Ryu kata and it is not a "run of the mill" art.

Maybe you were a sub-standard student or your teacher was a phony who claimed he taught Shorin Ryu but you are totally wrong.

You are also wrong about what generates power in punching.

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To the OP - Shorin Ryu is a wonderful art that is very applicable in the street. In fact - Bill "Superfoot" Wallace and Joe Lewis - two of Sport Karate's top competitors in the 60's and 70's are both Shorin Ryu stylists.

I can tell you from personal experience that it is an awesome style. Its techniques are very elusive and powerful.

Are you going to be studying Shorin? Is there a website for the school? There are some teachers that really don't care about standards and turn their schools into mcdojos for the sake of making money, but that is not typical of Shorin Ryu.

I'm surprised that a "black belt" in Shorin would say something like that.

Go to Youtube and search for -

Kyudokan

Shinjinbukan

Oyata Ryute

Kishaba Juku

Matsubayashi Ryu

These are all Shorin Ryu branches and you can see that they are not "run of the mill".

Smiling Jack

Shorin Ryu is your basic run of the mill karate. Like the generic Karate-for-kids is Shorin Ryu watered down. I thought it was okay, it's not the worst style I have seen, but everything is kind of rigid, the stance, the movements, the attacks, etc. Not very effective in a real fight. I beat up a guy who had a Black Belt in Shorin Ryu and at the time I only had an orange belt in it, and I didn't use anything I learned because at that level you pretty much know nothing. The stance is too tall and rigid, and the attacks are all linear, meaning all the strikes are weak because linear attacks don't get any body weight or momentum behind it. Punches like the left hook and straight right get their power from the abdominal muscles rotating the body. Thats what makes punches and kicks strong and Shorin Ryu doesn't do that. I found it to be impractical.