History

HISTORY OF KENYU RYU KARATE DO

The school of Karate Kenyu Ryu was founded by Ryusho Tomoyori (1907- 1977), who was born in the village of Motobu (region of Kunigami- prefect of Okinawa) in Japan.

Being very fond of martial arts since childhood, he started learning Karate at the age of six under the guidance of Masters Aragaki and Awane, his relatives. At the age of 15, he reached Naha and trained for about 4 years under the guidance of Chojun Miyagi (1888- 1953) and became one of the best pupils of Kanryo Higaonna (1853 - 1916), who was founder member of the school of Naha-te. Then he moved to Osaka and two years later, in 1929, became the disciple of Kenwa Mabuni (1889- 1953), the Great Grandmaster of Karate and the founder of the Shito-ryu style. Ryusho became one of his best followers and excelled in Karate teaching with his unique teaching methods and his inherent inclination for the martial arts. At the age of 26 he started a Dojo in the city of Sakai and shifted it at first to Umidori Nishinariku and after that to Imafuku - nishi Joto -ku in Osaka. Afterwards, with the approval of Soke Mabuni, he founded his own school viz., KENYU RYU. The name of School Kenyu was derived from the combination of two Chinese characters which represented 'Ken' from Kenwa Mabuni and 'Yu' from Tomoyori (Tomo could be pronounced as 'yu' with the same Chinese characters). )

His son, Soke Ryuichiro Tomoyori (8th Dan Black Belt & Hanshi of Japan Karate Federation) was born on the 6th January 1937 at lmafuku-naka (part of Osaka). Ryuichiro started practicing at age 6 under the guidance of his father. After the demise of the founder, he became the head of the organization.