Uchichiesu

Lindsey Sensei often says that if you are taught proper old-style Okinawan karate, then you learn crane principles from the beginning. I understand what you're saying though, and I agree he fights using karate not pseudo-kickboxing techniques. He was an All-Okinawa sparring champ too, as well as a boxer and starting fullback for Tx. A&M. He understand contact and fighting for sure. My fighting knowledge and skills lept exponentially once I started training Shuri Te Karatejutsu under him. As far as the White Crane is concerned I never learned any of the forms. He was confident that the Matsumura Orthodox techs and kata were enough. I asked him if it was necessary ( to learn Hakutsuru forms) and he would say, "you do crane everytime we do 2-person drills, hojo undo and most especially the Seito kata". It made sense. The crane forms are done with Matsumura Seito tachi kata, kame kata and waza in mind. Hohan Soken, Fusei Kise and Yuichi Kuda were very satisfied with just understanding Hakutsuru, the only white crane exclusive form in traditional Matsumura Seito. Doing things the Seito way is doing things the White Crane Karatejutsu way. Great to hear he has made such an impact on your karate. I think he's second-to-none as far as karate guys are concerned. His reach and influence are far reaching, including many so-called students of Soken and Kise who now teach "dian xue/dim mak" worldwide. Good luck and happy training!

Matsumura Seito Karatejutsu. What branch do you study, Al? Which dojo/sensei did you begin and finish with? What rank do you claim?

He has very few (local) personal students, most are seminarians and yudansha who have trained with him for a lot of years. I haven't trained with him for many months now, but his dojo never had that rattan/wicker chair set-up with the flags before. I'm wondering if it is an old video, although to tell you the truth he's looked the same for some time now. Anyway, I agree that his kata are always perfect, but some forms are just better to look at than others. If you understand good Matsumura Seito (or other Shorin/Shito/Goju/Uechi) at the BB level then you should understand the crane aspects of Okinawan karate. How have the crane forms helped your overall practice of Kobayashi?

Btw P.A.L., how old is this video (of Lindsey Sensei), and how did you acquire it? Is it something you recorded yourself? I think that it's okay, but it definitely is not the best form I've seen him do and I don't thnink it conveys Lindsey Shinshii's ability. Even something like Nijuken would have been better to show. Just wondering if he even knows it's been all over YouTube...

Thank you and I am very lucky to call him sensei. Have a great week!!!

I trained with Lindsey Shinshii to Nidan. He is an outstanding human being and a very, very capable old school Okinawan karate guy. He was starting fullback for the Texas A&M Aggies, joined the Army out of college, was stationed in Okinawa for some years in the mid 60s- early 70s. Started in Shotokan stateside, then did Uechi Ryu on Okinawa , then switched to Matsumura Seito under Fusei Kise and Hohan Soken. He made BB in a couple of years, was the All Okinawa BB Kumite champion (all styles), and then returned to the states. Unlike others who studied under Soken he continued to learn even beyond his years on the island, eventually being ranked as 7th dan by Hohan Soken, Fusei kise and Yuichi Kuda (matsumura Kenpo). You wouldn't know it but his one time students have been myriad and include George Alexander and Phil Koeppel (among many others). He is the best and most knowledgable karate-ka you've never heard of. He never wanted to commercialize or just train anyone and in fact interviews all those wishing to learn at his home dojo in Central Texas. He is a very intelligent man, quite humble and devastating as a fighter. He's like 6'3" 250+ lbs. and moves fast as lightning. His ti or "tuite" is wicked. He is alike a modern Kenwa Mabuni, a veritable walking catalog of Shuri Te, Tomari Te and Fujian forms. Currently he is ranked 9th dan. It's a shame that everyone can't learn karate like he teaches, but I guess the best stuff is always saved for the select few. I do know that he travels around doing seminars so if you are interested research him. Recently he has been trying to make his organization magazine, "Maishin Shorinji", available to more practitioners. This quarterly mag is full of all the history and explanation of Matsumura Orthodox technique you could ever want. I have the first few issues of it which were printed some years ago. Anyway, thought I'd chime in and tell you that if you thought that looked pretty cool (that form vid) then you should see him do the Orthodox kata and weapons. Btw in his kobujutsu classes you actually learn to spar with weapons. Very cool. Later...

Double-post. My bad.

To be brutally honest with you I thought the standard of technique wasnt the best. Sorry if this offends Hey this is my first post and I agree. The Seisan we do is similar, but I have never seen a Kobayashi dojo train Seisan ( I do understand that this is a Shobayashi variant). This version looked really slow and was missing many principles and movements. Your BBs need to learn balance and walking all over again IMO. Where is the use of gamaku/koshi? Sorry if this sounds harsh. Hate to start off on this note but I have some issues with weak karate-ka (especially those claiming Shuri-te lineage), and there are soooo many out there. To each his/her own, but being a yudansha if you're weak I have to call you on it.