Traditional Okinawan Shorin Ryu Karate in Brooklyn
A family atmosphere, a long-term mindset, and training that fits into daily life.
Okinawan karate at 47 Co-op emphasizes life-long training, practical skill, and steady progress. It’s designed to support physical and mental strength, flexibility, breathing, concentration, awareness, self-reliance, and technical development.
What karate training develops
More than just strikes and forms.
Strength, flexibility, and coordination
Regular practice builds physical capacity gradually and sustainably, with an emphasis on training that supports daily life.
Breathing, awareness, and concentration
Karate offers a structured way to develop focus, timing, and calm decision-making under pressure.
Technique and self-reliance
Training develops practical movement, technical precision, and confidence through repetition and clear progression.
Lineage
Traditional roots, taught with a modern room full of normal humans.
The curriculum at the 47 Crown Heights program comes from the Ueshiro branch of Shorin Ryu, out of the Matsubayashi lineage founded by Shoshin Nagamine in Okinawa in 1947 and brought to the United States by Master Ansei Ueshiro in 1962.
That means the training is traditional in structure, but the emphasis remains on steady progress, practical understanding, and long-term sustainability.
Because of the focus on holistic health and wellness, it’s common for Okinawan karate practitioners to train regularly well into their 80s and 90s.
- Family atmosphere
- Progress over posturing
- Training designed to last
Curriculum
What training actually includes.
Kihon
Basic offensive and defensive techniques.
Tanren
Arm and leg toughening exercises.
Hojo Undo
Supplementary strength, body conditioning, and joint-stabilizing exercises, including the makiwara.
Kata
Solo forms.
Bunkai
Examination and practice of individual parts of kata with training partners.
Yaku Soku Kumite
Choreographed three-step partner drills as an introduction to sparring.
Kumite
Karate sparring introduced on a continuum, from unchoreographed one-step sparring to free-style sparring. No head contact; light body contact once acclimated.
Belt ranking system
White, green, brown, black.
Required attire
White karate gi and the appropriate ranked belt.
Teacher
Part of the lineage carried forward.
Master Ansei Ueshiro brought this branch of Shorin Ryu to the United States in 1962. The 47 program continues training through that lineage, with an emphasis on clear fundamentals, partner work, and sustainable long-term practice.