Nakamura's synthesis
Okinawa Kenpō (沖縄拳法) is a school of Okinawan karate founded by Nakamura Shigeru (中村茂, 1894–1969) of Nago. Nakamura drew together the Shuri-te and Naha-te he had learned from a remarkable set of teachers into a single teaching that kept the older bare-hand methods of the island while adopting protective equipment for full-contact sparring.
Teachers and training
Nakamura trained under Itosu Ankō and the Shuri masters Yabu Kentsū and Hanashiro Chōmo, and drew as well on the Tomari-te associated with Motobu Chōki. From these lines he shaped a curriculum that he named Okinawa Kenpō, using the older word kenpō, "fist method", to signal continuity with the pre-modern te of Okinawa.
To test the old hand of Okinawa in earnest contact.
After the founder
On Nakamura's death the school passed to his senior students, among them teachers who added a full kobudō weapons curriculum to the empty-hand art. Okinawa Kenpō is practised today in several branches on Okinawa and abroad, its history securely documented from the life of its twentieth-century founder.