White Crane - Matsumura Hakutsuru

Hanshi Legacy is releasing the Crane! A graceful, upright fighting system focusing on pressure points and nerve strikes instead of blunt force punches and kicks, this is Matsumura Hakutsuru, the White Crane school founded by Matsumura Sokon.

Matsumura Sokon is a legendary pioneer of Okinawan Karate. He founded Shorin-ryu Karate and taught Gichin Funakoshi, who went on to establish Shotokan Karate. Matsumura developed this unique White Crane style later in his life. Matsumura’s White Crane is a Karate’ified system of Chinese White Crane. As mentioned above, in place of the traditional punches and high kicks one finds in Karate, White Crane instead focuses on pressure points and striking nerves.

Hanshi Legacy and his senior students' demonstrated at Capital Conquest, the Canadian martial arts mecca, back in November. Check out the video above of his demo, while it is posted. These are some of the warm-up drills of Matsumura Hakutsuru White Crane. (As an aside, this video is posted on the 'Punch, Choke, Kick, Chat' YouTube Channel. If you aren't already a subscriber to this podcast, you should be.)

Due to the severe nature of the techniques Hanshi Legacy only teaches this system to nidans and above. In fact, it has only been recently that Hanshi has released the Crane, and started teaching this system outside of his own school. I am humbled and privileged to be studying the Crane at Renshi Fries' Heritage Martial Arts. All Heritage and White Heron black belts should inquire into this training.

“A martial artist, one who trains, puts in their time, is an artist. The rest are just scribbling.” — Hanshi Legacy. “I have flashes where I feel like I'm painting. Then, I train with Hanshi and I realise I'm still playing with crayons.” — Renshi Hoover.