is a style of Karate founded by Seiken Shukumine (1925-2001). With Genseiryū, Shukumine combined classic Shuri-te techniques with his own innovations thus developing the special characteristics of unique to the style. However, Shukimine would eventually come to realize the shortcomings of this system and served as foundation to Shukimine's much more well-known style, Taido. Etymology The name Genseiryū was first used in 1953. In Japanese the name consists of three different characters (kanji):. The first is and means 'mysterious', 'occult', and 'universe' but also 'a subtle and deep truth'. The second is and translates to 'control', 'system', 'law' or 'rule' but also 'creating a form.' The last is which simply means 'style' or 'school.' The combination of could be translated as 'to control the universe', but is interpreted by members of the school to mean something like "to pursue the deep truth and making it clear through the form," which can be regarded physically as well as spiritually. History Genseiryū has its roots in an old karate style called Shuri-te. Some sources speak of Tomari-te being the source, but the differences were minimal since both styles contributed to the development of Shōrin-ryū. In the 1920s and '30s there were three major karate styles in Okinawa. They were all named after the cities where they were developed: Naha, Tomari and Shuri. These three styles (Naha-Te, Tomari-Te and Shuri-Te) are sometimes called more generally Okinawan Karate. Matsumura "Bushi" Sōkon (1809–1898) was one of the masters of Shuri-te. His many students who later became legends of karate included Yasutsune (Ankō) Itosu. A lesser known disciple was Bushi Takemura. He developed a version of the kata (型) Kushanku that is still trained in Genseiryū and Bugeikan today. One of Takemura's disciples was Kishimoto (1862–1945, some sources speak of 1868 as birth year). He became the later teacher of Seiken Shukumine. Seiken Shukumine, born 9 December 1925 in Nago on the Japanese island of Okinawa, started at age 8 with karate lessons from Ankō Sadoyama, a grandmaster in koryū karate ("Old style/school Chinese techniques"). He trained him for four years. When Shukumine was about 14 years old, he was accepted by Kishimoto. Kishimoto was very selective: he had only nine kōhai (=disciples) throughout his life and also Seiken Shukumine had to insist many times, before Kishimoto decided to teach the young man. The last two students of Kishimoto actually were Seiken Shukumine and Seitoku Higa