SENSEI
Those who made the road before
Xie Zhongxiang / Ryuruko
Isshinryu lineage: Ryuruko → Kanryo Higaonna → Chojun Miyagi → Tatsuo Shimabukuro
Xie Zhongxiang was born in 1852 in China. Ryuru is a nickname and means 'good fortune'. Xie was Kanryo Higaonna's Gongfu teacher who gave him the name Ryuruko. Ko means 'older brother' (Kanryo was one yera younger than Xie).
Xie's father was a bamboo craftsman who lived in a two-story house in Fuzhou's Changle district. During Xie Zhongxiang's youth he worked as a shoemaker's apprentice and enjoyed a remarkable penchant for gongfu, which earned him the nickname Ryuru.
The history of Ryuruko's gongfu style "Minghe Quan" (Whooping Crane boxing) can be traced back to Yongchun He Quan or crane imitating gongfu, which was developed about 300 years ago in Fujian's Yongchun village by the woman, named Fang Jiniang (as is described in article #1 of the Bubishi).
Two of the quan (kata) that Ryuruko taught in his Minghe Quan repertoire were Happoren (Paipuren) and Nepai (Nipaipo). These two quan are both practiced in karatedo.
In 1883, a year after Higashionna returned to Okinawa, Xie Zhongxiang, at the relatively young age of 31, formally opened his school of gongfu, or quanfa (kenpo in Japanese) at a local temple in Fuzhou's Changle district, where he went on to become one of Fuzhou's most prominent masters before he died in February of 1930 at age 77.