I practise a karate system I call Ryujin-te. The name is mine—the system was transmitted to me without a style name attached, and I chose one rather than invent a historical title it never had.
The part I'm confident about
My teacher learned this system in Okinawa during the occupation period, roughly 1945 to 1947, from an elderly local master. He was one of two American servicemen taught by that man. He later taught me the complete system—empty-hand forms, weapons forms and a sword curriculum—over many years. He conferred fifth dan on me and charged me with preserving the tradition.
Both were given privately and verbally; no certificate exists, and no outside organization has verified either. I state this plainly because I'd rather you hear it from me than find it out.
The part that's family account, not history
The tradition carries an origin story reaching back before 1945, involving a Chinese maritime figure and an Okinawan fishing family. I hold it as the lineage's own account of itself. It is oral testimony. This kind of uncertainty is not unusual in martial-arts history: many Okinawan traditions carry founding accounts that cannot now be documented.
I neither dismiss the account nor present it as fact.
What I've been doing about it
For several years I've been documenting the system formally: written records of each form, video recordings made before the research began so they can serve as an unaltered baseline, and systematic comparison against Chinese and Okinawan source material in English, Japanese and Chinese.
The research follows rules set in advance. Predictions are recorded before comparisons are made. A tagging system separates what I was taught from what I have concluded. Hypotheses that fail are abandoned rather than quietly absorbed into the story. I think a record of being wrong is worth more than a flawless legend.
Plausible. Well-evidenced. Unproven.
What survives now
The system includes roughly thirty empty-hand forms, a weapons curriculum and separate sword material. I'm the only active practitioner I know of. One other line from my teacher's era remains unaccounted for.
Documentation matters, but survival ultimately requires practice. I am preserving the record and beginning to teach adults who want to learn the system carefully, question it intelligently and carry it forward through their own work.