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Fred Lohse

by George Mattson

Fred Lohse has been practicing Goju Ryu Karate and Matayoshi Kobudo for over 25 years, both here and in Okinawa, and is ranked 6th dan in both arts. He started studying Feeding Crane gong’fu under Liu Chang’I Sifu, the lineage head of the art, in 1997 and has hosted Liu sifu in Massachusetts and trained with him in Taiwan. Fred teaches Goju, Matayoshi Kobudo, and Feeding Crane at his dojo in Waltham, MA.

The movement and energy development in Sifu Liu’s Feeding Crane shows a clear connection to the Okinawan arts, particularly the Naha arts like Uechi and Goju which have a strong “crane” connection. At the same time, specific elements of how power is generated and the body is used in the Feeding Crane are both remarkably different to the Okinawan arts and fit nicely with them. In sessions at the camp Fred will be presenting some of the stepping, body conditioning, and power development exercises in the Feeding Crane to give a basic sense of the content and practice of the system. He will also be working with participants to connect these elements to their Okinawan arts. We hear a lot of talk about how the Chinese arts connect to the Okinawan, and in these sessions you will get to see some of that actually at work.

Fred sensei will also be teaching some Matayoshi kobudo. Its founder, Matayoshi Shinko, traveled and trained extensively in China and his teacher there, Kingai Roshi, was said to have studied with the same teacher as Uechi Kanbun’s teacher Shu Shiwa. The Matayoshi kobudo has a large scope- over 15 weapons are practiced- and places a heavy emphasis on paired application of its techniques. In sessions at the camp Fred will be going over the first set of basic bo exercises in the system, and their paired practice. If there are students with some experience in Matayoshi lineage kobudo, more advanced material may also be covered.

For more information on Fred sensei or his dojo, please feel free to check out the Kodokan Boston website: www.kodokanboston.org

For more information on Liu sifu, please see his site (in Chinese) at http://feeding-crane.myweb.hinet.net/