Kanryo Higashionna (1850-1915) was a native of Naha, Okinawa. He was born into a merchant family, whose business was selling firewood, an expensive commodity in the Ryukyu Islands.
In the early 1860s he began studying the Okinawan martial arts under a teacher named Aragaki Seisho, and most likely under several others. At that time the word karate was not in common use, and the martial arts were often referred to simply as Te (”hand”), sometimes prefaced by the area of origin, as Naha-te, Shuri-te, or simply Okinawa-te.
Around 1870 Higashionna sailed to Fuzhou in the Fukien province of China. He spent at least several years there; accounts range from five to twenty, though the latter seems unlikely. He spent his time studying with various teachers of the Chinese martial arts, mostly with a kung fu master named Liu Liu Ko (some sources give his name as Ryu Ryuko. In any case it may well have been a nickname.) Very little is known about Liu Liu Ko, except that he was supposed to have been a shoemaker, and that Higashionna recalled him as being enormously strong.
In the late 1800s Higashionna returned to Okinawa and continued the family business. He also began to teach the martial arts in and around Naha. His style was distinguished by its integration of both go-no (hard) and ju-no (soft) techniques in one system. He became so prominent that the name “Naha-te” became identified with Higashionna’s system.
Higashionna was noted for his powerful Sanchin kata, or form. Students reported that the wooden floor would be hot from the gripping of his feet.
Several of Higashionna’s students went on to become influential masters of what came to be called karate, amongst them Miyagi Chojun, Kyoda Juhatsu, and Higa Seiko.