I think they are great videos! From a historical perspective I would love to see all of them as It seems there are more out there. I would love to see some of the lower belt Katas and what we call Bo Ichi or the first bo kata.

Dragon,

The videos you saw of Soke Murphy are of his later years of the system. So if we look at it from that time frame, we no longer had belts. But, he taught these forms not always in order and not the same ones to everyone:

HAND FORMS

5 Animal form (Hung Gar)
Sanchin
Seuchin
Shiohi
Shinto
Sunsu
24 Yang Tai Chi
52 Combined Yang Tai Chi
108 Yang Tai Chi
Chen Tai Chi

WEAPONS

4' Jo
Boken (Japanese Sword)
5' Jo
-5' Jo 1
-5' Jo 2
Bo
- Bo 1
- Bo 2
- Bo 3
Sai
Chinese Long Staff (which I can not remember)

This was his curriculum although he knew more as he must have collected some 100 forms in his time from various different systems. And still modified his curriculm for the individual student as to what would work for the individual.

I would be totally interested in documentation on these especially the weapons forms. Do you know if anything is in writing in some form?

Also to everyone if you are on face book I started a Facebook group for Isshin Shorinji ryu Okinawa-Te Karate the link is here so as I develop that feel free to visit and become a part it http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8961344370

Not sure how you would be able to document it. I have some things in writting but nothing that would detail each form movement by movement if that is what you mean. I was one of his personal apprentices so we had no "Dojo" to work in, no set curriculum, so we had very little in writting. Some people put together their own things in writting but nothing much that Soke did for my class. I would think that he did have some stuff from the early years that other students may have.

i think i may have at least a partial list somewhere but new jersey is a long way from hawaii. you will never document all the forms he knew as far as individual movements. he loved forms and thought of them as books or stories. he had an incredible archive of video. at a certain point it becomes very easy to pick up forms. one of his favorites in the 90's was a form called liu he ba fa which is also called six harmonies eight methods or water boxing. it is a very long chinese internal form and there is a nice version done by terry dunn. he had strange forms that might be hard to find i.e. 6 chinese staff with a wooden flail at the end forms. in the end he refined the 'system' down to the forms that you see at the beginning of this thread and along with the essentials that would be all that was needed.
there is no other known video.

just checking in, you guys ahright? need some refreshments ? some custom punch perhaps? alrighty-then.

Hi guys!! Um yeah,anyway...Goju is SO much better than isshijinshishijoryuushiryu in SO many ways!!!

Having a great old time good to see you.
Cheers
Russ