Every so often I take stock of what it is
that I choose to do with my life involving budo, is what I am doing working, is
it showing progress, do I need to change things up, ect. In the dojo I teach
the students Okinawa Gojuryu and Ryukyu Kobujutsu, every once and I while
I will deviate and show an Aikido or Jujutsu waza, but for the most part it is
straight Naha-te.
As for myself, while I spend most of my time
on Gojuryu and Kobudo, I do spend a fair amount of time practicing stuff I have
learned outside of Goju. Over the past decade I have managed to obtain yudansha
grades and even Shihan menjo in several other ryuha; Aikido, Jujutsu, Iaido, shuri
ryu, Shorin ryu (Kobayashi, Matsumura Seito, Matsumura Kenpo, Sukin hayashi,
Seidokan, Ryukyukan, Dentokan), Shito ryu, Uechi ryu, as well as a few others. Even
within Gojuryu I have diversified, while my main study is in the Jundokan
method, I have managed to achieve yudansha grades from several of the various
goju kaiha.
I guess I just like to train, I never set
out to obtain rank in any of them really, it just happened. I catch a lot of
grief from some people about training in too many things, “how can you learn
all of that and be any good at it?”. I am not sure that I can be, I am not sure
that I have any real skill in budo at all to be honest. I am just a guy that
keeps going and tries to learn as much as I can and remember it. I am sure if
you asked my teachers in these other styles they would say “Oh he is terrible,
he has too much goju in his shorin” None the less I keep at it.
I wonder if the founders of the various
styles and factions over the years had similar thoughts. After all didn’t most
of them train with a few teachers and pick and choose what they wanted to teach
in there dojo’s? Isn’t that why we have so many styles, because everyone had their
own take on it?
Would it be wrong of me to pick out the kata I like and
teach them in my dojo, to mold the curriculum to what I want it to be? What I want
to pass on to my students? Is there anything wrong with me teaching gojuryu to
my students and then later teaching them Naihanchi, Passai or Gojushiho? Teach
them two systems even? A Yushikan curriculum devoid of ryuha?
Seriously what are your thoughts?
I can only speak from my own experience. When I first began training in Shito-Ryu with Shimabukuro Sensei he was teaching Hayashi-Ha Shito-Ryu. Hayashi had incorporated several Ryuei-Ryu kata into Hayashi-Ha, but had made slight modifications to them. Shima Sensei taught me the original Ryuei-Ryu versions instead, saying "If you do Ryuei-Ryu kata you should do Ryuei-Ryu way. Otherwise, why do the kata at all?" For that reason, Shima Sensei also introduced me to Higaonna Morio Sensei, who was living in San Marcos, CA at that time and had me learn Seisan, Sanseiru, and Suparimpei from him. "If you do Naha-te kata, you should know Naha-te way." He encouraged me to learn Tomari-Chinto from Nishime Sensei and Tomari-Kushanku from Oshiro Sensei for the same reason. He used to teach techniques from other styles, especially Shorinji Kempo, to advanced students. But he also never abandoned the ryu-ha. Instead, he encouraged his students to learn a ryu and supplement their knowledge with methods from other ryu-ha ... comparing and contrasting their use and effectiveness.
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