Friday, June 2, 2017

Is it Really Gojuryu?

There are many branches of Gojuryu in the world today. Chojun Miyagi Ryuso left several competent and senior students that all went off and formed their own branches of Gojuryu. Even though there are differences in how they do things, I can safely say that all of these branches are doing Gojuryu, when I say this I am talking about Higa, Yagi, Miyazato, Toguchi, ect.

Lets look at the Gojukai of Yamaguchi, was he doing Gojuryu? I would say yes, even though it differs from what is being done in Okinawa, it sill contains the core kata. It may not use the hojo undo as much as the Okinawan branches and there has been some historical questions but any educated person can view it and see it as Goju.

USA Goju, this will probably start a flame war, but for me it is hard to see this as Gojuryu. Peter Urban made substantial changes to his kata, to me USA Goju looks more like a combination of the karate of Yamaguchi, Rchard Kim and Mas Oyam, along with the things that Urban added and bears little resemblance to Gojuryu.

There are other Gojuryu groups that may teach a few of the goju kata, but then add kata from other styles to round out their curriculum, because they didn't learn all of the goju kata. Yet they use the name gojuryu.

I think this is unfortunate, almost false advertisement if you will. In my opinion if you are going to say that you are doing Gojuryu then you should at least follow Miyagi's blue print: Junbi Undo, Hojo Undo, and the 12 kata. (13 if your in the Miyazato Lineage) The various Kai-ha may have added kata created by their founders, but they let people know that. For exmple Meitoku Yagi Sensei created 5 kata and they classify those kata as Meibuken, not gojuryu proper.

 I think that if your not at least doing the basic curriculum set up by Miyagi, then your doing something different and should call it as such. Kata like Pinan, Passai, Kusanku, and Empi are not Goju kata, if you are teaching these or other non-goju kata and grading people but issuing Gojuryu grades, then I think you are wrong.

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