What is in a name

Recently I had one of my father’s students ask me why I did not call my dojo by the same name as my father’s dojo. Now I am sure I could answer this a few different ways, but let me give a bit of background first.

My father started his training in 1967 at the Jundokan of Indiana / Anderson Goju-ryu Club. Later that year the dojo name was changed to Komakai Academy of Judo and Karate, and by the 1970s it was just Komakai Academy of Karate.  In 1977 my father asked his teacher for permission to open a branch dojo and use his sensei’s dojo name (Komakai), throughout the years the dojo changed locations, but the name always remained the same. In 1992, my father opened another dojo in Indianapolis and again used the Komakai name. With the opening of the Indianapolis Dojo, I was appointed as Chief Instructor for the Marion dojo, until it was closed in January of 1994. At that point there had been ten (10) Komakai branch dojo.

After my father closed the Marion dojo, I asked my father permission to open the dojo back up, he granted me permission, but said I had to ask Mr. Keeney for permission as well. I went to Mr. Keeney and asked permission and was told that I could use the Komakai name if I wanted too, but then he said to me “Mike, why do you need to use my name, you could use your own name, be your own man.” at the time I thought what, no way, I have always been Komakai, I wouldn’t know what to do without being that. I voiced my concern to Mr. Keeney and he said – Well if you feel that you need to maintain a connection to the name, you could also pick a name and then in smaller print, under your name, you could put the phrase ‘a division of Glenn Keeney’s Komakai Academy’. I then spoke with Mr. Keeney’s teacher, Mr. Phillip Koeppel and asked him what he thought, he advised me to call it Mike Jones’ Karate-do Budokai. So when I opened the dojo in January of 1994 that is what I called it.

On top of all of this in the 1990, I began training and researching my roots of the Jundokan with seminars taught by Morio Higaonna Sensei and also Teruo Chinen Sensei, It lead me to Natambu Bomani Sensei and Lloyd Johnson Sensei, both Jundokan seniors, eventually I was granted permission to open a Jundokan dojo in Indiana, and I have a certificate signed by Eiichi Miyazato Sensei giving me Shibu-Cho status for the State of Indiana. So I could have also called my dojo Jundokan. Over the years I joined other associations and was given permission to use other names, but in the back of my mind, what Mr. Keeney told me always kept popping up. So a short time after I opened the dojo I began using a Japanese name for my dojo and I used that name for 16 years, until someone chose to trademark the name and told me to stop using it. So I could have went back to calling it Mike Jones Karate, or Komakai, but I talked with Lloyd Johnson Sensei and Roy Hobbs Sensei about it. Hobbs Sensei suggested to me the name Yushikan, he said he felt that the name exemplified my character. So after much deliberation, I decided to take his suggestion and re-name my dojo as Yushikan.

Now having said all of that and rambled on let me get back to my point. What is in a name? Why do people get hung up on names, my style is this or my style is that. I am from this dojo or I am from that dojo.  People like a brand, which is the short and sweet of it. People like to feel like they belong to something greater than themselves. 

In my dojo I teach Okinawan Goju-ryu Karate-do, in the tradition of the Jundokan lineage, however, I have trained in several of the other Goju-ryu kai-ha over the years and like some of what they do, so from time to time, I may show an alteration from one of these kai-ha, as well, I have trained in other systems and from time to time may throw in something not in Goju-ryu proper, does that make me wrong?

What I have learned after 35 years of training is this, to each their own. I have found that my karate is my karate, while I may strive to emulate or even maintain the principles and traditions that I have been taught to me by my teachers and seniors, I also have my own thoughts and ideas, I have my own beliefs, I have come to my own realizations, after many years of training. All of these things combined with the training I have received from my teachers over the years have lead me to be me, lead my karate to be what it is – My karate. I still have a long way to go on this journey and by no means do I know it all, or have all the answers, but I keep trying.