The Power of Goju-Ryu Karate

With thanks to Adeyto, Bogdan Kurilko, Iogkf Ua and BlakeBros for their permission to use material from their respective channels in the making of this short-video. After reading some of the comments, I wish to elaborate the following: Okinawan karate (Before it was introduced to Japan) had a lot of joint-locks throws, take-downs and ground-fighting (Though not as extensive as Modern Jujitsu), these are apparent in our KATA. To those who are not familiar with the history of Okinawan Karate, when Chojun Miyagi (the founder of Goju) demonstrated his karate before Judo's founder Kano Jigoro in 1928 (?) what did Jigoro compliment the young Miyagi Sensei for ? For his interesting Ne-waza. Jigoro also incorporated a throw he saw Kenwa Mabuni Sensei perform (Founder of Shitoryu) and a takedown from Funakoshi Sensei into his Judo Syllabus.

When Karate was first introduced into Japan, it was lumped under the Jujitsu department within the Dai-Nippon Butoku-kai as a SUB-CATEGORY, one can deduce that it is because they were so similar. Since every student learnt Jujitsu and Judo as part of their physical education in schools anyway, karate was seen as a sort of a redundancy. The karate masters had to do something to become independent -so they decided to emphasize on the striking techniques which Judo and Jujitsu did not have (It would have been pointless to punch against yoroi armout in medieval times so they never developed that tradition), so that by 1933 Karate was recognized as different from Jujitsu and given their own category.

So you will see in many Japanese karate much lesser joint-locks and take-downs. As for the history of Okinawan Gojuryu: The founder of Goju-Ryu - Chojun Miyagi Sensei was a very keen wrestler (Okinawan Wrestling), and he also trained in a Judo dojo for 2 years during his military service in Kyushu. I believe there's a story which said that he was barred from Judo in high school because he was too strong and he was unwittingly hurting the other students. Any way, Miyagi Sensei later became the physical education instructor in the Police Academy in Naha, and he got most of his students jobs there - they all trained in Judo as well because it was compulsory for police officers to do o. His senior students Eiichi Miyazato (Okinawan Goju-ryu Jundokan) for example, was multiple time All Okinawan Judo Champion and Judo 8th Dan (Gojuryu-10th Dan), Shinzato, Higa, Iha, they were all at one time policemen and good at Judo. So Goju-Ryu always had a Judo-Jujitsu element in it anyway.

Finally, Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karate does not insist on rigid sparring "Styles" like you would see in some schools. The technical essence of Okinawan Goju-Ryu is to teach body-mechanics, attack and defence strategies, and a system of training (Hojo Undo, Junbi Undo etc). Kata, is an exercise in body-mechanics and techniques. We train our minds and bodies. There is no sparring style per-se. The idea is to work Goju-Principles into the strikes and throws and submission techniques. History records that never did Chojun Miyagi Sensei teach a certain sparring style. Weaving and Ducking is perfectly Goju-Ryu, Morio Higaonna Sensei had always taught a wide variety of training exercises in his syllabus.

Finally, all the footage in this video comes from various dojos of the IOGKF (International Okinawan Gojuryu Karate Federation). BUT if you look at other Okinawan Gojuryu Organizations you will find them doing the same during Iri-kumi (Sparring). In our Irikumi rules ground-fighting is for 20 seconds, because it is not realistic to roll for 3 minutes in a real-fight (So the argument goes). But all of Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karate are very familiar with what I have presented in this Video.

Music was created by me, combining snippets from Shakuhachi piece called Tsuru no Sugomori - 0:09-0:10 sec, followed by 1:53-1:54sec and several other sections cut and pasted together, each snippet no longer than 2 secs, so in essence my creation.