Goju-Ryu Karate-Do Kyohan
The History and Fundamentals of
Goju-Ryu Karate
by Yamaguchi Gogen "The Cat"
Yamaguchi
was the legendary and colorful early 20th century
karate master who founded Japanese Goju-Ryu -- one
of Japan's largest and most successful karate organizations.
Among the many famous martial artists who were influenced
by his teachings was Mas Oyama, who went on to form
his own organization, Kyokyushin karate. Such organizations
as Seido Juku karate, founded by Tadashi Nakamura,
one of Oyama's top students, still practice many goju-ryu
kata. One of Yamaguchi's American students, Peter
Urban, helped introduce goju-ryu into the United States,
but later broke away to found his own American Goju-Ryu
Association.
Editor's Note: This and two following excerpts
from the book by Yamaguchi were to appear as one article
in the seventh and final edition of Bugeisha Magazine
that did not go to press. They appear on FightingArts.com
with permission of Bugeisha's editor, Angel Lemus,
and Mastersline/Rising Sun Video Productions. Lemus
is now a Site Advisor to FightingArts.com. Part two
in this series is "The
Significance of Kata", and part
three is "Practice
Fighting" will be posted soon.
Karate-Do
Karate-do was born combining kakutojutsu [fighting
martial arts], which had been studied in Okinawa 500
years ago, and kempo, which was introduced from China.
As you can see in many countries, fighting martial
arts have been handed down in each country. Some remain
a national sport and others remain just a sport among
others.
In Okinawa, for a long time, using any kinds of weapons
was prohibited because of a policy of prohibiting
weapons. For that reason, they had to invent toshukuken,
the way to fight without a weapon. This was especially
true in the beginning of the 17th century since it
was thought that fighting martial arts, referring
to Chinese kempo, was invented among Ryukyu [Okinawa]
samurai because their weapons were banned. In Okinawa,
before it was called karate, it had two names, one
was Naha-te and the other was Shuri-te.
These are the names of regions. The source of present
day styles are these two te. Naha-te was invented
by Tono [Higaonna] Kanryo Shihan, who went to Fuku-ken-sho
[also Fuken-sho, Fujian Province] in China and learned
Chinese kempo, which was combined with Naha-te and
named Shorei-ryu.
Shuri-te was represented by Matsumura Soken Shihan.
It has been separated as Matsu-Toukan-ryu, Shito-ryu,
and Wado-ryu. The history of Goju-ryu begins with
Miyagi Chojun Shihan who is an unparalleled saint
[fuseishutsu no kensei].
Miyagi Shihan was born in Meiji era 20 [1888] to
a famous house in Naha, Okinawa. He had practiced
karate since he was 14-years old with Tono Kanryo
Shihan. In Meiji 36 [1904], when he was 16 years old,
he was ordered to go to Fuku-ken-sho, China, and practiced
Chinese kempo.
In China, Miyagi received rough and strict training.
At the same time he studied theory from old books.
After he came back from China, he compared Chinese
kempo and Okinawa-te. Miyagi adopted his unique and
effective way of breathing, which he called ikibuki
[also ibuki], a way of preliminary exercise that is
necessary for mastering karate-do. Ikibuki is also
a supportive scientific exercise that is related to
the structure of the body and its movement.
After that, Miyagi continued studying and reorganized
both Chinese kempo and Okinawa-te's merits and added
his own ideas. This is how Goju-ryu was born. Goju-ryu's
name was extracted from the Bubishi, a Chinese documentary
record.
One of eight Kyo phrases (precepts of Chinese martial
arts) in the Bubishi (the once secret White Crane
and Monk Fist Boxing text owned by many Okinawan karate
masters) is called "Hogoju." Because it
means "the method of absorbing and releasing
hard [go] and soft [ju]," the style was named
Goju-ryu. Miyagi taught karate at an Okinawan police
training school, a Naha public business school, an
Okinawan teachers' school, and an Okinawan health
centre. In Showa 4 [1929], Miyagi was invited by a
karate club at Kyoto University and by Kansai University,
with honor, to become an advising teacher. He was
then invited to teach permanently by Ritsumeikan University.
Over time, Miyagi spread his methods throughout Japan
and took the initiative of Goju-ryu.
By that time, the author of this book was recognized
by Miyagi Shihan and was left the responsibility of
spreading Miyagi's method of guidance, creating a
family of Goju-ryu, and organizing the All-Japan Karate-do
Goju Association. Moreover, Miyagi Shihan was invited
to Hawaii by a newspaper company, where he taught
karate for one year and contributed to Goju-ryu karate-do
in and outside of Japan. After World War II, Miyagi
went back to Okinawa and quietly worked for the civil
administration as a physical education coach. In October
of Showa 28 [1953], he passed away.
Fundamental Idea of Goju-Ryu Karate-Do
Goju-ryu karate-do is composed of Yo [Yang], which
is positive; and In [Yin], which is negative, as the
ideographs [kanji] "Go" and "Ju"
indicate. This is why the fundamental idea is so unique
and has beauty. The eternal life of the universe develops
with positive and negative working together. This
is the same for the lives of humans. Life has Yo and
In, or Go and Ju, both sides for all our lives, sometimes
connected by becoming the will and harmony. The ancients
who chose karate as a means of fighting endured their
strict and rough practice to protect themselves and
to win.
You can see that Goju-ryu is still keeping a primitive
form for actual fighting when you practice the Sanchin
and Tensho kata, which represent Go and Ju. In Sanchin,
you make the whole body, all the nerves, etc. extremely
tense and do not let your guard down even for a moment.
On the other hand, in Tensho, you do not show a gush
of fighting spirit, you keep it inside your body and
wait for a chance to use it. As a result, Tensho draws
a gentle curve and flows. The techniques of Goju-ryu
use its own unique method of breathing, which is called
ikibuki. The technique can be changed from Go to Ju
or Ju to Go; and while you move without distraction,
you still go along with the movements of the opponent.
If the opponent comes by Go, you respond with Ju and
restrain him. If the opponent comes by Ju, you use
Go and temper him. Ikibuki is the way of breathing
that controls conscious breathing from ordinary unconscious
breathing. You go with the movement and breathing
of the opponent and lead your physical condition to
most advantageous situation. It is useful for concentrating
your muscles and mind.
Goju-ryu has many postures that use the names of
animals, like the cat, dog, crane, tiger, and dragon.
In ikibuki, you imagine that a lion is roaring. When
animals stand ready to fight, they are on their guard
and all their power is concentrated for fighting.
That form does not have anxiety or fear. They are
just thinking about defeating the enemy. There is
no desire of self-gratification and no dishonesty.
You can say that they are desperate. The reason that
the color of the old budo is very strong in modern
budo is that we see the importance in the forms and
the ikibuki of these animals. These aspects are the
original aspects of Go, however, it is not perfect
to emphasize the aspect of Go, in other words, the
height of the form. If a strife of Go is one side,
there has to be Ju on the other that avoids strife.
That is how character building can be accomplished
by Goju-ryu.
In the future, karate-do should not be a technique
to defeat humans. When it gives an edge to others
and yourself, then initially, it becomes a precept
as Do and practice becomes valuable. In modern times,
there is a method of instruction and a way of studying
karate-do as a sport, but I do not know how the readers
interpret karate-do, as a budo or just a sport in
common with the West. Certainly, you can think that
there is no difference from other sports when you
refer to the rules of the game. Also, the main purpose
of sports is to train the mind and body at the same
time. It applies to budo as well. Yet, it is difficult
to say that the many events that have been invented
in the West are simply sport and that only Japanese
ancient grappling games are called budo. Presently,
there are Olympic games and many kinds of events.
Judo, kendo, and karate-do have been introduced as
sports. Their sporting elements are emphasized and
introduced by many people and have also been reformed
to become a sport. Still, there will be a big difference
in the mental attitudes between people who practice
karate as a sport and as a budo. This is because our
society is formed into many organizations, sometimes
in a family, school, or workshop. In these societies,
the purpose of sports is to make healthy minds and
bodies, to bring together a sense of cooperation to
make a member of society adapt to this human society.
Moreover, it promotes the improvement of a member
of society. By having characteristics common to all
by sports, the events are used to encourage making
peace in the world.
What about budo? Budo did not originate in a peaceful
atmosphere. It was necessary to protect one's life
at the time, and to learn how to use budo as a weapon
and achieve one's responsibility as a warrior. It
was the warrior's duty to develop spirit. This rule
was established in the hierarchy. It was the theory
of a warrior to desire winning a war.
Modern budo is not the extension of ancient budo.
Right now, there is no hierarchy like in samurai society.
Society does not force you to destroy human life;
however, one of the conceptions of ancient budo is
skill inherited in modern budo. Before, warriors practiced
budo and respected it as Do, suffering, and facing
death. In spite of the fact that death is the destiny
of all human beings, the idea of death is dreadful.
I do not doubt that the ancient budo philosophy was
resisted by human beings facing death and yet also
the way of character building to learn to overcome
death. For a living thing, instead of knowing that
life is the most precious thing, death was the naught.
As a result of putting oneself in the naught, they
could ignore their fear of death.
In the ancient budo book, Hagakure, it is written
that budo is death. In these words, you can find the
spirit of budo, which is superior to death. In other
words, an object of the fear of death is neither others,
nor weapons -- it is oneself. As a result, it was
necessary to obtain a technique to protect oneself
and one had to have a strong spirit to correspond
to that. When one could overcome a conception of death,
there was an improvement of a human being as a samurai.
When it was developed, karate-do was used in place
of weapons and studied that way so that the spirit
of the samurai was needed at the beginning of its
conception to learn karate. Now there are rules, but
the techniques and elements have not changed.
The
goal of many sports is competition; however, there
is a sense of entertainment or hobby. On the other
hand, karate is the fight against one's self without
having an object. In sports, records are saved and
defeating these records becomes the success. They
are introduced to many people as a means of character
building and harmonizing mankind, and they are kept.
In karate-do, there is nothing to be recorded. The
more superior is judged by the technique used. Now,
karate is the battle against one's self and a means
of the way of one's life not to defeat others or to
die. This solitary fight is to know one's own spirit
and the desire to the naught that is superior to the
limitation of the body. If one's aspiration is a formal
victory or defeat, that is just a stage of learning
techniques, not a faith of kyo or mu. As an author,
I also studied Yoga and Shinto to seek this faith.
I also trained myself to get closer to the strictness
and mystery of Do.
In conclusion, it is not necessary to be strong even
though you practice karate-do. You want to be stronger
than others because you compare your strength with
others. The object of karate-do is Do, not comparing
with someone else, and this Do will continue forever
and ever.
Let
Us Know Your Comments & Opinions On This Article
Part 2: The
significance of Kata
Part 3: Practice
Fighting
This excerpt from Yamaguchi's book, "Goju Ryu
Karate Do Kyohan," was submitted by Masters Publications.
This is the fourth book in the Limited Edition series
translated from Japanese into English and published
by Masters Publication; the first was "To-Te
Jitsu" by Funakoshi Gichin, followed by "Okinawan
Kempo" by Motobu Choki and "Wado Ryu Karate"
by Otsuka Hiroki.
For more information contact:
Mastersline/Rising Sun Video Productions
310-477-7604 fx 310-383-3135
http://www.masterspub-mas.com/
Email: donrw@earthlink.net
back
to top
home
| about
us | magazine
| learning
| connections
| estore
|