Gosoku Ryu

Anyone know much about Takayuki Kubota's Gosoku Ryu as far as it's technical elements are concerned and differences from other Karate schools and it's "effectiveness"? For example I know the kata are different from others, what are they like?

Have noooo experience with this, but some links you may already be awar of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosoku-ryu

According to the ever reliable Wiki (citation needed) it is a system somewhat similar to Shotokan in its methods.

I checked out some clips on Youtube... I am not a karate expert by any means, and due to my own ignorance I tend to look at karate from a superfical point of view. Having said all that, Gosoku looks a lot like most other kinds of Japanese Karate. It could be a Shotokan class or a Wado class I was looking at, it didn't seem much different.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable will shed some light on this.

tak kubota says.."karate is karate"

Kubota is a bona fide tuff guy. He's as friendly as he is dangerous. As he approaches 70, he still teaches classes in the Hombu in Glendale, CA as well as traveling around the world to their affiliate schools.

Everyone knows him as the man who invented the Kubotan key chain but this only scratches the surface of his accomplishments & skills.

His IKA has an international tournament every couple of years & his local tournament @ Occidental College is an annual event. The style incorporates many "street" elements

One of his top students, Rod Kuratomi is a personal friend of mine. If you're interested, I'd recommend the style/group. Link:

http://www.ikakarate.com/

It looks like a fantastic system I certainly wouldn't mind taking a look at, except sometime down the road as I have no access to Gosoku schools right now.
So I'm guessing they do a little more sparring/kumite than Shotokan and are more well rounded with their techniques but otherwise are just like Shotokan?
I saw a lsit fo their kata and they are named completely different from any I've seen, what's up with that?

Soke (Kubota) created many of his own kata.

I think that Kubota's father was a kendo master but Kubota was more interested in karate. Most of what's in Gosoku-ryu's syllabus was developed in post-WWII Tokyo. His perspective on karate came from his street experience.

I had a chance to train at the Glendale hombu dojo back in the early '90s. Though a Shotokan stylist myself, I was encouraged to train with Soke instead of a Shotokan dojo by Ray Dalke when driving over to train in Riverside became impractical (Those that commute on the I-10 will know why!!!).
I found Gosoku-ryu to be Shotokan +++. Soke made no bones about the art being grounded on Shotokan. In fact, the older black belts in the style were required to learn all the Shotokan as well as all the Gosoku kata (Which is a lot!!!). But at the time I talked with him about it, he was diplomatically critical of JKA type Shotokan and said to me that he was moving away from that.
The style is similar to Shotokan in it's linearity and emphasis on moving in fast and hard (Go- Soku means "hard- fast"). But I found them to have a much better sense of footwork and combinations. Heavier contact was allowed, but there was turmoil in the dojo at the time I was there between the old style, rougher black belts and some of the newer breed about the amount of contact (One of the older guys said to me one day that "Soke used to allow more blood on the floor"!!!). Also, they heavily emphasized destroying the opponent's balance via sweeps in order to open him up to strikes (When facing a Gosoku-ryu opponent, expect to be swept almost every time he/she throws a combo).
What I wrote above was what was going on about '92. Since the founder is alive and (Hopefully!!!) well still, the style has more than probably evolved further.
Soke himself is a wonderfully humble man with a clownish, self effacing sense of humor. Despite this, he commands enormous respect.

What (technical wise) was the style evolving into? Or were it's training methods the evolving parts? And do you think the lack of lateral movment is a real big issue even with high level Gosoku/Shotokan fighters? I mean is that more of a hindrance of does it really matter (in terms of say street fighting).
Side note Dalke was quite a badass in his day from what I hear.

Hi, stormdragon. To address what you wrote:

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What (technical wise) was the style evolving into? Or were it's training methods the evolving parts?

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I'm sure I don't know enough to authoritatively address that. What I can say is a bit of a rehash of what I've already described:

1. Soke said that he had moved away from JKA style training. From my point of view that meant, in the brown- black belt class, that basics were practiced in varied combinations and while moving, not the JKA thing of having even judansha stand still in rows and practice one technique from a stance to which one recovers after execution, or perhaps stepping then executing the one technique. Lower belts, however, continued to train Shotokan style.

2. Footwork was much more emphasized.

3. As implied in 1., above, emphasis was placed on application of the technique. There was heavy emphais on partener drills. Although pre-set, Soke didn't frown on brown- black belts deviating from the sequence when a mistake was spotted. As a result, often enough it resulted in mini bouts, when one partner exploited an opening left by the other fella, and the second guy attempted to respond. This threw in a healthy surprise, "expect the unexpected" aspect to the drills.

4. Although there was kata practice, it struck me that the emphasis was secondary, supplementary to fight skill training (That's my opinion. Soke or some of his people might disagree). As stated, he had moved away from Shotokan kata (Although we did do some of these) and emphasized his own. These were more practical, the bunkai much more readily apparent and looser. By this I also mean that though Soke did concern himself with proper form, it wasn't an obsession.

5. Soke was still working on, and coming out, with new kata. While I was there, he started teaching Anso kata. Subsequently he's even come out with a video solely devoted to Anso.

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And do you think the lack of lateral movment is a real big issue even with high level Gosoku/Shotokan fighters? I mean is that more of a hindrance of does it really matter (in terms of say street fighting).

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Y'know, this is often pointed out as a limitation of Shotokan and derived styles. Frankly, I don't see why. For one thing, everybody moves in lineraly to attack. Shotokan (And Gosoku-ryu) just do it very agressively and fast. Nothing wrong with taking the fight to the opponent hard and fast, so long as you know what to do if it doesn't work!
Then there's the fact that tai sabaki is known and practiced in Shotokan (And Gosoku!). So lateral and circular movements are practiced as well.
It may be that in certain dojos this isn't given due diligence. I'll leave that open, since there are knuckleheads enough in this world, and some are bound to navigate into dojos, even become instructors. I'll just say that I've never seen an adavanced practitioner of Shotokan or derived style that just kept getting clobbered because he didn't know how to move.

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Side note Dalke was quite a badass in his day from what I hear.

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Oh, yeah! I understand that he was a contemporary, friend and training partner of Frank Smith and could handily hold his own even with that living legend, so 'nuff said!
That's why when Sensei Dalke advised me to go to Soke, I did so despite there being Shotokan dojos handy for me in the L.A. area.

A curious side note: Soke, despite being very powerful, is a smallish man (In fact, he reminds me of a fire hydrant, being almost as wide as he is tall!). And, even though there was every physical type represented at his dojo, big men were much more common among his black belts than is the norm in your average dojo, IMO.
I don't know why this was (Is??? I haven't been back since early '93). Perhaps this concept of charging in and overpowering an opponent by unbalancing him and hitting repeatedly and fast was particularly appealing to big guys, perhaps it's a fluke, perhaps I have a wrong impression.