Goju Ryu History

A Brief Note

When one discusses the history of GoJu Ryu (or as a general matter the history of karate) it is important to remember that there exist no accurate or verifiable historical records that would either prove or disprove that history which has been handed down in the karate community largely through the word of mouth during karate's short 150 year history.

All attempts that have been made by various karateka and/or historians to discern the history of karate are based more on faith than hard historical facts. That is not to say however, that no hard facts exist. They do. We thankfully do know certain fundamental historical events but we lack much knowledge for the periods in between them. Thus, large gaps exist that are often filled with inference (weak and strong), speculation and sometimes conjecture. The best we can do is to stay with the facts we do know and draw the best inference we can.

The History

India

Based on man's instinct of self-defense, different fighting arts were developed in most cultures, especially in central Asia, Egypt and Turkey. The principles of the Asian martial arts are believed to have spread from Turkey to India, where they were further developed to sophisticated arts ("kalaripayt").
The history of Karate as we know it today can be taken back to India perhaps two thousand years before the Christian Era. India was the birthplace of a bare-handed martial art called in Sanskrit Vajramushtthi. Evidence seems to indicate that it was commonly practiced by the Kshatriya, which was the Warrior Class of that time. The Kshatriya can be compared to the Japanese Samurai and the medieval Knights of Europe.

It is said that the third child of King Sugandha of southern India was a member of the Kshatriya (Warrior) Caste. However, after a few years he was led by the spirit to a small but dynamic Buddhist province south of Madres. He received his religious training from the Dhyna of Master Prajnatara. Under the master’s guidance the boy grew into a very wise man and advanced in the way of the Dhyana or Buddhist practice. He was given the name Buddhadharma.  

China

After his master's death, Buddhadharma traveled to China, where he taught. His life was centered around the Shaolin Temple and monastery located in Hunan Province. Tradition states that upon seeing the emaciated condition of the monks, Buddhadharma instructed them in physical exercise, to condition their bodies as well as their minds. The exercise was called, “Eighteen hands of Lo-Han”. This exercise also included breathing; he knew that this physical activity was a means of cleansing the body internally.

Eventually the monks began to study the animals and form exercises that resembled their ways of fighting, and later it was known as Chuan-Fa, “The Art of the Fist”. It is important to note that the motives of the practice were art, physical conditioning, and finally, self-defense.

During the Sui Period (589-618), bandits began to raid the monastery for the purpose of food and anything of value.
At this time the monks, in order to protect their lives and their beloved monastery, utilized their Chuan-Fa art and defeated the bandits. The reputation of the Shaolin Fighting monks spread, and many came to study the art along with Buddhism. Today there are hundreds of styles, and of course the philosophy has changed somewhat, depending on the personality of the headmaster of the styles. In 1609 the art was brought to Okinawa where it underwent many changes and became later known as Karate-do.

Okinawa

During the 14th century Kempo (Chaun-Fa) was introduced to Okinawa. It won popularity as an art of self-defense under the name of 'tote' (Chinese hand). At Okinawa the native fighting art 'te' was practiced long before the introduction of Kempo. It is believed that 'te' was combined with 'Kempo' by the Okinawans and developed into the martial art known today as Karate.

Japan invaded Okinawa in 1609. They reinstituted the ban on weapons (first declared by King Sho Shin in 1477). The Japanese also banned the practice of martial arts. Consequently, the Okinawans continued with martial arts in secrecy.

During the next three centuries the martial art developed its own character and is called 'Okinawa te'. It is split into three main styles:

Shuri-te:          Influenced by the hard techniques of Kempo and characterized by an offensive attitude.

Naha-te:           Influenced by the softer techniques of Kempo including breath control and 'ki'. It was  characterized by a more defensive attitude with grappling, throws and locking techniques.

Tomari-te:        Influenced by both the hard and soft techniques of Kempo.

At the end of the 19th century Shuri-te and Tomari-te were subsumed under the name Shorin ryu,  which developed into several slightly different styles. Naha-te was later renamed Goju ryu (the hard and soft style).

Kanryo Higaonna (HIGASHIONNA)

Higaonna was born in 1853, in Okinawa. He was small, but his skill and hard training more than made up for his deficiency in size. He started the serious study of the martial arts when he was about sixteen years old. He learned Chinese Kempo and became well known in Naha, Okinawa. He was fascinated by the Chinese fighting arts and began looking for an opportunity to travel to China.

In November of 1874, he finally had the chance to go to China with a group of merchants. He left Okinawa and spent fifteen years in China. When he finally returned to Okinawa, he was thirty-seven years old. In spite of his many years of training in the Chinese martial arts, he did  not want to teach upon his return. Even after he was convinced to open a dojo by those people who had heard of his reputation in China, he would teach his martial arts only to the most serious students.

He taught martial arts in the most traditional manner to those who would learn, not to those who wanted to be taught. Thus Higaonna was credited with bringing martial arts to Okinawa. Many would be students came to Higaonna and many more were sent on their way. However, one boy by the name of Chojun Miyagi did not only stay, but was eventually to succeed his teacher and became the founder of Goju-Ryu in Karate.

Chojun Miyagi

Chojun Miyagi was born in 1888 in Naha, Okinawa. When he was fourteen years old he started to study Karate with Grandmaster Higaonna. Through his dedication to the study of the martial arts, Miyagi was credited with making the system solid and well respected. He was such a dominant force in modern Karate that he became well known not only as the founder of Goju-Ryu Karate but also as the true leader of Okinawan and Japanese Karate. This is why the roots of modern Karate are traced back to this man.

Master Chojun first came to Japan in 1928, and instructed at the Kyoto University in Kyoto. In 1932, he became an instructor in the Kansaugakuen in Osaka, thirty miles from Kyoto. By 1937, Karate was fully accepted by the Japanese public, yet the study of it was isolated to military bases and a handful of universities.  Miyagi introduced Goju-Ryu Karate to Hawaii in 1934.  In 1937, Chojun Miyagi received the first doctorate degree in Karate. He became Shihan of the Okinawa Shihan (teachers) School in 1953.  Chojun Miyagi died at the age of 65 years in 1953.

The Name Goju Ryu

The naming of Goju-Ryu came about more by accident than design. In 1930, one of Chojun Miyagi's top students, Jin'an Shinzato, was attending a Martial Arts convention in Tokyo. He was asked by numerous martial arts masters what school of martial arts he practiced. As Naha-te had no formal name he could not answer this question. Feeling his art would be looked down upon and given amateur status, he quickly picked Hankry-ryu, which means the Way of Half Hard. On his return to Okinawa he reported this incident to Chojun Miyagi. He liked Shinzato’s idea and took it one step further. After much consideration, Chojun Miyagi decided on the name 'Goju-Ryu' (hard and soft school) as a name for his style. He took this name from a line in the Bubishi (a classical Chinese text on martial arts and other subjects). This line, which appears in a poem describing the eight precepts of the martial arts, reads "Ho Goju Donto" (the way of inhaling and exhaling is hardness and softness). The whole poem reads as follows:

1. The mind is one with heaven and earth.

2. The circulatory rhythm of the body is similar to the cycle of the sun and the moon.

3. The way of inhaling and exhaling is hardness and softness.

4. Act in accordance with time and change.

5. Techniques will occur in the absence of conscious thought.

6. The feet must advance and retreat, separate and meet.

7. The eyes do not miss even the slightest change.

8. The ears listen well in all directions.

Gogen (ROUGH) Yamaguchi

In 1931, at the age of 22, Gogen Yamaguchi was introduced to the founder of the Goju style, Chojun Miyagi. This meeting proved to have a profound affect upon Yamaguchi's outlook on karate. Previously he had only considered the hard aspect of Goju but after his meeting with Chojun Miyagi he was determined to train himself spiritually as well as physically. Master Miyagi thought highly of Yamaguchi who seemed to have mastered the hard aspect of Goju so well and in 1937 gave him the nickname Gogen, meaning 'Rough'. He then appointed Gogen Yamaguchi as his successor of the Goju school in Japan.

Mr. Miyagi presented Yamaguchi with his Renshi in 1940, and in 1951 presented him with Hanshi, tenth Dan (Grandmaster). Yamaguchi founded the first Goju school in Japan at the site of Shinsengumi's post at Mibu, Kyoto, in 1929. In 1933, Yamaguchi established the All Japan Karate-Do Goju-Kai and founded branches throughout Japan and the United States.  Gogen Yamaguchi died in 1989 at the age of 80 years.

Seigo Tada

Tada was born in 1922  in Kyoto, Japan. He started training in the art of Karate in Shanghai, China in 1935, at the age of thirteen. In 1939, he entered the Ritsusmei University and studied Goju-Ryu Karate-Do under the master and founder of the style, Mr. Chojun Miyagi. He entered Ritsumei University nine years after Yamaguchi started the Karate club in Ritsumei-Kan. In 1943 he was nominated as a coach of the Ritsumeikan University Karatedo Club.

He opened the Torimaru Dojo in Kyoto in 1945, right after World War II, which is also when Yamaguchi returned from Manchu.Mr. Tada also established the Nihon Seigo-Kan Karatedo shikai (SAJKA), Nihon Gojuryu Karatedo shikai and Nihon Seigokai in Kyoto. At one point there were 120 Seigo-Kan domestic dojos and branches, as well as University clubs and overseas dojos. During that period, Seigo-Kan was the largest Gojuryu Kai-Ha in Japan. In 1964, Master Seigo Tada joined as one of the promoters and executives in establishing and organizing the All Japan Karatedo Federation, Kansai District Karatedo Federation and Kinki District Karatedo Federation. He established competition rules and developed the original protector in 1952 for the purpose of modernizing Karatedo as a sport.

In 1981, he won the Hyogo Prefecture Athletic Award of Merit. Tada continued to enjoy teaching Karate and was able to see the 40th anniversary of his Seigo-Kan Karate Academy before his eventual death in late September of 1997. His legacy, Seigo-Kan remains one of the largest Goju-Ryu organizations in Japan.

Motoo Yamakura

Motoo Yamakura was born in Kyoto, Japan in 1943.  At the age of 8 years, Yamakura studied Karate in the Temple of Kyoto where many Karate schools were to be found and later, at age 14 joined the Tojukuji Dojo a branch of Seigo Tada's organization. Yamakura entered the all Western Goju-Ryu Seigo Kan tournaments, and was champion in both kata and kumite in 1965 and 1966.

In 1967, Mr. Yamakura entered the prestigious Henry Cho's All American Karate Tournament held in Madison Square Garden, New York and won the light weight championship. After one final goodwill tournament in Muskegon, Michigan, he retired from competition.  When Mr. Yamakura came to the United States in 1967, there was no precedent in the immigration codes for his field of expertise.  A new category was created and Mr. Yamakura was one of the first people to receive permanent residency status in the specially skilled labor category of Combat Fighting Specialist.

In 1969, he enlisted in the armed services and was assigned to the Special Forces teaching hand-to-hand combat. He demonstrated his martial arts skills for trainees at war games, battalion gatherings, for the Green Berets, and at his own graduation which was attended by the Undersecretary of State.  In 1974, Motoo Yamakura ended his military obligation as a Staff Sergeant.  Mr. Yamakura is an international person. He was born in Japan but traveled to the United States and became an American citizen. He studied English literature while in Japan. He graduated from the foreign studies department where he also learned Spanish and studied Chinese as it relates to Japanese characters.

He studied Kobudo in his youth, Judo in his school days, and has studied Karate and martial arts for over thirty-five years. While in Japan, he studied the styles of, Shotokan, Shito-Ryu, and Wado-Ryu and practiced Shorinji-Kempo. He studied and taught Goju-Ryu, Uechi-Ryu, Tae-Kwon-Do and experienced Chinese martial arts while in the United States. 

Mr. Yamakura is the author of Goju-Ryu Karate-Do, Fundamentals for Traditional Practitioners, Volumes I and II.  MotooYamakura is Shihan, and Hachi Dan, and since 1983 has been the Chairman of the Goju-Ryu Karate-Do Kyokai International.  The GKK is one of the largest, and oldest, Goju-Ryu organizations in the United States and also has programs in Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, India, Sri Lanka and the Middle East.