My brush with Goju Ryu Karate

 

When I was a beginner no one discussed other systems. We did compete against them at many tournaments.  What we focused on exclusively in our own training.

 

Then I began reading the magazines, and their I heard Isshinryu descended from several traditions. For the most part the Shorin tradition of Kyan, from the tradition of Motobu and the Goju tradition of Miyagi. And that was about it.

 

I saw Goju at tournaments, which only gives you what is seen. I once remember a NJ Goju practitioner request all movie cameras be turned off before he did his kata.  There was no Goju school with convenient  driving distance.

And this was the time before videos,dvd’s, YouTube and all the rest.

 

Eventually I found a Goju kata book published by Don Warner, that gave me some idea what the system was about And that was that,I came to understand their Seisan kata was a 3^rd Dan form and less about the more advanced kata. But besides looking at those kata, I really did not use it much, noting more that Isshinryu and Gojuryu kata used much of the same techniques.

 

It was about 4 years into my first program at the Scranton Boys Club that my wife returned to training now with me. One of her diving students Cindy Robinson also joined the karate program, the summer before she went to Ithica for college. Then at Ithica College she joined their karate club and it was Goju ryu. When she returned home for breaks or summer’s she would resme training with me. Over time she progressed in Isshinryu and Goju ryu.

 

That following year she invited me to dive up to Ithica and see her class and meet her instructor. I did and he was  Ed Savage. I got to see their warm up Junbi Undo. Then he ignored the class letting them run it, and he turned to me.

 

We talked for a while I explained Isshinryu had a Seiunchin and Sanchin kata,  then I showed him my Isshinryu Seiunchin kata. and he showed me his Goju Seiunchin kata. We discussed the differences.

 

After that with great enthusiasm showed me his Saifa kata, then instructed me how to do it.

 

By that time class was over, and as I drove the 90 minutes home I kept going over those two Goju kata in my mind.

 

The next summer Cindy returned home, also returning to train with me. During that summer she told me she hears her karate group was having a training day at the lake  near Ithica Colletge, and she invited me to attend with her.

 

It turned out that she also told Ed I was coming along.

 

Again while the rest trained, he ignored them and spent his time training me. I can only assume other instructors likely did not visit and he wanted me to better understand Goju Ryu.

 

He started by reviewing Saifa kata. Then proceeded to teach me Sanseru kata, to then move on to Shisochin kata. After we completed those kata then he gave me photocopies of those kata from his Goju kata book.

 

I thanked him, realizing that this was priceless. It would enable to work on these kata on my own.

 

And I did, though at that time I was working on Isshinryu, an entire group of Chinese forms and my t’ai chi. Good selection of Shotokan kata and Sutrisno Kobudo. Some Shorin Ryu and some other things. I never intended to master those other systems but I wanted to know more on how to approach judging those styles at tournaments.

So two days and I got the core kata studies up to the Goju black belt, I was never a qualified black belt in Goju, but I understood what a competitor showing those forms should know.

 

Years later I was able to attend a clinic by Chinen Sensei held at the Derry Boys and Girls Club which the host school had rented the club to hold it in. I attended as the representative of the club to see things ran smoothly for the club.

 

I was able to observe what Chinen Sensei ran them through and watched while he ran his kata in reverse order, Supreimpei through Sanchin.

 

It was most interesting and I appreciated Chinen Sensei’s skill.

 

Shortly after I chose to include the supplementary Goju kata  Saifa in my student curricula. I had originally learnt it from Ed Savage, then worked it with Bob Cook, I had acquired a Panther video of the form, somewhere I worked with another as well as having seen Chinen Sensei’s performance of Saifa. All of them had slight variations on the technique and the kata performance.

 

What I chose to teach was how I was working the form. I am sure it is not exactly the same of any of the versions I was shown or saw. However it was sufficient for my purposes with my students.

 

I was not attempting to make them over in any Goju tradition. But as Seiunchin was a longer kata,  After their acquiring Seisan I wanted to give them a shorter kata before Seiunchin and Saifa fit that bill. Then over many years work I developed a greater appreciation of Saifa, seeing the application potential for its movements.

 

I  wanted my students to have some appreciation of Goju, and knowing they even knew a small part of what Goju used, they would not ‘fear’ Goju’s existence if they should compete against them in a tournament.

 

Further value came about later, for as I got deeper into my own Isshinryu application study.  Then  my black belts having developed skilled execution of the form could work their application studies against those techniques. Not play attacks, but skilled Goju style attacks……

 

Then more years rolled by, several Goju dans chose to join my program.

One of those students showed me Seipai, I acquired it and that gave me more insight into Goju.

 

When VHS karate videos became available, I remember purchasing the Hiagonna Supreimpei VHS tape. For one thing I really wanted to see that form. I remember it contained two variations of the form.

 

One Sunday morning how having a solid execution for Supreimpei available to view, I decided to teach myself the form. Again I wasn’t trying to be Goju, rather I was interested to learn the form for it had several techniques I wanted to work application studies against.

 

Now I has long before learnt forms of vast complexity and length if compared against karate kata.

 

I had also remembered reading a British karate magazine interview with Chinen Sensei where he added if he was going to restructure the manner in which Goju forms were studied, he would begin with Sanchin then teach Supreimpei next. He said he felt students might be better served learning it 2^nd as it contained so many of the Goju techniques.

 

So it took me about an hour or so to learn the technique sequence. Then I went outside before my t’ai chi group was scheduled to begin. The student who taught me Seipai came and watched my efforts. He then asked me what I was doing. I told him I had just taught myself Supreimpei and was trying it out.  I recall his eyes bugged out, especially as he never had studied it himself.

 

Outside of teaching my version of Saifa, I never taught any of the other  Goju forms, that was never my intent. But I learned so much by that effort.

 

While my purposes were my own, I do have a story. One time I was visiting a Goju program. I jumped into the class and worked with them. Later in the class the black belts were running Shisochin and I joined in. I believe they were astonished an Isshinryu black belt could attempt the form, much less know it. Then again I rarely forgot what I was shown and then worked on for a long time.

 

 

Footnote: Separate but related, I was shown the Kyokushinkai version of Tensho kata one time by Jesse Knowles.   And of course I practiced it from that time on. Again for my own reasons, At times I had my black belts drill the form, for a variety of reasons. I never formally made it a supplemental kata.

 

------- the Sanseu kata scans given to me by Ed Savage in 1984  ----------