I welcome you into the Goju-Ryu Karate Dojo, as my Sensei (teacher) welcomed me, to your first steps and movements in the wonderful world of Goju-Ryu Karate. To some, Karate is combat. To others, it is primary for show. Still others approach it as religion, a teaching device, a way to physical fitness, a sport, and a self-defence system or from one of a dozen other possible points of view. However you choose to define it, the art of karate has many dimensions: it is at once mental and physical, artistic and grotesque, practical (self-defence) and non-practical (sport), violent and graceful, abstract and concrete, and scientific and animistic. Goju-Ryu Karate is subjective and necessarily incomplete. Karate is constantly in flux. No single man or women can comprehend the entirety of karate.
Chojun Miyagi developed Goju Ryu Karate.Many years ago Japanese Chojun Miyagi studied Shoreiryu Karate in Okinawa, and from this Karate style he developed the style of GOJU-RYU Karate, returning to Japan to teach it. From this beginning Goju-Ryu Karate has developed into the most popular throughout the world, where it has now more than 3,000,000 adherents.
While Goju-Ryu Karate, naturally, includes many of the basic movements of other fighting arts, it is unique in some of its aspects, particularly in the basic Katas, or movements which must be learnt thoroughly to understand and successfully practice this style. These begin simple and, as the student progresses through the various grades of the course, so he or she learns the more complicated Katas that together form an important part of Goju-Ryu Karate.
