What is it? What is this Goju ryu?
The "hard-soft style" is one of the main traditional Okinawan styles of karate, featuring a combination of hard and soft techniques.The Okinawans combined Chinese martial arts with their own existing practice to form 'China Hand' and the style developed out of this original Okinawa-Te.
Put simply, 'Go' which means hard, refers to closed hand techniques such as punching, kicking and linear movements.
'Ju' which means soft, refers to circular techniques for blocking and controlling the opponent, often diverting incoming energy and using the opponents' own force or strength against them. Emphasis is given to breathing correctly with deep breathing from the stomach (hara) and the energy nucleus called 'tanden'.
So essentially goju-ryu combines harder striking attacks with softer open hand circular techniques.
Typically, most modern practice of karate in the west the emphasis is on training the harder aspect of goju. There has grown a dependancy or over-reliance on this ‘external’ or 'go' aspect of the art in my opinion.
‘External’ or ‘hard’ development of power through body strength (ie. building stronger arms and legs for punching and kicking)though essential, is often given more emphasis than the 'internal' or 'soft' aspects of goju training. This can be seen in all aspects of the training
The ‘internal’ or ‘soft’ concentrates on the whole mind/body merging together to create power, or better,harness power.
Maybe it's more difficult to do than talk about and so specific trainining and development is often neglected.
"At the beginning I had no plan to practice Kungfu in China, but I found kungfu excellent , so I learned it" Chojun Miyagi Sensei,from the 1936 meeting of Okinawan Karate Masters in Naha.
強い心
...I found kungfu excellent so I learned it..
Chojun Miyagi Sensei
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