ORIGINS OF GOJU-RYU KARATE

The current capital city in Okinawa is Naha, and was a principal port city. Shuri is where the king presided and was the old capital city was before a US military base occupied the island.

There were three epochs mentioned with three masters respectively in their evolution in the history of Goju-Ryu school.

• First was the time when the school was known only as Naha Te of Kanryo Higaonna during 1870s of which time the islanders were forced to surrender their nationality as Japanese.
• Second was when the school was named Goju-Ryu by the group headed by Chojun Miyagi during 1930s of which time Japan engaged in the Wrold War II.
• The third and final time period was when the national structure of Goju-Ryu organization was established in mainland Japan by Gogen Yamaguchi during the post war period. The organization has been called Karate-Do Goju-Kai since that time.

Go, means "hard" and Ju, means soft, thus idiom Goju, suggests any variation of the hard and soft aspect in that school. As for a historical point of view, a major body of systems were imported from the Fukien Province in China. That system called itself hard and soft style in Chinese. This system is also called Fukien Crain Chuan, which was branched school from Five Ancestor Chuan.

Kanryo Higaonna, (1852-1915) may be the earliest master who can be traced back in the history and who founded a background of Goju-Ryu system. The system was called Naha-Te. Prior to Higaonna, there was another master named Seiso Aragaki, (1840-1920) recognized as a Naha-Te master. He was known as a master and introduced the kata 'Seisan'.

1. http://www.gojukai.com/originof1.htm