IOGKF Goju-ryu in decline?

This turned into a pretty good thread. No Goju experience myself, but have friends who have trained in it. I think the Goju scene in the UK used to be pretty strong and Higaonna used to feature frequently in the martial arts magazines here in the 80s and 90s.

Goju is interesting, but if I were ever to don a Karate gi again, it would probably be for Kyokushin.
 
I used to practice Goju Ryu karate as a kid thanks to my parents. It was fairly common in the US during that time.

I agree with you OP. I've participated in a couple of those tournaments myself growing up and that 2nd video is hilarious in what it's been reduced to. I suppose every martial art is changing to some degree to try and appeal more to the general public. Esp since MMA is the new big kid on the block.
 
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Don't know what you guys have experienced or seen, my exposure to GoJu was from a guy who did that in the clip for the better part of 5 years starting with a USMC deployment in Okinawa. The clip is too short to show the foot and shin calcification drilling.

I'm not sure why a sport fighting forum is trying to understand an art like GoJu for sport sparing. They're going to suck because that's not what they do. They want to grab you, pull you in while clubbing you with those hands and feet they've been pounding against rocks for years, lock and break your arms and toss you away with basic Judo Tachi Waza. So striking rules are going to look like WB ammy in those video's, but good luck if a good Japanese trained and conditioned practitioner grabs you with no padded floor or hands.

Apple's and Orange's
 
I disagree with this. I can assure you there are a ton of guys that do MMA that are not 1% athletes. Guys that practice MMA are no different than someone practicing karate or muay thai or boxing or bjj or wrestling or so on and so forth.

Maybe you were referring to MMA as guys that compete, but I still would disagree as someone fighting in MMA is no different than someone who competes in wrestling. Even if were comparing the 1% elite athletes of MMA, to the elite wrestler, or the best kyokushin fighters out there. Dont put MMA on a pedestal just because someone "trains ufc".

Yeah there are a lot of guys who aren't the 1% that regularly train in MMA or it's sub-components and they are really no different than those that do TMA's. I think though for competition it might be a bit different. Out of all the combat sports - the biggest pay checks to be found are probably in boxing & MMA - so it's only natural that the top 1% of athletes will end up in these combat sports because this is where the money is.

I will say though that TMA's on a whole have done a better job of retaining practitioners over the long term and those systems tend to have a better understanding of longevity/training. I think a lot of combat sports haven't really been able to get a handle on the effects of wear/tear on longevity and therefore haven't done as well a job as some TMA's in keeping practitioners training to old age.

I mean how many 60 year olds do you see in your average MT or MMA class or even wrestling class? I think a lot of these styles haven't really got to grips with what long term training entails - in a way that TMA's already have. I mean you could probably find significantly more older people in TMA's like muay boran, karate, judo etc.
 
I'm in Poland but thanks for all that info - someone else may benefit from it.

You probably have a tonne of kyokushin dojos to choose from. From what I remember Poland has a hell of a lot of kyokushin gyms (when I was training kyokushin) - not sure about now though.
 
Depends on your Sensei. Check out the dojo man, my Sensei had Goju Ryu roots and heavy into Japaneese Ju Jitsu. Best decision I have ever made because he taught me how to Kickbox, American Kickboxing Style. I also have fought 6 smokers with the guy behind me, winning all of them on damage. Two MMA and 4 American Kickboxing. Check it out.
 
CFGroup put it perfectly. Sport and self defense are very different. You cannot understand what it is like to have someone like Higaonna Sensei or Bob Koga "touch you". You realize at that point, well after you are on the ground/helpless and not knowing how you even got there, "something really odd just happened and I cannot tell you how it happened....". You just have to experience it first hand and you will know what I am talking about. People like Higaonna can literally tear the skin off your body with his hands.
 
I have recently found out about a IOGKF Goju-ryu club in my city and wanted to give it a go. I know that Goju has different orgs with different sparring rules so I wanted to check what IOGKF does. I found a video from the 1991 IOGKF World Championship in Okinawa and another one from the 2013 IOGKF Canada Friendship Tournament... the difference blew my mind.

Goju-ryu people, could you please comment - how did IOGKF go from this:



to this:



Is it just me or do the guys from 1991 look WAY more solid than the supposed blackbelts in 2013? @LEGS MAHONEY ?

If I am not mistaken, the ref in the 2013 vid is IOGKF World Chief Instructor Tetsuji Nakamura himself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Okinawan_Gōjū-ryū_Karate-dō_Federation


Your not wrong the 1991 do seem more solid, the 2013 seem less solid. This is why I want to do karate, now that I'm seeing this from goju ryu, it doesn't seem like it will create a lot of bad habits. I just got to figure out the money situation.

Karate seems really fun especially karate combat, this seems like it's more of kickboxing though which is what i like really.
 
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Yeah there are a lot of guys who aren't the 1% that regularly train in MMA or it's sub-components and they are really no different than those that do TMA's. I think though for competition it might be a bit different. Out of all the combat sports - the biggest pay checks to be found are probably in boxing & MMA - so it's only natural that the top 1% of athletes will end up in these combat sports because this is where the money is.

I will say though that TMA's on a whole have done a better job of retaining practitioners over the long term and those systems tend to have a better understanding of longevity/training. I think a lot of combat sports haven't really been able to get a handle on the effects of wear/tear on longevity and therefore haven't done as well a job as some TMA's in keeping practitioners training to old age.

I mean how many 60 year olds do you see in your average MT or MMA class or even wrestling class? I think a lot of these styles haven't really got to grips with what long term training entails - in a way that TMA's already have. I mean you could probably find significantly more older people in TMA's like muay boran, karate, judo etc.

i think we all agree and are kinda talking about a few different topics at once but for the sake of typing a book it just sounded like he was down playing karate and hyping MMA. Like the random dude who comes into the gym and trains MMA is now so great, where in reality the time dedication, etc to compete in any of the sports, TKD, KK, MT, Boxing, Wrestling, its all very similar but yeah I know what you mean in regards to longevity in a TMA and agree with you.
 
Ok for some reason their using clinch knee's, what style is that?

i thought it was kyokushin but the guys channel says go kan ryu, one of the karate guys can probably tell us. Either way I like the guys channel and think he shows good techniques etc.
 
i thought it was kyokushin but the guys channel says go kan ryu, one of the karate guys can probably tell us. Either way I like the guys channel and think he shows good techniques etc.

I did not know that a karate style incorporates the clinch. I thought they just do leg trips and just underhook hip throws.
 
replace the word karate with all styles of fighting. This makes so much sense. This is why, everything is good. All martial arts are connected. Muay thai and wreslting having things in common even.

 
You probably have a tonne of kyokushin dojos to choose from. From what I remember Poland has a hell of a lot of kyokushin gyms (when I was training kyokushin) - not sure about now though.
Yeah, I've been to two in my city alone and there are some KK offshoots available as well. There's a ton of people training and often quite intensely. We had this one guy from Oyama Karate come to our Fudokan dojo once; after practice he challenged us to spar full contact to prove that his style was "the strongest". We politely declined. :p

Interesting sidenote: there is this KK shodan in the rural south Damian Laszuk who became fascinated with the original Okinawan roots and changed his curriculum completely to something much more self-defense oriented. He's also Gerard Gordeau's personal student in IBK (yeah, a bit controversial). He has one MMA win under his belt too.

https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/fighters/159656-damian-laszuk

His YT (in Polish): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCWLB0HBjFl5r6h7nzPlAyQ

He comes off as a bit of a chav (product of his environment I guess) but has some valuable things to say.
 
I did not know that a karate style incorporates the clinch. I thought they just do leg trips and just underhook hip throws.

-I too, when I first started Karate, had no idea of all the other tools incorporated by Traditional systems. Watch any video of Higaonna Sensei doing kakie or kata application, you will see lots of grabbing/clinching techniques. Also, the hojo undo exercises are for developing strong hands/fingers for grabbing/tearing.
 
replace the word karate with all styles of fighting. This makes so much sense. This is why, everything is good. All martial arts are connected. Muay thai and wreslting having things in common even.


At the end of the day we all have 4 limbs, there's only so much you can do.

What's cool is seeing the common points in styles, like how old school boxing had similarities to karate and wing chun
 
At the end of the day we all have 4 limbs, there's only so much you can do.

What's cool is seeing the common points in styles, like how old school boxing had similarities to karate and wing chun

exactly, theres only so much stuff the body can do, as he says in the video. I use that analogy alot comparing other animals when they fight for example. When 2 dogs fight, they fight they way their bodies are designed. Much like how fantasy martial arts are nonsense, for example, a dog is capable of doing a forward jumping somersault biting attack, but they dont because it makes no sense.
 
exactly, theres only so much stuff the body can do, as he says in the video. I use that analogy alot comparing other animals when they fight for example. When 2 dogs fight, they fight they way their bodies are designed. Much like how fantasy martial arts are nonsense, for example, a dog is capable of doing a forward jumping somersault biting attack, but they dont because it makes no sense.
"forward jumping somersault biting attack"?
<mma4>
gotta start training that shit
 
I have recently found out about a IOGKF Goju-ryu club in my city and wanted to give it a go. I know that Goju has different orgs with different sparring rules so I wanted to check what IOGKF does. I found a video from the 1991 IOGKF World Championship in Okinawa and another one from the 2013 IOGKF Canada Friendship Tournament... the difference blew my mind.

Goju-ryu people, could you please comment - how did IOGKF go from this:



to this:



Is it just me or do the guys from 1991 look WAY more solid than the supposed blackbelts in 2013? @LEGS MAHONEY ?

If I am not mistaken, the ref in the 2013 vid is IOGKF World Chief Instructor Tetsuji Nakamura himself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Okinawan_Gōjū-ryū_Karate-dō_Federation

Looks like different levels of competition...to me.
The 1991 tournament looked like it was held some where a bit nicer than a high school gym, which typically is a sign of low level competition in my experience
 
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