"Goju Karate-do : The Evolution Of A Martial Art"
by Sarah Daley
The history of Goju Ryu Karate-Do continues to this day. It is a work in progress and continues to grow and change as its practitioners grow and change. Though its foundations stem from the ancient its current form was developed by Chojun Miyagi in the early twentieth century. Ours is a modern art, another step in the evolution of a dynamic tradition.
Like the art itself, the name "karate" has undergone changes over the years. According to Bruce Haines, author of Karate’s History and Traditions , the current ideograph used to denote karate is a development of the twentieth century. (Haines, 20) The original ideograph used is the symbol for the T’ang dynasty. This character could be read either as "to" or "kara" and was used as an adjective meaning "China". "Te" meant, and continues to mean "hand" and was used to denote a fighting art originating in Okinawa strongly resembling the karate of today. (Haines, 20) In 1936 an Okinawan newspaper called Ryukyu Shimpo Sha brought together the karate masters of the time: Yabu, Kiyamu, Motobu, Miyagi and Hagani. At that meeting they decided to dispense with the old ideograph and to adopt the current form meeting "empty". This change was an attempt (in Haines’ opinion) to dissociate the art from its Chinese roots and also to show the connection to Buddhist philosophy by using the term "empty". (Haines, 21) In the words of Patrick McCarthy: "as such, kara not only represented the physical but also embraced the metaphysical; the deeper plane of an ancient Mahayana Buddhist doctrine surrounding detachment, spiritual emancipation, and the world within (inner void)". (McCarthy, 56) This change in the name, that which is used to define and describe the art, shows that evolution is a fundamental element of karate.
Goju Ryu as we know it today was not developed in isolation and the name evolved as the style developed. Chojun Miyagi’s primary Sensei, Higaonna, called his style Shorei-Ryu (Enlightened Spirit Style) but it was commonly referred to as Naha-te.(Bishop, 26)
Miyagi later went to China to study zen as well as White Crane gongfu. In the words of Richard Kim in Weaponless Warriors he then incorporated the "shorei movements with Zen breathing as he had learned in China" (Kim,100). In Okinawan Karate Mark Bishop describes how the name Goju came to be used. He says that during a demonstration in Japan, Jinan Shinzato one of Miyagi’s top students was asked the name of the style. As the story goes, Miyagi replied...