Shorin Ryu vs Goju Ryu

[Dark Shogun]

I've been wondering about this for some time...

[dingyuan]

I am someone with one Karate back ground but all I can say is that Shorin Ryu seems to be harder and much more linear than Goju Ryu and is very close to Shotokan with almost the same sets of katas. Goju Ryu uses complete different katas and is balanced between hard and soft styles.

[Dark Shogun]

Thanks dingyuan,

 

I study Okinawan Goju Ryu but I also studied Shotokan for a year.

 

I much prefer Goju Ryu to Shotokan so, if Shorin Ryu is similar to Shotokan I think I would prefer Goju Ryu.

[Ted T.]

Nah, I've trained both Shotokan and Shorin-ji Ryu karate while in an umbrellla organisation that included Goju.

 

Shorin-ji is higher in the stance than Shotokan and stresses an avoid his force precept so is softer. Goju is very hard in their kata but

 

hey,

 

they all spar the same!!!

[Master Jules]

Whoa !.......hold on a sec there.......Goju is most definetely NOT "hard" in the kata as you say Ted......in fact Goju means "hard/soft".....however this is misinterpreted by many people.....it doesnt mean either "all hard", or "all soft", but rather hard and soft at the same time......Im not sure what form of Goju you saw, but if youll pause for a second to read my lil mini bio there on the left......trust me when I tell you that when it comes to Goju, I have a pretty good idea whats what.....

[P.A.L]

I quote from Yuchoku Higa who been trained in both Goju-ryu and shorin-ryu , sensei Miyagi personally corrected his goju katas as a family friend and also been a student of shiroma (student of Itosu)and miyahira(student of kiyuna Pechin student of Matsumura)

 

This is from Mark Bishop book “Okinawan Karate “He says : “shorin ryu was originally named by anko itosu not choshin chibana,and is a natural style like walking along a road” he believes that both goju ryu and shorin ryu have strong points .shorin has natural stances which allows for free movements but does not have the knee kick of goju ryu or circular blocks later he criticize the weight training of goju …..

 

I think both shorin and goju are hard and soft styles , for example in shorin ryu

 

Your opponent comes in for a long punch to middle part of your body,

 

1- you may use a outside inside block using your ki without reaction hand which believe me can damage the opponent hand and turns his body and same hand strikes with middle augmented block to the temple

 

2- using white crane ,you turn to “L” stance both hands come out high(linear) palms toward your face the rear hand deflect the punch slightly ,now rear hand grabs the wrist and leading hand strike the near eye,

 

in shorin they say “ kick under , punch over the opponent hands”

 

one thing I like about the goju block is the palm direction , they are toward the opponent and can easily grab after blocking and pulls in. in shorin open hand middle block the palm is inward and after you have to push down by forearm while turning the palm down for a grab.

 

One thing about shorin people misunderstood is stances , the lowest stance we have is shiko dachi which only use for grappling rest of it is high natural stance in different angels. Shorin has nothing to do with shotokan and IMHO sensei funakoshi really killed the essence of okinawan karate by changing the katas.

[Master Jules]

PAL......

 

That is a very thorough and quite accurate post. I highly agree with your assessments and opinions all the way through.

[kotegashiNeo]

I agree with you PAL on the point about Funakoshi and I think shorin ryu is a powerful style I really think that if goju practioner got inside to close range fighting distance you would be in severe trouble but getting there might be a trick, The footwork in Shorin ryu is very effective and elusive so I think it would be a good match

[Dark Shogun]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

 

I asked the question becasuse I've recently been reading about karate history and about Soken Matsumura etc. So I got thinking on Shuri te, Shorin Ryu, Matsumura Ryu and all the other karate styles that are on the other side of the karate lineage from Naha te/Goju Ryu etc.

 

The above may not make sense, in any case, thanks again.

[P.A.L]

the problem is history,it is not very clear since it was not documented ,it seems shuri te started by Sakugawa but there is not much about his teacher (takahara?) or beside Kusanku kata that is said to had been created by sakugawa there are lots of other old advanced kata without origin ,now some of them are related to Matsumura but there are more, to my best knowledge shuri-te been heaveily affected by Tomari-te i think origin of many katas like chinto or wankan goes to tomari, these are some people compeletely out of Matsumura lineage ,some masters like Anan or oyadomari are the creator of some advanced which are a part of shuri-te now a days, now some katas are common between all of them like Anan betwwn shuri and Naha-te or the most famouse Seisan that you can find it almost every where with the same core but look different.

 

so if you gonna look into shuri te go search on Matsumura(Bushi) lineage and white crane karate also tomari te (search on Anan,Oyadomari, kosaku Matsumora) ,

 

now how about Naha-te? how clear is Naha-te before Higaonna?