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History
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHINESE
FIST ART Oriental self-defense art has a very long history, it is also known as martial arts. Its goal is to preserve health and discipline, to push the practitioner's potential to the highest level Chinese martial arts have more than a thousand years of history. There isn't an agreed say about where this ancient art originated. It is believed that one of the empty hand fighting fist-art was introduced into China from India during the sixth century. About 519DC, the founder of Zen Buddhism, Bodhi Dharma, traveled to North China from South India to introduce Buddhism. The Lord of the North China was not fond of Bodhi Dharma's preaching, therefore Bodhi Dharma crossed the Yang Tze River and settled down in the Shao Lin Temple where he undertook the form of meditation known as "nine years facing the wall". The unique breathing of such a kind of meditation and the art of the preservation of health which he taught his disciples laid the foundation to the Shao Lin Temple's martial art, and thus had a marked influence on Chinese theories of fighting methods. Most of the Shao Lin fist art at that time was created by imitating the shapes and movement of the animals such as the dragon-shape, tiger-shape and jaguar-shape... In 1609 the Chinese fist-art was introduced to Okinawa from Fu-Jian. At that time, the Japanese martial art masters usually named their schools by the name of the city where they lived, such as: Tomari Te (泊 手), Shuri Te (首里手), and Naha Te (那霸手). They were all called as Tang Hand or Chinese Hand (唐手) in general. The powerful lord, Satsuma of Japan banned all the military class and confiscated all arms in order to ensure his power and control. For this reason the combative techniques of Okinawa, which have been handed down to the present day, use only the stick, the club, and the empty hand (karate). In ancient times, the martial art masters had very strict rules to recognize their students. Only a person of sterling and noble character would be accepted as their student. For this reason a lot of precious martial art techniques are now extinct because of a lack of suitable students. THE STYLE The style ofkarate that we practice is Okinawa Gojuryu. Miyagi Chojun Sensei is the individual who originated this martial art on the island of Okinawa in Japan. Directly translated, Gojuryu is known as the hard-soft style. Go, meaning hard; ju meaning soft; and ryu meaning style. THE MEANING OF KUGEKAI Ku means bridge. A bridge serves as a connector between two different places and allows people who are committed towards a common goal to come together. The bridge serves its role regardless of harsh weather and adverse conditions. Bridge, therefore, symbolizes the spirit of Karate: perseverance and endurance of hardship. Ge means governing. All the members work together to govern/manage the association. Kai means an association. Kugekai, therefore, symbolizes a spirit which unifies and motivates people who have a common goal in Karate to manage the association with courage, faith and perseverance.
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