If you had the choice, would you pick Goju-Ryu or Shotokan?

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Keej613

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A friend of mine has a choice: join Goju-Ryu Karate or Shotokan Karate.

I told him just to try them both out but he says that doing a few trials won't reveal the stuff that practitioners (current or former) would have to say about either style.

Which would you pick? And why?

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VS

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Honestly it depends on the school. The amount of deviation you get within styles and between schools is to big. For example, the school I train at (shotokan) is quite an old school karate dojo, lots of fitness, body hardening and a couple of our students hold regional amy titles is k1 rules kickboxing and american rules. Most of us compete in knock down karate as well. There is another shotokan school that trains in the same hall as us and they are the complete opposite, lots of katas, and basic stretching with very little sparring.
There is also a goju school in my area but it is similar to the shotokan school only with different katas. I don't have first hand experience with goju but we have had a lot of tough goju guys show up at our dojo. And as an aside our current -83kg National amy K1 kickboxing champ is a goju blackbelt. Which school your friend chooses also depends on his goals in martial arts.
 
Whoever does more full contact sparring. They'll be the ones who can actually fight.
 
Both styles of karate are completely different, depends on what your friend wants. Range is different (Goju range is closer than shotokan) & tactics are slightly different as well, slightly different kata (like tensho my favourite & sanchin) but overall the mechanics are similar.

I think your friend should go to both & see which provides better instruction & use that to determine which to go for, you can usually tell how good an instructor is in a few lessons because instruction is what it comes down to ---- karate is karate.
 
In my experience, the Shotokan dojos produce a lot more tournament fighters, while Goju-Ryu dojos produce a lot more street savvy fighters. However, my experience means beans because there's so many terrible dojos in America.

Also, I don't want to complicate things, but there is a difference between "JKA Goju" (which looks more like Shotokan) and "Okinawan Goju" (which looks more like Kyokushin). So... yeah. Perhaps if you were asking what he wanted to get OUT of the experience, some of us could give you more information, but if the question is "shotokan vs goju" then the answer is "go for the trial an see."

Goju has cooler katas, if it means anything.
 
It's Okinawan Goju-Ryu, so does that mean that it might be similar to knockdown styles?
 
If i had the choice, I would go with Shotokan. But that is a tough decision.
 
It's Okinawan Goju-Ryu, so does that mean that it might be similar to knockdown styles?

Well, might is the right word.
It's not exactly like Kyokushin in terms of training and competition, but conceptually, yes. It's closer, it involves more 'iron body' training, and there's a little more grappling. Less movement oriented like Shoto, Shito and the ilk.

But you know, this is karate in America... you could be getting Taebo for all I know.
 
In my experience, the Shotokan dojos produce a lot more tournament fighters, while Goju-Ryu dojos produce a lot more street savvy fighters. However, my experience means beans because there's so many terrible dojos in America.

Also, I don't want to complicate things, but there is a difference between "JKA Goju" (which looks more like Shotokan) and "Okinawan Goju" (which looks more like Kyokushin). So... yeah. Perhaps if you were asking what he wanted to get OUT of the experience, some of us could give you more information, but if the question is "shotokan vs goju" then the answer is "go for the trial an see."

Goju has cooler katas, if it means anything.

I've never heard about "JKA Goju" (JKA is a Shotokan org) but maybe you were speaking figuratively - like "modern Japanese" Goju vs "old Okinawan" Goju?

I will agree about the tournament fighters (Shotokan) vs street savvy fighters (Goju) point. Shotokan is mostly point-sparring in competition, with many orgs focusing on sport and medals rather than real fighting skill, it can be a lot of fun though. Old-school Goju dojos tend to train harder and spar harder so it will probably be more challenging and more effective in the end.

This may be a surprise coming from a Shotokan guy but if both dojos are legit - do Goju.

PS. Links to dojo websites would help - if they exist.

But you know, this is karate in America... you could be getting Taebo for all I know.
Good point as well. :p
 
Both comes in too many suborganizations, with too many different ways to train, to say anything in general.

However, if the goju dojo is into Irikumi go (hard continous freesparring), Ill take that in a heartbeat.
 
Both comes in too many suborganizations, with too many different ways to train, to say anything in general.

However, if the goju dojo is into Irikumi go (hard continous freesparring), Ill take that in a heartbeat.


Looks great. Did I see (attempted) head punches?

BTW I like the full contact sparring solution in Kudo. No head punches in regular knockdown rules is a serious issue IMHO.
 
Both comes in too many suborganizations, with too many different ways to train, to say anything in general.

However, if the goju dojo is into Irikumi go (hard continous freesparring), Ill take that in a heartbeat.


Interesting. From my understanding Goju-Ryu is closer to the original Okinawa styles of karate with the iron body training and full contact sparring. While Shotokan is more of a water downed Japanese version which is geared towards sport. That being said I would choose Goju-Ryu but I could be completely wrong and I'm not the most knowledgeable person on the subject. However it really comes down to the school as there are a lot of mcdojos out there.
 
Why look for knockdown in traditional karate arts that do not promote that type of kumite and conditioning on a regular basis?

You may find a organization that promotes that type of conditioning and sparring during special training sessions.

The conditioning and full contact sparring sessions will be so irregular that you are better off in another style that promotes that type of activity on a daily basis.

Why is your friend limiting himself to these two traditional karate? Why not Kyokushin which is basically the sum of the two + knockdown kumite and conditioning?
 
This isn't coming from a Karate guy, but... if the Goju school employs that kind of traditional sparring, I'd say it'd be more helpful in the long run than Shotokan's JKA-style point sparring. Not that point sparring doesn't have benefits, but going from point-fighting to full-contact is always an eye-opener when you suddenly realize you don't know how to fight after taking a punch.
 
I've never heard about "JKA Goju" (JKA is a Shotokan org) but maybe you were speaking figuratively - like "modern Japanese" Goju vs "old Okinawan" Goju?

This is what I meant, but if I say that, there's no way someone would know what I am talking about. If it belongs to the JKA, it has been modernized for the Shoto-centric JKA tournaments. if it belongs to something like the IOGKF or WOKO, then it's probably more like the original Okinawan design.

Interesting. From my understanding Goju-Ryu is closer to the original Okinawa styles of karate with the iron body training and full contact sparring. While Shotokan is more of a water downed Japanese version which is geared towards sport. That being said I would choose Goju-Ryu but I could be completely wrong and I'm not the most knowledgeable person on the subject. However it really comes down to the school as there are a lot of mcdojos out there.

Well, depends on if the Goju school is based around the JKA, but generally yes, a lot of old-school Goju schools tried to fight the whole Karate Olympic bid and kept a little bit more hardcore attitude. "Close to the original" is a bit of a loaded statement though, there wasn't much of a thing as original okinawan karate.


There was a school I used to go to in Queens (Sensei would like to take us around to other dojos and train there) that did sparring SIMILAR to that, certainly no knees but they liked to kick to the leg.. but what's so upsetting to see is that the contact in that video doesn't seem like anything new to me. The schools in both Lawrence an Ozone park, we'd spar with that contact once we got to a black belt level. THAT'S super hard contact for Karate? Really?
 
This is what I meant, but if I say that, there's no way someone would know what I am talking about. If it belongs to the JKA, it has been modernized for the Shoto-centric JKA tournaments. if it belongs to something like the IOGKF or WOKO, then it's probably more like the original Okinawan design.



Well, depends on if the Goju school is based around the JKA, but generally yes, a lot of old-school Goju schools tried to fight the whole Karate Olympic bid and kept a little bit more hardcore attitude. "Close to the original" is a bit of a loaded statement though, there wasn't much of a thing as original okinawan karate.


There was a school I used to go to in Queens (Sensei would like to take us around to other dojos and train there) that did sparring SIMILAR to that, certainly no knees but they liked to kick to the leg.. but what's so upsetting to see is that the contact in that video doesn't seem like anything new to me. The schools in both Lawrence an Ozone park, we'd spar with that contact once we got to a black belt level. THAT'S super hard contact for Karate? Really?

Jukai, do you train hip tossing as part of Karate sparring? I noticed in that video. One thing I'm envious of as a Muay Thai guy is karate's sweeps. They have more creative sweeps than most Thai schools.
 
I have trained with Shotokan karate experts, teachers, and all in all I thought they were quite skilled martial artists. While Ive never trained with a Goju practitioner, I have seen enough of the art to know I would definitely be interested in training in it. The closest Shotokan school is an hour away from me, a little too far to travel two or three times a week to for my taste and the closest karate school is an American karate junk school which I want no part of. Sorry to any American karate practitioners if I offended you lol.
 
Jukai, do you train hip tossing as part of Karate sparring? I noticed in that video. One thing I'm envious of as a Muay Thai guy is karate's sweeps. They have more creative sweeps than most Thai schools.

We did, although it wasn't exactly a focus because a) rule changes in both the JKA and WKF change the legality of throws all the time and b) because of the distance of Shotokan, we were much more about the foot sweeps and trips. Our dojo specifically practiced those like crazy. Nowadays, throws are a little more common.
 
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