Which is the best? Goju-Ryu, or Uechi-Ryu, or Kyokushin or what?

Mider1985

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I mean i see alot of smiliarities in the training of Goju and Uechi Ryu, Ive seen the Uechi Ryu masters use the iron body, basically striking there students in various area's all over making them strong enough to take a 2 by four to there body and not budging, they use the pots to make there fingers strong and they are able to break boards with them, They make there wrists strong and are able to break baseball bats.

Ive seen the same pots used in Goju, but ive also seen the stone hammer, and other weights, that go on the feet, neck, and hands. I dont know if Goju has the same iron body as Uechi though i havent seen it.

Kyokushin has iron body as well similar to Uechi

So whats the diffrence between these arts? Which art is better for modern defense? Which makes the body stronger and which makes you faster?
 

Aiki Lee

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I agree with the above post.

Since they are all karate styles they will all appear similar in some ways. I believe that all three are effective in what they teach so it all comes down to what you are looking for. I'd recommend you look up their histories on wikipedia and see which ones sound the most interesting and then see which is closer to you.

I forgot who said this but it's a good quote. "There are no superior martial arts, only superior martial artists."
 

Tez3

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forget them...Wado Ryu!!!:)

"There are no superior martial arts, only superior martial artists." Well said that man!
 

repz

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Kyokushin is more of a sport, I trained in it for a while I rarely did self defense training. But they bash each other good, using real world power (barely any protection, only to build up to no protection). They are strong and are used to live one on one encounters, its hard to go toe to toe with a kyokushin. Only problem, is that to safetly bash each other up they needed to give up face punching, which leaves a huge hole when it comes to applying it on the street since most people head hunt with fists (I still doubt they can take a kyokushin though). Kyokushin is a mix of goju and shotokan, though you only see it in the kata.

Goju has soft movements plsu hard (its in the name), parries and the like. Isshin Ryu I dont know much about. But both have strong self defense elements. Some train in point karate tournaments, which in a lot of ways is opposite to kyokushin tournaments (they rely on speed, evasion, avoiding blows (which means giving away a point), and none on conditoning (though they do conditioning exericises) since they are not allowed to hit full contact (rules vary though) while kyokushin is about taking the punishment, about power, and knocking the other out in the war of attrition).

I used to train in Kyokushin, but I'd prefer Goju Ryu.
 

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In a life and death situation, whoever lands the first sufficient technique, with good follow up, wins. That be the best. Other then that, Okinawan GoJu, I would say.
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Mider1985

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Is there an art that incorperates all the techniques of Goju, Kyokushin, and Uechi?
 

72ronin

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Most Karate has similar techniques, its the Kata that differentiates styles.

Mas Oyama of Kyokushin can be seen performing an awesome Tensho on you-tube, this is a GoJu Kata also.
I believe Kyokushin also practice Seiunchin, another GoJu Kata etc etc.

I cannot comment on Uechi ryu but i think if it has a "ryu" in the name then generaly speaking it may be from Okinawa therefor also practice similar kata to GoJu..
 

David43515

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I cannot comment on Uechi ryu but i think if it has a "ryu" in the name then generaly speaking it may be from Okinawa therefor also practice similar kata to GoJu..

"ryu" just means style, and it`s used in any Okinawan or Japanese martial art. It doesn`t mean Karate and it doesn`t mean the style is Okinawan.
 
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Mider1985

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Most Karate has similar techniques, its the Kata that differentiates styles.

Mas Oyama of Kyokushin can be seen performing an awesome Tensho on you-tube, this is a GoJu Kata also.
I believe Kyokushin also practice Seiunchin, another GoJu Kata etc etc.

I cannot comment on Uechi ryu but i think if it has a "ryu" in the name then generaly speaking it may be from Okinawa therefor also practice similar kata to GoJu..

Uechi is pretty intense if your serious about training it...........the traditional training includes carrying 50 pound pots that you have to grip with your fingers, thus they make your fingers stronger, eventually your fingers can break boards, your toes can do the same, after years of training iron body your master will be able to break boards off you and strike you in the stomach, neck, and even the back of yoru legs
 

Laus

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Well I started out in Goju and am now in Kyokushin, not because I disliked anything about Goju but because I moved to a new city and there is no Goju here. We don't spend a lot of time on kata in Kyokushin. They are required to test, but once you know them you are expected to practice them on your own time, and we only do them in class once a week, if that. So I miss that about Goju, but fortunately my instructor lets me hang around after class to practice what I brought with me. On the other hand, I am really appreciating all the drilling and sparring. My fighting skills were something I always felt were seriously underpracticed in Goju. Pretty much the opposite of Kyokushin, sparring was something that was left by the wayside sometimes for weeks at a time at my Goju dojo. Interestingly we did a lot of Shotokan kata as well there, so Kyokushin is in many ways a natural fit for me, since it combines the two styles I am most familiar with and we practice kata from both. It wasn't intentional, but it feels as if I have progressed naturally into it.

I don't know much about Uechi Ryu, but as I understand it, it has similar origins to Goju, as both evolved in part out of Southern Chinese styles including Chinese Nanpa Shorin-ken, and then continued to develop in the Naha region of Okinawa, evidently evolving simultaneously but separately. The Naha connection explains why both practice many of the same Naha-descended kata anyways. I remember seeing Saifa and Seiunchin on a list of Uechi kata once, among others. Sanseiru probably as well. Speaking of that list I remember noticing that they practice kata that would I would consider standard to Shotokan as well (plus a whole lot I've never heard of). Perhaps Uechi has some connection to Itosu's lineage, as much of both Goju and Shotokan can be traced to him.
 

dancingalone

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Speaking of that list I remember noticing that they practice kata that would I would consider standard to Shotokan as well (plus a whole lot I've never heard of). Perhaps Uechi has some connection to Itosu's lineage, as much of both Goju and Shotokan can be traced to him.


Which kata are you referring to? Okinawan Goju-ryu (and Uechi-Ryu too) has no forms in common with Shotokan karate at all. The 'canon' kata for Goju are Sanchin, Gekisai 1 & 2, Saifa, Seiunchin, Shishochin, Sanseiru, Seipai, Kururunfa, Seisan, and Suparinpei. Uechi-Ryu has Sanchin, Kanshiwa, Kanshu, Seichin, Seisan, Seirui, Kanchin, and Sanseiru.

Out of those kata, Shotokan does perform a version of Seisan called Hangetsu, but it is quite different from the Goju version. Some Japanese Goju schools have adopted variations of the Taikyoku kata that Gichin Funakoshi created. If that what you are talking about?
 
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Laus

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I didn't mean they are part of the Goju curriculum, just that we trained them at that dojo. The Sensei was keen on training kata foreign to the style and had a few at each rank that we were expected to learn, though they were not emphasized as strongly as the Goju core. He didn't always explain the lineage but he was clear they weren't Goju. Some of what I know about them comes from him, some from friends who train other styles and some from research.

Of the one's I've gotten the most explanation for, we did the Tekki forms, which I didn't know were done in Shotokan until I saw a Shotokan friend do one, recognized it and asked him about it. We called them Nihanshi. Also several Meikyo (which we called Rohai) and Hangetsu. We called Hangetstu Shorinji Seisan, distinguishing it from the one practiced in Goju I suppose.

As to why we were doing them, from what I was taught, the Rohai and Nihanshi forms came from the Itosu lineage (taught by him if not originating with him), but while they ended up being carried into Shotokan they didn't carry into Goju, and the names they carry now are the Japanese ones given to them while Funakoshi was setting up shop in Japan. I'm unclear about the lineage of Hangetsu, though the shorinji prefix is a clue I suppose. At any rate they were included in our curriculum for historical value as part of our lineage, a long with a few others.

As for some of both Goju and Shotokan kata being included in that Uechi ryu curriculum, they just happened to be on the list I happened to come across doing some research one day. I don't know the first thing about Uechi and wouldn't know what their core kata are, but I wondered if the ones I did recognize might have been on that list for the same reasons that my Goju Sensei taught us kata that were not technically Goju (if it was because they were part of their lineage).
 

dancingalone

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My own teacher also taught some Shuri forms in addition to Goju-ryu when you had advanced far enough. He emphasized that the way you performed them are different from the way the core Goju forms were played however.
 

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