During the last ten years, I have visited various countries around the globe in Asia,
Europe, Africa, Euro Asia, North and South America and the Oceania regions. I
was quite impressed by the level of Karate and their enthusiasm in each country.
Since Higaonna Sensei's first overseas trip to the USA in 1968 at the age of thirty
nine, he has travelled around the world to drop the seeds of this intangible culture
in many countries. After some forty years, now those seeds have grown into solid
trees and have spread their roots in each country's soil.
Sensei Bakkies (South Africa), Sensei Mistry (India), Sensei Lam (China) are all
celebrating their fiftieth anniversary of Karate training this year. EGKA (England)
just celebrated their 40th anniversary last October, so too will Sensei Henrik
(Denmark) for his forty years of karate training next year. Due to the hard work of
these senior instructors (and we have even more in our organization), the IOGKF
became the biggest and strongest traditional Okinawa Karate organization in the
world.
I have also seen quite a few young instructors in many countries who are training
hard and are committed to teaching traditional Okinawa Goju Ryu. I believe the
future of our organization is very bright.
Due to the purpose and character of our organization, we won't grow bigger overnight. We have to make sure that we keep the quality of our members. We should
grow slowly, but steadily, making sure that we teach our members the proper techniques and philosophy of Okinawa Goju Ryu as founded by Sensei Chojun Miyagi
and passed down to us through Sensei Morio Higaonna, and Sensei Anichi Miyagi
before him.
We are living in an internet age where people can get information straight away.
Anybody can see Higaonna Sensei's Kata and techniques on YouTube. There is a
lot of information about our style on the internet. We should use this technology
wisely. But not let this technology fool us. After all, if you don't actually train hard
under a good instructor, you won't improve. "Look! Listen! And Sweat!" This
phrase should still sound fresh to all of us.
I am looking forward to train with in the near future.