This small place had seen the best of Gojuryu’s original senior students be trained and it
struck me even more when I pictured a young
Higaonna Sensei walking through the gate for
his first ever lesson, right before meeting Anichi
Sensei for the first time. This is really where it
all started.
Chojun Miyagi Sensei was a great believer in
the power of nature. He felt at peace with it and
as regularly as once a month he would travel
north to areas such as Nago to immerse himself
in nature, finding energy in its many waterfalls
and flowing rivers and meditating in its calm
surrounding forests. So it is no surprise he had
no issue with doing a majority of his training
outdoors.
It does make a lot of sense when you think that
confrontation away from the Dojo could happen
outdoors and away from level ground. Perhaps
all this outdoors training is why Chojun Miyagi
was such a devastating fighter and was never
really defeated throughout his life.
The surprising addition to the story of Chojun
Miyagi Sensei and the Garden Dojo is that he
was actually quite wealthy and was head of his
families company for some time. He probably
did have the funds to build a Dojo somewhere,
but he simply chose to stay home and train in
the backyard.