Meibukan Goju-ryu
明武舘剛柔流The Okinawan branch of Goju-ryu founded in 1952 by Meitoku Yagi. It added its own set of kata named after the four guardians.
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About Meibukan Goju-ryu
Meibukan Goju-ryu is the Okinawan branch of Goju-ryu founded in 1952 by Meitoku Yagi (6 March 1912 – 7 February 2003) with the opening of a dojo in the Daido district of Naha. The name Meibukan means roughly "house of the noble warrior". Yagi began training under Chojun Miyagi, the founder of Goju-ryu, in 1927, at the age of fourteen. The period and the circumstances are worth noting: Miyagi accepted students very sparingly at the time and taught in small groups, so Yagi belonged to the narrow circle that received the method directly from its source. What distinguishes the branch is its own set of kata. Classical Goju-ryu rests on the forms inherited from Miyagi and new ones are not usually added; in the 1970s and 1980s Yagi created the Meibuken series, which includes Tenchi, heaven and earth, and a group of four named after the guardians of the cardinal directions in Chinese mythology: Seiryu, the blue dragon of the east, Byakko, the white tiger of the west, Suzaku, the red phoenix of the south, and Genbu, the black tortoise of the north. This addition is also the main reason Meibukan is carried as a separate branch rather than merely a club. Recognition came from outside the martial arts as well. On 29 April 1986 Emperor Hirohito named Meitoku Yagi a Living National Treasure for his contribution to the martial arts — an honour a karateka receives only exceptionally. Yagi died in 2003 at the age of ninety, and the line is continued by his sons.
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