Farewell Announcement

2011-10-13T04:56:00.000-07:00

As most of you already know, this blog is no more. I sincerely wish to thank everybody who has taken the time to read my ramblings over the past 5 years. The amount of interest that this blog has generated has been quite overwhelming and came as a big surprise to me. I really hope that you found something of interest within the pages, or at the very least found something to generate a little thought into what you are doing, or not doing perhaps.

Writing this blog has been probably more educational for me than anybody reading it. It has allowed me to look deeper into my own practise and helped me to grapple with the question of what karate really is. I still do not feel close to answering this question, but I hope that I am now heading along the right path to find my own answers. Doing this has also brought me into contact with people all over the world and I have made many new friends because of it. The world is a much smaller place now due to the internet, and to say that the sky is our dojo roof is no exaggeration.

So why finish now?

Doing this blog has been a double edged sword in many ways. On the one hand it has allowed me to investigate the true nature of karatedo, but on the other hand it has put me in a position where some people look to me for answers and given me a platform to voice my opinions. I am a 30 year old boy and am in no position to be offering advice to anyone. It has also caused me to become fairly well known within the Goju Ryu community, and having seen the effects of becoming a minor karate celebrity in certain other people, I have no desire to follow along this path. In closing this blog I will be stepping back into the shadows where I can concentrate fully on my family, my training, and my students. This may read a little egotistical of me to be writing this, but this is truthfully how I feel at this point.

This does not mean that I am putting down the pen for good, I will just be a lot more private about it from now on. I have a couple of books in the pipeline, including The Essence of Goju Ryu - Vol 2 with my teacher Richard Barrett sensei which we hope to release quietly in a couple of years time to be found by anybody who wants them.

In coming to this decision one quote kept going around in my head. It was the words of Higaonna Morio sensei who compared practising kata to like trying to grasp a cloud. I now feel I know what the true nature of karate is, but trying to possess it is something which is proving very difficult.

I wish you all the best of luck in your training. Thank you for joining me on this journey.

Gambatte!

Goju Kenkyukai

Farewell Announcement