Black Dragon Goju Karate

[Draven]

I've been talking with a instructor from South Africa, he is teaching something called Black Dragon Goju Karate. I was woundering if anyone has heard of it? The school was kind enough to send me a sylibus of the system, and brief history.

White Belt: Basic Techniques, First Form (Chi Kung-ish), Wieght Training (Sand Bags), & Meditation...

Yellow Belt: 5 animal short forms, kettle training, Iron Body, Striking Post...

Orange Belt: 1 & 3 Step Forms, Full Contact Free Sparring, Board Breaking

Red Belt: 5 animal long forms, Staff, Tonfa, 6 months Asst. Instructor

Brown Belt: Sai, Kama & Nunchuku, 1 year Asst Instructor Time

Black Belt: Dim Mak (Nine Punches), 24 Major Nerve Clusters & 7 major bone stress locations

Core Principles:
1- Block Soft/Strike Hard
2- Circle to the Opponent's Rear
3- Distict Before Attacking
4- Focus on the opponent's "root" (feet)
5- All power comes from the hips
6- Attack the opponent's limbs to wear him down (Hard Blocks and Grappling)
7-Defend one's back
8- Closest natural weapon to closest natural target
9- Never Strike without a target
10-Attack High to open low, Attack low to open high
11- Defend by attacking & attack by defending
12- Energy flows in a circle

[WC_Lun]

Looks like more kung fu wanna be. If you want kung fu, train kung fu. If you want karate, then train karate. Obviously there is no way to tell if the training is effective from a sylybus.

[souldrum71]

Never heard of that particular style, but I have seen and visited several schools called Black Dragon Karate and Black Eagle Karate.
It looks like a blending of several martial arts, and, WC is right, it appears to have more in common with kung fu than with karate.

[nykaratelvr23]

It sounds like a version of Shaolin Kempo but with a different name.

[Draven]

Well in general Goju Ryu has allot in common with Kung-fu and was heavily influenced by it particularly White Crane. The history says the instructor mixed something called Black Dragon Gung-fu with Goju Karate. And even spent sometime watching Komodo Dragons to perfect the Dragon Kung-fu.

[WC_Lun]

When I hear things like this it raises a lot of skeptisim in my mind.

[Draven]

Originally Posted by WC_Lun

When I hear things like this it raises a lot of skeptisim in my mind.

The date of inception is 195?, so its a modern system. The originator believed the Dragon was a folk expansion of aligators and monitor lizards so he watched them for a few months to get a better prospective on the "dragon aspect" of the system.

[SirokiFighter]

Black Dragon is a Uniform Brand...

Many Mainland Goju schools use this brand.

[shendoboy]

not true... goju ryu is taken from fujian white crane kung fu and whooping crane kung fu

[Chad]

Hey man, welcome to the forums and all, I just thought that I should let you know that you should check the last time someone posted on the thread, because it is rather annoying for the rest of us.