How Gojukido can change your life....
Ai Imawa
| Ai Imawa is a series of postures and movements integrating many of the martial arts disciplines of the East into a new form of mental and physical alertness and efficiency. It is 'the way of the empty hand," the way that Larry Kishiyama has studied and perfected all his life, a "soft" form of karate known as go-ju-ki-do (hard-soft-spirit-way). After years of teaching the postures and forms (kata) that lead to a calming balance of mind-spirit-body in judo and karate clubs, sports organizations, police departments, and colleges and universities, as well as other large groups, Mr. Kishiyama is now mining his attention to personalized, one-on-one training and small groups. |  |
He offers the way of go-ju-ki-do to professionals, managers, and other business people who find that the stresses of their business lives are hurting their mental, spiritual, emotional, and even physical health. The way of Mr. Kishiyama, although building strength, is not a strain. It creates peace of mind through activity, calmness through alertness, speed through relaxation, and power through concentration. It is the way of centuries of wisdom in the East, and as East meets West in the new global economy, it is a way that works to meet the everyday challenges American business people are facing in their broadened professional life.
Background
Mr. Kishiyama grew up in the ranching and farming countryside around Cheyenne, Wyoming. His father, a jujitsu and judo sensei and a farmer, taught him from the age of 5 to use his mind and body in tandem--his mind to strengthen his body and his body to relax his mind "Wherever I have gone since my 12 years' training with my father," Kishiyama says, "I have searched for other teachers who could extend my knowledge of technique and the spirituality behind the technique. The masters, I have are those who have a great joy in living, a great sense of humor.
They know that the past and the future are not separate from the moment." Kishiyama began his formal training with Nishiyama Hidetaka, a forth-degree black-belt karate master who was the all-Japan karate champion in the 1960s and was teaching at the Crenshaw Center in Los Angeles when Larry met him as a young man. "From him learned flexibility and speed through relaxation," he says.
The next stop on Kishiyama's journey was Honolulu, where he studied with two masters: Oshiro Masaichi (Go Ju Kai, Karate) and "Professor a Chinese teacher of kung fu or long boxing. "From Oshiro I learned the easy breathing forms, and from Lau I learned the horse stances, the postures in the martial arts that help you develop internal strength from a strong foundation," says Kishiyama.
The kung fu experience in Honolulu heightened Kishiyama's interest in hand techniques and in developing flexibility from the waist up. He went to Phoenix, where, under the management of Provo Katona, he worked out with such world-ranked boxers as Alton Colter of Arizona and Canadian feather-weight champion Billy McGrandle of Edmonton.|
Further travels in search of teachers led Kishiyama to San Francisco, where he took private instruction from Kuo Lien Ying, the internationally known Chinese master of many martial arts and Tai Chi Chuan "He had a happy, joyful, giving spirit." says Kishiyama. "I had a lot of the go or hard strength in me, and he helped me soften this energy" |
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