Club History

 

I (Guss) started training Judo in 1973 at the age of 10 in the UK. I continued training until I left for Sweden in 1982. I also started training The Praying Mantis Kung Fu under a Chinese friend of mine in 1978. He soon tired of teaching me advanced Kung Fu techniques, as I had no idea how to do the basics properly, and suggested that I start training at a proper club.

 

That is when (in 1979) I started training Goju Ryu Karate at the Bugeikan Club in the south of England under Sensei Rick Woodhams (7th Dan). I graded 3 times before I left the club and moved to Sweden to do my compulsory military service in 1982. This is where I met my wife, and we trained Chinese Wu Shu (The 5 animals' style) together in Stockholm under Sifu Louis Lin. We returned to the south of England in 1984 and once again took up Goju Ryu Karate at the Bugeikan, this time under Sensei Kevin Fox (4th Dan). My wife, Helena, and I graded to 1st Dan in 1988. We returned to Sweden in 1989 and continued training Okinawan Goju Ryu under Sensei Hiromi Suzuki (6th Dan) in Stockholm.

 

We left Suzuki to open up our own club in the beginning of 1990. We were thoroughly scrutinised before being accepted and recognised by the Swedish Budo Federation. We also affiliated our club directly to the newly formed Federation of Goju Ryu Karate in England. The Federation of Goju Ryu Karate was formed in 1990 by Sensei Kevin Fox, Dave Morris and Mike Clarke. It was shortly after this that the FGK became exposed to some of Ichikawa's interpretations of the Goju style and this exposure greatly influenced and changed the direction of the development of our style. Helena and I graded to 2nd Dan in 1991 and I then graded to 3rd Dan in 1994 (Helena was pregnant). We graded both times in England for a grading panel lead by Sensei Kevin Fox.

 

We continued to successfully run our club in Stockholm (Sweden), called The Okinawan Bugeikan Karate Club, until November 1996 when we moved to New Zealand. During that time our club continued to expand and we managed to grade 5 people to 1st Dan. Our top student, Fredrik Yderström, has been living in China for the past 4 years, studying Martial Arts, and works there as a reporter for the Swedish Fighters Magazine. Another one of our students (Göran Kirsch) took over the running of our club in Sweden when we moved to NZ. 

 

We joined Ichikawa's student Sensei Tadahiko Otsuka's style of Goju-Kensha Karate here in Hamilton under Sensei Bruce Morgan (1st Dan) on moving to NZ and continued to train with them until we opened up our own NZ club in January 1998. Until recently (2008), our club was a member of Karate New Zealand. Helena was graded to third Dan and I was graded to fourth Dan by a Karate New Zealand grading panel made up of Dennis May (8th Dan), Len Monk (7th Dan) and Bob Dalton (6th Dan) in June 1999. After 11-years of membership we have now decided to resign our membership of Karate New Zealand and go it alone...to form our own organisation under the name of The Federation of Goju Ryu Karate (NZ) where membership is open to any like-minded karate clubs.