There are several books about the Kojo-ryu, and I would like to examine what is written about it. From the old books, we have Karate-do Kyohan, written by Tominakoshi (Funakoshi) Gichin, published on May 25, 1935 (Karate-do Kyohan Reprint, May 26, 1985, published by. Kazusa Co.) The text is in Volume 1, Chapter 3. History of Karate, page 9, last two lines. The contents are as follows.
In the above book, he wrote about an interview he conducted with the Kojo family in the 1970s, accompanied by an interpreter. It seems that he came from England to interview him at a time when almost no Japanese had come to talk to him about Karate. The photo of the 12 stances of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac were taken by Mr. Tatsumi Kojo. Now they are invaluable photos. The neko-ashi-dachi is very low. Foreign researchers have been enthusiastic since then. The book is still available on the Amazon site today.
Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” It seems there is no shortage of Karateka and Kobudoka demonstrating kata they clearly never had any formal instruction in. It seems that when they post these videos, the teaching of humility conveniently vanished; or maybe it was never taken to heart in the first place.
The first visit was in the summer of 1973 when he visited the Kojo home. He had received a letter of introduction from an alumnus , Mr. Noguchi, of the Waseda University Judo Club.
I hope everyone is safe and keeping well. In today’s post I wanted to say how much I enjoyed training this morning. It was a perfect Fall day to get outside and practice Karate and Kobudo. One silver lining to Covid-19 is getting me out of the dojo and back outside (rain, snow or sunshine) for practice and for that I am grateful. On days like these I have no desire to return to training inside, even if it was safe enough to do so.
