SOGOBUDO TO SHINTAIDO
Shotokai history con't
Egami Sensei from a Shotokai Spain Bulletin
Sogobudo means "holistic" or integrated budo, a concept in which a person
searches for both the spiritual and technical oneness that unites budo--the
commonality between all martial arts; karate and aikido and kendo share
a common spiritual base, which should shape and inform technique.
For Egami sensei, form always followed spirit or feeling. The Sogobudo
practitioner would use one particular martial art (usually Karate) as an
entry to the larger holistic martial art of Sogobudo, for as Egami sensei
saw it, all techniques are related.
Because Egami Sensei was the president of Shotokai, there were limits
on what he could do himself; so he selected a small group of his best students
at Chuo university to set up a group --a research and development wing
of Shotokai-- to explore the possibilities of Sogobudo. He organized
a team of about thirty young martial arts masters in various arts --Aikido,
Karate, Judo, Kendo, Bojitsu, mostly recent university graduates, and they
practiced in an open and exploratory way for about three years. From this
practice was born at first Sogobudo, which quickly became Shintaido. The
person behind all this was a young Chuo university karate man named Hiroyuki
Aoki. He held the fifth dan under Egami and was the chief instructor at
Chuo karate club.
Given the political delicacy of the situation --as many people thought
he had already changed karate too much-- Egami sensei could not simply
suspend Shotokai practice and go off to become the founder of Shintaido,
but neither could the Shintaido group call themselves Karate. Aoki sensei
left the Shotokai, with Fugaku Ito, a virtual co- founder of Shintaido,
and other members of the Sogobudo group to found Shintaido. Today the group
is called International Shintaido Federation, which now has about five
thousand members --mostly in Japan and France. Sogobudo was more or less
forgotten, though a few people still practice its karate aspect.
This is what is meant by Karate Sogobudo.
If you should want to know more about Shintaido there are many sites
on the Web, here are a few:
Shintaido
Home Page in Japan
Shintaido in the UK
They are, though, no longer involved in Shotokai practice directly,
though they share a lot with Shotokai. Shintaido is a bit different.
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