Traditional Judo Self-defence

UK: Is Goju Ryu Karate-Do Linked to the Chinese Book of Change? (29.12.2025)

Indeed, those scholars who developed the Commentarial material that seeks to explain the Book of Change (Yijing) – often attempt to superimpose the ancient “hard” and “soft” with the concept of “yang” and “yin” – although the amorphous nature of this schematic means that one quantity is continuously exchanged for the other. When lecturing in China – this often becomes an interesting and contentious point of discussion. Many are unaware that the yin-yang ideal is not that old as it is presented as all conquering in many Chinese-language texts. Whatever the case, I keep in contact with a number of Goju Ryu practitioners – as this is a style of fighting I explored in my youth. I still assist practitioners of this style with their historical research – which is often of a linguistic nature. Linked above is a blog article uploaded onto our Ch’an Dao Blog.

The Great ‘Ginseng’ Heist! 

The etymology of the term ‘人蔘’ (Ren Shen) is interesting and complex and well worth exploring, as this is the term Westerners are routinely using when referring to ‘Ginseng’. The first ideogram ‘人’ (ren2) and refers to a ‘human-being’. This Ideogram is often associated with ‘們’ (men2) – meaning ‘us’ or ‘fellow people gathered behind the safety of a gate’ – and ‘閄‘ (huo4) – meaning a ‘door or gate in-front of a human-being’ or ‘a human-being protected by a structure or institution’, etc.