# Research on Peter Urban's Early Years



## stone_dragone (Aug 25, 2010)

So here I am, minding my own business when out of the blue an old interest in my lineage pops back up.  I had thought that some of my doors were shut, but someone squeeked a few open so now I'm left with a bunch of new questions and no real answers.  Hopefully someone here can be of some help...

In 1957, Peter Urban was teaching US servicemen in Tokyo.
In 1959, he was teaching in Union City, NJ
In 1967 he was teaching in Chinatown, NYC
Shortly thereafter he promoted himself to 10th dan.

Can anyone here speak intelligently on what specifically was being taught at the times noted?  What specific kata was he teaching in each phase?  How much influence did Mas Oyama and Richard Kim have in his curriculum?


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## elder999 (Aug 25, 2010)

1960's East coast martial arts lineages:

....except for aikido, and a few gung fu dudes, anyway....:lol:


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## stone_dragone (Aug 26, 2010)

I know the pain that's involved in tracking this stuff down an had pretty much dropped it for several years because of the maddening level of self promotion, false claims and cross training...not to say that cross training is bad, far from it.  

***turns and speaks to the choir***

It gets rather dicey when you are trained by one guy, promoted, train in something else and then are more known for the second system but the first guy gets well known for something else but doesn't recognize you anymore because you pissed in his corn flakes after your black belt test.....not that all this happened with Urban, but its a common thread in such a search.


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## dancingalone (Aug 26, 2010)

Not sure I can add anything too productive to this thread, but I've seen various USA Goju groups that fall under the Urban lineage, including the Nisei and Gary Boyd lines.  Their karate is nothing like the Okinawan Goju-ryu I study and teach.  If you have specific questions about this, I can try to answer any you put forth.


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## stone_dragone (Aug 26, 2010)

Since Urban was Japanese Goju Kai (Yamaguchi), I guess finding out what forms were taught up to, say 1st dan around 1950s by the Goju Kai, would be helpful.  Then again,m it could just confuse matters...


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## dancingalone (Aug 26, 2010)

stone_dragone said:


> Since Urban was Japanese Goju Kai (Yamaguchi), I guess finding out what forms were taught up to, say 1st dan around 1950s by the Goju Kai, would be helpful.  Then again,m it could just confuse matters...



I'm not sure that would be meaningful unless there is specific video surviving from that time (doubtful).  Some of current USA Goju renditions of kata like Kururunfa are obviously corrupted (sometimes greatly so) from even the Goju Kai versions which themselves have been somewhat modified.  

Say you managed to get a list of kata practiced around that time by the Goju Kai.  There's still no guarantee that is what Mr. Urban himself practiced or passed on, even if he used the same kata names.


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## Burnerbob (Aug 26, 2010)

This may help clear up a few things about "O-Sensei"

http://americangoju.com/

http://usa-goju.webs.com/


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