# What is Goshin jujitsu?



## Maint

I am looking to get back into martial arts after almost 2 years of being out. I don't want to go back to my old school. It was becoming too much of a mcdojo environment. I'm torn between two places a local Hapkido school and a school that teaches jujitsu and used to teach tomiki aikido but due to the local economy had to combine the two classes. The Hapkido school is kind of abscure on the style.  I know what tomiki aikido is, but what is Goshin jujitsu? The instructor said its part of the usja curriculum?


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## Chris Parker

In simple terms, Goshinjutsu 護身術 is simply the Japanese term for self defence… pretty literally, it's "techniques for protecting the body/self". As such, there's no single art or form to the concept, but many (mainly modern) systems use the term to refer to an aspect of their curriculum. Most of them take the term from Judo, although not all.


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## KenpoDave

Goshinjutsu is one of the names that William Chow used to describe his Kenpo style.

When I have seen it used, the school usually has a connection to Okazaki/Chow/Chow-Hoon/Wally Jay/Kufferath. 

I am not familiar with Goshin jujitsu.


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## ballen0351

My instructor says it's the self defense portion of judo that's not allowed in competition.  Since our class is mostly police and military....actually it's all police or military.... He teaches a lot of standing arm control, defense from people grabbing you some weapons disarms and a lot of the leg locks and other grappling that was taken out of sport.


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## Chris Parker

KenpoDave said:


> Goshinjutsu is one of the names that William Chow used to describe his Kenpo style.



Sure, that's one example… as said, it's a fairly generic term.



KenpoDave said:


> When I have seen it used, the school usually has a connection to Okazaki/Chow/Chow-Hoon/Wally Jay/Kufferath.



Cool.



KenpoDave said:


> I am not familiar with Goshin jujitsu.



Yeah… sorry, I kinda missed that part in my answer… 

There are a number of modern systems that have named themselves "Goshin Jujitsu" (note the spelling), "Goshin Ryu Jujitsu" (again, spelling), or similar… they are almost all eclectic mixes of judo, aikido, and karate, often with some basic BJJ or similar, sometimes claiming to be "traditional Japanese Jujutsu" (uh… nope). In regards to what they're like… that really depends on which particular group using the name you're asking about.



ballen0351 said:


> My instructor says it's the self defense portion of judo that's not allowed in competition.  Since our class is mostly police and military....actually it's all police or military.... He teaches a lot of standing arm control, defense from people grabbing you some weapons disarms and a lot of the leg locks and other grappling that was taken out of sport.



Sort of, yeah… 

Within Judo, the term Goshinjutsu is specifically used to refer to the last set of kata added to the syllabus in 1956, the Goshin Jutsu no Kata. These were, in essence, an updated set of defensive techniques to take over from the Kime no Kata (Forms of Decisiveness/Decisive Action), mainly to deal with more modern attacks/weapons, such as pistol.

The kata look like this:





Along with a number of other kata (such as the aforementioned Kime no Kata), this set contains methods that are not legal in competition, as your instructor stated.

Of course, that's simply the Judo application of the term… outside of Judo it refers to basically self protection skills.


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## KenpoDave

That last quoted part was not me. I think it was Ballen0351.


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## Chris Parker

Er… yeah. It says so in the quote banner… and that's who I was replying to there. I was answering both of you.


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## KenpoDave

Chris Parker said:


> Er… yeah. It says so in the quote banner… and that's who I was replying to there. I was answering both of you.



Odd, on my screen, my name is in all of the quote banners in your post. No biggie, just trying to be clear on who said what.


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## Chris Parker

Interesting… it comes up correctly for me, and on my phone (not logged in)… not sure why it'd be different for you, if you're wanting to figure it out, perhaps a message to the admins might be in order.


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## KenpoDave

Nah, no biggie. Just makin' sure I'm not getting credit for someone else's work.


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