Masaji Taira

Masaji Taira (Taira Masaji, 平良 正次)

In this Japanese name, the family name is "Taira".

Masaji Taira is a leading teacher of Okinawa Goju Ryu Karate Do, in the manner of the Jundokan dojo in Okinawa and of his teacher Ei'ichi Miyazato. He heads the Okinawa Goju Ryu Jundokan Karate Do Kenkyukai. He is best known as a researcher and practitioner of the bunkai of the Goju Ryu kata.^[1] He is unusually open in his teachings, feeling that the techniques and learning must be shared, for their preservation and to test their effectiveness.

Masaji Taira
Born	December 1, 1952 Kume Island, Okinawa, Japan
Residence	Naha, Okinawa, Japan
Style	Gōjū-ryū Karate
Teacher(s)	Ei'ichi Miyazato
Rank	8th dan karate
Website	http://jundokan.jp http://tairabunkai.com

Early Life^[2]

Taira Sensei was raised on Kume Island. His family were farmers, growing sugarcane and rice. In his third year of high school the family moved to Naha, where Taira Sensei finished his schooling.

When he was young on Kume Island the kids all used to do Okinawa Sumo. They would go to the sand pit when they were in school and do that during break times. There were always Okinawa Sumo competitions and tournaments between the different villages.

Karate Career^[2]

At 16 Taira Sensei started training in Goju Ryu Karate at the Jundokan dojo of Miyazato Ei'ichi Sensei. There was a break in his Karate training when he joined the Japanese police force. He has trained continuously at Goju Ryu Karate since he was 21.

He joined the Japanese Police Force when he graduated from High School. As part of his riot police training he was required to learn Judo. He achieved his Judo black belt in 3 months, when 6 months was more common. He attributes this to his childhood Okinawa Sumo training. He is currently 4th dan in Judo.

His day as a member of the riot squad ended at 5pm whereby he would make the journey from Gushikawa City where he was stationed to the Jundokan in Naha where from 6pm to 10pm every night he would pursue his karate training with an equal dedication under the guidance of the late Eiichi Miyazato Sensei, founder of the Jundokan and heir to Chojun Miyagi Sensei.

While in his early years at the Jundokan he met a senior in the Dojo called Shinko Gima Sensei. Gima Sensei is a very wiry, extremely strong man whose kata exudes power. Although a slight man, he is formidable in his speed and execution of technique. Realising they were on a similar path the two men teamed up and spent their time in the dojo training together. Both hating to lose there were many battle scars received on both sides. After the dojo on many occasions, taken by the spirit of perfecting their technique, they would make their way to the hills of Madanbashi approximately an hours walk from the Jundokan. There they would spend their time training until sunrise on some occasions. Being the hills and given Okinawa's tropical climate, the mosquitos were always in abundant supply giving them all the more reason to keep moving.

Most of Taira Sensei's Karate career has revolved around his focus on the Bunkai of the Kata. He has painstakingly dissected the kata and trained his body to the point where he has mastered the inner workings of Goju Ryu Kata. Taira Sensei's bunkai is unusual in his insistence on working the kata in sequence, rather than picking techniques from the kata in isolation. He is also adamant that the kata do not be changed to perform bunkai.

Taira Sensei's first overseas seminar was held in Seattle, Washington in 1997 and hosted by Jundokan Seattle. Since then he has been traveling the world giving seminars on his interpretations of the bunkai of the Goju Ryu kata. He has presented seminars in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Europe.

Training Philosophy

The main focus of Taira Sensei's training is the application of Goju Ryu Kata techniques to self defense, as bunkai. Unlike many other teachers he does not cherry pick techniques from the kata. He believes that the Kata were designed as complete fighting systems, with logical transitions from one technique to another as a complete and complex defensive flow.

It is important not to mistake his complete kata bunkai to mean that the entire kata needs to be performed. Any single technique can be used to finish a fight. The kata works as a template to prepare the student with entry and exit points for defensive and counter moves. With a complete knowledge of the system a practitioner should be able to response to almost any attack and have a start and end point from that attack.

One of Taira Sensei's motivation in spreading his teaching world wide is to give him access to more partners of differing size and skill levels, to better test his techniques.

Quoting one his students, David Oddy^[3]

"I've been on the receiving end of his practice and believe me, you try to resist and move away. The reason you don't see much response is because his movement is designed to maintain initiative and keep you on the defensive. He doesn't land blows because you (hopefully) know the pattern well enough to block everything, but with less experienced uke, you will find that the pattern doesn't finish because blows are landed - once blows are landed it comes to a close very quickly as it should. For example, if you were to see him try the pattern on me (even as someone who kind of knows it) you wouldn't see it in its entirety. Why not? Simply because I couldn't keep up with the defense and the fight would end in the first couple of moves. However, the established pattern would let him press the advantage and keep initiative until that happened. This is VERY relevant against an untrained attacker as karate is designed for."

Students

Through his teaching at the Jundokan Taira Sensei has taught many students from all over the world.

In Okinawa those students most closely associated with his teachings are Keiji Ito, Satoshi Taba, Stewart Azuma and Glenn McIlvride.

Overseas students include Aivaras Engelaitis (Lithuania), Mark Kapel (New Jersey), Glenn Cunningham (Staten Island, NY), Ken Erridge (UK), Bryson Keenan (Australia), Brendan Murray (New Zealand), Dave Oddy (Syracuse, New York) and Mark Loucks (Seattle).

See also

• Goju Ryu Karate
• Miyazato Ei'ichi Sensei
• Kata
• Bunkai

References

1. ^ Blitz Magazine, August 2011. http://blitzmag.net
2. ^ ^{a b} Staten Island Jundokan http://www.sijundokan.com/mw/index.php?module=blogwriter&main_id=0&category_id=3&blogwriter_id=21 Last accessed 21 Aug 2011. Requires registration
3. ^ Traditional Fighting Arts Forum http://www.traditionalfightingartsforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=218&start=20 Last accessed 23 Aug 2011

External links

• The Bunkai of Masaji Taira Sensei Registration required
• Okinawa Goju Ryu Jundokan Karate Do Kenkyu Kai
• Dunedin NZ Seiden Goju Ryu Karate Brendan Murray (Dunedin, New Zealand)
• Mountain Martial Arts Mark Kapel (New Jersey)
• Staten Island Jundokan Glenn Cunningham (Staten Island, New York)
• Keenan Karate Bryson Keenan (Melbourne, Australia).
• Syracuse Jundokan David Oddy (Syracuse, New York).