Ryū Ryū Ko is nevertheless enormously important to our history. He represents approximately the furthest point to which we can presently follow the Chinese lineage behind Kanryo Higaonna. We are not claiming that Ryū Ryū Ko created Toudijutsu or created the methods that ultimately became Goju-Ryu. Whatever he taught had a history before him. He had teachers, and those teachers inherited their knowledge from somewhere else. Beyond Ryū Ryū Ko, however, the trail becomes increasingly difficult to reconstruct with confidence. In our particular lineage, he stands near the edge of what can presently be recovered about the Chinese ancestry of the art.

According to the history preserved within our Goju-Ryu tradition, Kanryo Higaonna remained in Fuzhou for approximately thirteen to fourteen years, much of that period associated with his training under Ryū Ryū Ko. The precise chronology remains a subject of historical debate, and surviving records do not allow us to establish every year of his stay with certainty. What the tradition consistently preserves, however, is that Higaonna's experience in China was extensive and profoundly formative. The demanding training he received there became the foundation of the methods he later transmitted in Okinawa and, through Chojun Miyagi, an essential part of the inheritance from which Goju-Ryu developed.

Kanryo Higaonna's experience under Ryū Ryū Ko also gives us one of the most fascinating windows into what this older method of training may have looked like. Accounts preserved within the Goju-Ryu tradition describe Higaonna assisting his teacher during the day and undertaking his martial training after dark. The training was severe and physically demanding. Sanchin occupied a central place, but training extended far beyond kata alone. Traditional conditioning implements included gripping jars, stone weights, natural stone, various resistance devices and striking equipment related to the makiwara. Published histories of the tradition describe the physical toll of this training, including Higaonna's hands, shoulders and legs becoming swollen from the intensity of the work.

These accounts matter to us for another reason. They were not simply stories rediscovered generations later on the Internet. Within our tradition, memories of the older training were passed from teacher to student. Kanryo Higaonna spoke about his experiences in China and the demanding training he had undergone under Ryū Ryū Ko. Chojun Miyagi inherited those stories along with the physical methods of the art. An'ichi Miyagi subsequently received teachings and oral accounts from Chojun Miyagi, and Morio Higaonna received the tradition from An'ichi Sensei. Morio Higaonna would eventually devote decades to researching and documenting the history of Okinawan Goju-Ryu as well as transmitting its physical training methods internationally. His published work includes The History of Karate: Okinawan Goju Ryu.

This is where oral tradition must be approached with both respect and honesty. Oral history is not the same thing as documentary evidence. Memories can change, details can be lost, and stories can develop as they travel through generations. We therefore should not present every detail of an inherited story as though a nineteenth-century document exists to prove it. At the same time, dismissing oral tradition altogether would mean ignoring one of the principal ways in which Okinawan martial arts were historically transmitted. Much of this knowledge was communicated directly through demonstration, physical correction, explanation and kuden—oral teaching.

More importantly, the transmission was not only verbal. The training itself survived.

The makiwara survived. The use of stone survived. The gripping and strengthening exercises survived. Sanchin survived. Hojo undo survived. Body conditioning survived. Kakie survived. The emphasis on close-range application survived. These practices were not preserved merely as stories about how people once trained. They continued to be practiced.

That distinction is extremely important to what we do at New York City Goju-Ryu Karate-Jutsu. When we strike stone in our dojo, work the makiwara, practice Sanchin, condition the body or use the traditional methods of hojo undo, we are not attempting to imitate something we discovered in an old photograph. We are practicing methods that have continued within the lineage through Morio Higaonna Sensei and An'ichi Miyagi Sensei, back through Chojun Miyagi and Kanryo Higaonna to the Chinese training associated in our tradition with Ryū Ryū Ko. The historical details surrounding the earliest generations may sometimes be uncertain, but the physical tradition itself has continued to be transmitted.