Over the years I have heard many different meanings for the name Shukokai. The most common translation you hear is, "Loosely translated it means Way for all". This would have to be a very loose translation.
Many years ago I had a Japanese gentleman come up to me at a demonstration and look at the patch on my Gi, he said, " Ah - Training, Friends, Place", as he read the three Kanji symbols under the fist. This made me think, so I decided to ask Sensei Kimura what Shukokai really meant. Usually when someone asked him what a name meant he would get aggravated at the redundancy of the question and say " a name is a name, what does Joe mean or Bob". To him the name wasn't important. Asking the meaning, meant that you didn't get what he was all about. He would have preferred that you ask him a question about technique, than the meaning of the name. This time I was in luck, he started to break down the word into three parts.
Depending on the context, each symbol had a different meaning. In a martial arts context, it is as follows:
SHU - The study of the martial arts.
KO - People with a common cause, coming together.
KAI - Association.
Basically it means:
AN ASSOCIATION WHERE PEOPLE COME TOGETHER TO STUDY THE MARTIAL ARTS
He went on to explain that in the 1950's his teacher, Sensei Tani, had wanted to create an association where the heads of all styles of Karate could come together to pool their ideas and create a standard of technique so that everyone was on the same page, instead of the variation which we see today (this could be where the "Way for all" translation may have come from). However his plan didn't work, probably due to the fact that everyone thought as they do today, that they had all the answers and they weren't going to share. So, Sensei Tani who was teaching Shito Ryu kept the name Shukokai as the name of his association.
When Sensei Kimura began traveling overseas to teach he called the style Shukokai, before that it was not a style name. As time passed Sensei Kimura had developed his technique to a point where it was technically different to Tani Ha Shito Ryu although he never forgot his connections to Mr Tani and still supported him in any way he could.
Gavin Armstrong
