Karate-Do in Okinawa can be broadly divided into two sects, Nahate and Shurite. The most popular school of Nahate is Goju-Kai, which is a strain of Chinese Nanpa Shorin-ken. In 1930, the founder Chojun Miyagi named his school "Goju-Ryu". He cited a line to name his school from "Bubishi" which is a traditional book of Shorin-ken Hakkaku-mon in Fujian province, China.

The founder Chojun Miyagi defined essence of karate-Do as that "Karate-Do is a measure to train your body and mind, to keep in shape and to protect yourself in a dangerous situation."

Fights of martial arts are fights of life or death. Therefore, we need to be serious and to concentrate on practice to learn techniques for survival in serious fights. To do so, Chojun Miyagi thought that a harmonious development of body and mind is necessary and he devised many training methods through his hard training.

He introduced modern point of view into conventional meditation and health program and developed Junbi Undo, or preparation exercise which was produced for improving your health, and Hojo Undo, or supplementary exercise which is practiced with equipment from an early stage of school's development. He developed rational system of training. Junbi Undo and Hojo Undo are still actively used without any changes.

The basic Kata Sanchin, Kaishu, or open hand Kata Gekisai 1 and 2, Heishu, or closed hand Kata Tensho, authentic Kata of Kanryo Higaona Sensei such as Saifa, Seiyunchin, Shisochin, Sanseiru, Seipai, Kururunfa, Seisan and Suparinpei are instructed.

It is said that Sanchin is the basic Kata of Goju-Ryu to study "Ki, Soku and Tai" which are necessary factors of martial arts, and this is a basic Kata for training to learn right breathing and posture for massive attack and defense techniques. The founder Chojun Miyagi studied Rokkish from Chinese boxing Nan-ha Shorin-ken Hakkaku-ken and developed Tensho as Heishu Kata. Tensho aims to study "Ki, Soku and Tai" as same as Sanchin and several Uke techniques and attacking techniques by Shotei are featuring.