Talk:Peter Urban (karate)

== DELETE THIS NONSENSE++

How can this be a legit article? "an American Martial Art Science Philosopher, Poet-Warrior and Innovative Leader" Seriously?

Even if you take the story at face value, this guy was a karate instructor who spent a time in the Navy. There is not one thing notable about him. Another guy decided to start his own 'style' so he could call himself grandmaster. In fact one of the links have the subject himself admitting he promoted himself to 'grandmaster". He also is a fake Ph.D. The same link claims "Brownell University". Brownell University is nothing more than a Facebook page. How is this at all notable??

This is the most obvious self-promoting puffery to ever be on Wikipedia.

Introduction
My ICGF Goju club requires "a 1,000 word essay on Karate" as one of many prerequisites to obtaining Shodan (I hope to obtain my "first Black Belt" after the grading ceremony on January 28, 2012). While doing research for that essay, I noticed that "many" articles at this site pointed to a "Peter Urban" who is a radio host in Germany. So this page on "Peter Urban" the Goju Sensei is my attempt at correcting those errors. I now invite all of the "Black Belts" who trained under Sensei Urban to add more content to this page. We all know that Karate was illegal since 1477 which means that the information was passed along orally, from Master to Student, rather than being published in books. Karate is no longer illegal and Wikipedia provides us with a modern collaborative environment in which to publish the true history. Neilrieck (talk) 17:33, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

The Cut Finger
Okay, so with reference to attempting the removal of his own finger, half of the resources say "Yamaguchi's son was able to stop Urban" while the other half slyly say "but the damage was done". Here I offer no disrespect to Urban's family or students but wonder if one of his biographers engaged a little poetic license. Why? I've inspected a dozen enlarged photos of Sensei Urban and all finger tips are present! So did he only cut off the tip, or did he just draw blood? Neilrieck (talk) 17:33, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Photo
This is a publicity photo of American GoJu Karate founder Peter Urban. Although I have seen this photo on numerous Karate web sites, this photo came from http://www.americangoju.com/ which is managed by Peter Urban's daughter, Julia Urban-Kimberly. On Feb 8, 2012, I received email permission from Julia Urban-Kimberly to use this photo on the Peter Urban article on Wikipedia (thank-you, Julia) Neilrieck (talk) 11:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Expanding this article would be easy
http://americangoju.com/index.html This is an excellent resource, assembled by him and then by his heirs. I know the subject and can evaluate the early days, at least. I trained at the 17th Street dojo, just off Union Square, throughout 1964. No gentrification yet. It was a loft in a factory, which you got to by a tiny freight elevator, run by a janitor. It opened at six, when the streets were filled with Puerto Rican ladies going home from the sweatshops in the nearby Garment district. Karate was brand new to American consciousness, and he helped shape the image. I remember him as a kindly and forgiving and unexpectedly humorous teacher. The karate was authentic to Japan, but Urban was authentically American. He never struck pseudo Asian poses, though I, a kid, wished he'd put up some Japanese lanterns, burn incense, do the whole mysterious bit. No dice. He was restless like an American, and every week when we came in, he had redecorated the dojo, which annoyed some of us, looking for Timeless Asia or some Orientalist fantasy like that. I've compared the official homepage linked above and it's him seen through somewhat reverent eyes. There was nothing stiff or formal about him. But it's accurate and chock full of primary sources, scans of early articles about Sensei Urban, documents by him. It gives a real feeling of the early days of martial arts in the USA.There was a shot of the urn with his ashes. May he rest in peace, he was a good man. Profhum (talk) 18:37, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Peter Urban and the USA GoJu Karate Nation State of Affairs!
Would anyone like to discuss, assist or help improve this article in any way? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zensei (talk • contribs) 02:46, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Glaring Lack of Mention
In the long list of notable students that trained with Urban, one really prominent example is missing. That student is Joe Lopez. Lopez sensei left Urban's dojo and went on to run the New York Goju Kai, which was the east coast branch of the Goju Kai dojo run by Gosei Yamaguchi in San Francisco. Gosei Yamaguchi is the eldest son of the founder of the Zen Nippon Goju Kai, Gogen Yamaguchi. Gogen was tasked by Chojun Miyagi with carrying Goju Ryu to mainland Japan.

Sensei Lopez had a 5000 square-foot facility on Park Row in downtown New York City. He trained dozens of black belts and ran one of the country's best, most authentic, hard-training karate schools. Urban was quite bitter when Lopez left his group, which probably explains the omission of him in the main article. 2603:8000:B001:5B0F:F08F:BE43:99A9:701D (talk) 22:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)