Urban Goju Hall #004

Our Peter Urban Lineage

The sign above the door says Urban Goju Hall #004. That number speaks volumes.

Grandmaster Peter G. Urban founded U.S.A. Goju and numbered the dojos authorized to teach it. A single-digit hall number means this one was among the first. The spirit of what is taught on this mat comes directly from Grandmaster Peter G. Urban. The system's headquarters keeps its own record of the halls at americangoju.com.

The Goju fist, as everyone calls it, is the system's emblem. It is on the awning at 2533 65th St and on the patches. Mostly it is in our hearts.

Peter G. Urban (1934–2004) learned Goju in Japan in the 1950s, returned to America at the end of that decade, and established U.S.A. Goju as his own organization in 1968. He died on April 7, 2004.

If the name means nothing to you, the short version is this. Goju is Okinawan, and Urban was one of the Americans who brought it home and built an organization around it here. The dojos he recognized to teach it were numbered as he recognized them. This one is number four.

A great deal has been written about him elsewhere and we are not going to repeat it here. The system's own history of him is the fullest account, Wikipedia has the short version, and his own writings are online too. What we can tell you is what his system looks like in one Brooklyn dojo, fifty years on.

Shihan Vincent Merenda

Shihan Vincent Merenda, 10th Degree Black Belt. He led this dojo for decades and died on January 2, 2025, on his way home from the dojo.

Shihan Merenda trained under Grandmaster Peter G. Urban and many of his black belts.

He trained in kumite before the invention of safety gear.

The workouts were brutal and the dojo was always full of warriors.

Sensei Vladimir Ferdman leads the dojo now, teaching what he learned from Shihan Vincent Merenda.

Every bow in the dojo, each kata we perform, and every correction we receive from our sensei are quiet tributes to the masters who came before us. Karate is not merely a martial art for self-defense. It is a philosophy, a way of life built upon humility, discipline, and the passing of knowledge across generations.

In every class, even as our practice evolves from the original teachings, we continue to pay homage to the senseis who paved the way. Explicitly to Senseis Urban, Merenda, and Gonzalez, who are no longer with us, and implicitly to all those mentors whose dedication and wisdom helped us become who we are today.

None of this needs to mean anything to you yet. If you want to see what it amounts to in practice, our karate classes in Brooklyn are open to complete beginners and the first one is free.

That line is what is being taught in every class here: our childrens classes, our teen classes and training as an adult.