Not far at all. I mainly used tapes to study it. Though I have done a little training with Wing Chun people. I’m a third degree black belt in Isshinryu so I already had that as a foundation. So if I see something I really like I incorporated it.
I wouldn’t normally suggest learning martial arts from a video for most people. But since I already had solid background in a similar system and was looking to enhance my knowledge of it I think it’s okay. It also helps that I am a good visual learner.
There are a lot of similarities in that both systems are “in-fightintg” systems. They are not based upon animal forms so we are not trying to be monkeys or tigers or praying mantis’s. The animal we are trying to be is the human animal. That is why we say Isshinryu is based upon natural body movement and positioning.
One thing we don’t practice in Isshinryu is Chi Sau. But we do have the basic movement of double sticky hands in the kata Sanchin which we got from Gojuryu. We also have Gakie in the kata Seisan.
In Goju they use Gakie as a single sticky hands drill. Gojuru founder Chojun Miyagi studied kung fu in China, that is why the Goju kata have a lot of Chinese style hand movements.
I have done a lot of push hands with my tai chi, chi gung teacher. Those sensitivty drills are real helpful, for close in grappling. But they are one of the more esoteric aspects of the martial arts so the marines who brought the Isshinryu system back from Okinawa weren’t interested, they just wanted to know how to kill.