Fighting Karate

When Gichin Funakoshi brought karate from Okinawa to Mainland Japan, one of his top students early on was a man named Hironori Otsuka. Otsuka had trained in Jiu-Jitsu prior to taking up the study of karate. In fact, Otsuka had received the Menkyo Kaiden - a license of total transmission - in other words, mastery of the art.

Otsuka travel to Okinawa and learned from some of the top karate masters there. Later, Otsuka developed his own style of karate, called Wado-Ryu. The Kata he taught more closely resembled the Okinawan kata, than they did Funakoshi's kata. Also, Otsuka was a big proponent of sparring (Funakoshi despised sparring) and self defense techniques.

Simply put, Otsuka valued the martial aspect of karate. He focused on teaching his students most effective forms of self-defense.

In the 85 years since the founding of Wado-Ryu, our understanding of unarmed combat has grown exponentially. Otsuka was not afraid to change things in his time, for the sake of better self defense. We should not be, either.

Coming later this year, I will be refocusing on Karate. Correct Jiu-Jitsu techniques will be incorporated. The focus will be on self-defense.

Stay tuned.