Yoshukai Karate
Yoshukai is a Japanese style of Karate-dō. Karate-do. Karate-do translates as "Way of the Empty Hand."
The three kanji that make up the word Yoshukai literally translate as "Training Hall of Continued Improvement." However, the standardized English translation is "Striving for Excellence." Yoshukai Karate has been featured in Black Belt Magazine. Yoshukai karate is a separate Japanese style from Chito-ryu. Kata, kobudo, kumite, and all karate aspects are drawn from the Founder, Mamoru Yamamoto. Yoshukai is a newer derivative Japanese style.
Origins of Yoshukai Karate
The body of fighting and self-defense techniques which became Japanese Karate-do is thought to have originated about a thousand years ago in India and spread from there to China, Okinawa and finally to Japan in the early 1900s. Gichin Funakoshi and his son Gigo, founded Shotokan karate. Shotokan is considered to be most responsible for the systemization and introduction of karate to Japan. Tsuyoshi Chitose was a school student of Funakoshi. Later when he travelled to Japan he assisted Funakoshi. Gichin Funakoshi asked Tsuysohi Chiitose to teach Masatoshi Nakayama. Dr. Tsuyoshi Chitose, developed Chito-ryu karate from a combination of Shorin-ryu and Shorei-ryu karate styles. After moving from Okinawa to Japan in 1922, Chitose began teaching karate in Kumamoto, Japan. He refined the Okinawan techniques based on his medical knowledge as a medical doctor and officially founded his own style of karate in 1946, in 1952 naming it Chito-ryu, meaning "1,000 year-old style."In the late fifties, Chitose's top ranking student and protégé was Mamoru Yamamoto. Mr. Yamamoto was given the dojo name of Yoshukan by Dr. Chitose. Bill Dometrich reports of difficulty between Dr. Chitose and Mr. Yamamoto with Yamamoto withdrawing. Mr. Yamamoto adapted new fighting techniques and traditional weapons from Okinawa from Chito-Ryu. After leaving the Chito-Kai Federation in 1971, Yamamoto became founding a new style of karate known as Yoshukai Bill Dometrich states the separation in his 2006 book. In addition, interviews with Mike Foster, Mike Sadler, and others confirmed these stories.
Mamoru Yamamoto
Mamoru Yamamoto began his formal training in the martial arts in Miyakonojo, Japan. He first studied judo, but began training in the Chito-ryu style of karate under Chitose at the age of fifteen. In 1959, Yamamoto and his wife Sumiko opened their first dojo in Kitakyushu, Japan in the Fujitani Judo Club. In the early 1960s, Chitose gave Yamamoto permission to start his own branch of Chito-Ryu karate under the name of Yoshukan, and in 1963 Chitose changed the third kanji of their branch's name from kan – meaning to stand alone – to kai – meaning association,indicating a potential for growth within the organization.
During this early period, Yamamoto worked with Mas Oyama of Kyokushinkai Karate to develop the rules for Japanese full contact sparring to replace the sun dome tournament rule of the time. This rule meant that competitors must spar at full speed but could not make contact with one another, which made judging of fighting very subjective. One competitor might move faster but the other could be more powerful, and it was up to the judge to determine which might win in the exchange of techniques. This development of new rules led to the modernization of tournament fighting in both Japan and the U.S.
Yamamoto was considered a tough fighter and top competitor in Japan and held the title of All-Japan Karate Open Tournament Champion from 1958 to 1960. In the early days of his dojo, he established his school through a practice called dojo yabe in which a martial artist visited neighboring schools and fought with its top practitioners. The winner established their school as stronger, and if a school was badly defeated, they often closed their doors and stopped teaching.
Yamamoto represented Japanese Karate at the Canadian International Exposition in 1967, and also demonstrated Yoshukai Karate at the World's Fair in Japan in 1970. Yamamoto and some of his students, including Mike Foster, accompanied Chitose on a promotional visit to Canada in 1967, where they conducted demonstrations, a clinic, and presided over the Canadian National Karate Association tournament. This trip was organized by Mas Tsuruoka, widely recognized as the father of Canadian Karate and, later, the founder of Tsuruoka Ryu.
In 1971 Mamoru Yamamoto withdrew from the Japanese Chito-kai Karate Federation. Bill Dometrich was sent to speak with Mr. Yamamoto because he “had elevated himself in authority and importance to the same level as Chitose Sensei. No one had ever done that before. Chitose Sensei had no Japanese students who would confront Yamamoto about his breach of etiquette, even on the telephone”. Bill Dometrich met with Mr. Yamamoto and it was indicated that it was time for him to move on. In his departure, Yamamoto took with him the dojos established by his students in the United States.
Mike Foster
Mike Foster was an American serviceman stationed in 1957 at Ituzuke Air Force Base, Japan. Foster first studied judo, and later karate with Hiroko Watanabe, a Goju Ryu instructor who taught at the Itazuke Administration Annex base gym. Watanabe felt that Foster was a promising student and suggested that he study with Mamoru Yamamoto who was then still affiliated with Tsuyoshi Chitose's Chito-ryu. In 1964 Foster returned to Japan to test for second degree black belt and spent three weeks training at Yamamoto's dojo. He then returned to Japan in September 1964 to live and train in Yamamoto's dojo for approximately nineteen months.Foster returned to the U.S. in 1966 as 4th degree black belt and became recognized as one of the top fighters in the U.S.A. He was named the director of the U.S.A. Yoshukai Karate Association by Yamamoto, and in this capacity established and headed karate schools in the United States which became part of the U.S. Chito-ryu Karate Federation. He returned to Japan on other occasions to study for a total of ten years under Yamamoto, during which time Yamamoto separated from the Chito-ryu Federation. Foster remained in the U.S. director position until 1980 when he stepped down and founded his own Yoshukai International Karate Association. In 1989 after a lawsuit, Mike Sadler was awarded the right to use the name; hence, Mike Foster could use "Yoshukai International Karate Association."
Foster opened his first dojo in the U.S. in the mid-sixties at Tampa, Florida, and shortly afterward established the first of several Yoshukai Karate schools associated with colleges and universities at St. Leo College, Florida. From Tampa he moved to Orlando, Florida, where he kept a dojo during the early seventies. During the late seventies and eighties Foster maintained a dojo in Daytona, Florida. In the early nineties he relocated to Titusville, Florida, where he shared a hombu dojo for seven years with aikido Tom Walker. Foster continued to instruct senior grades at his hombu dojo in Titusville until 2008, when he retired from active teaching for health reasons.
Hiroyuki Koda
Hiroyuki Koda arrived in the United States in the fall of 1969 from Fukuoka, Japan. Koda was an instructor what became Yoshukai, and was expected to assist with the establishment of Yoshukai schools in the U.S. He located in Florida to work within dojos established by Mike Foster, and in 1971 Koda and his American wife Gwen Lisk Koda opened their first dojo in Lincoln, Illinois.Yoshukai became official 1973. Koda affiliated with the new U.S.A. Yoshukai style under Mamoru Yamamoto and Mike Foster continued to assist with establishing and developing schools in the United States. With the assistance of Yoshukai black belt Rayburn Nichols, he moved his family to Birmingham, Alabama, and named his organization Mid-South Yoshukai. In 1978 Hiroyuki Koda assumed the U.S.A. director position vacated by Mike Foster and renamed the Mid-South Yoshukai to the "U.S. Yoshukai Karate Association ". In 1982, the Koda family moved to Texas, and in 1987 to Montgomery, Alabama, where Koda set up a honbu dojo.
In 1997, Koda died from pancreatic and liver cancer, and his eldest son, David Yuki Koda, took over the directorship duties of the US Yoshukai Karate Association.
Mike Sadler
Mike Sadler spent his youth in Japan studying Shotokan karate and judo at the Kodokan. He met Yamamoto and later became third in rank and command of Katsuoh Yamammoto's U.S. Yoshukai organization. Sadler was responsible for establishing Yoshukai karate in Alabama and promoted hundreds of black belts during his decades with Yamamoto. He is the founder of Shingo-ha Yoshukai which focuses on stances, distances, angular movements, striking arts, joint taking, and throwing.Kumite
Yoshukai kumite or sparring style is classified as full contact. Both Mamoru Yamamoto and Mike Foster adapted the traditional Chito-ryu technique to meet the changing requirements of tournament competition, and in the sixties and seventies, this adaptation made the Yoshukai style very successful and advanced for its time.Yoshukai uses mainly forward, side and natural stances and technique that emphasizes lack of regression in movement. Outside Japan, techniques and stances are adapted from Japanese karate to fit taller Westerners with longer legs and higher hara or center of gravity. Although Yoshukai is considered a full-contact style, students are also trained to participate in light- to medium-contact sparring within the dojo to develop strategy and control of technique.
Kata
Traditional kata or forms from Chito-ryu are adapted to meet the philosophy and style of Yoshuaki Karate within the various organizations of the system. This list of kata includes traditional kanji script as best available:| Name | Kanji | Description |
| Nijushichi | 二十七 | 27 Movements |
| Zenshin Kotai | 前進後退 | Advancing and Retreating |
| Heian Kihon 1–4 | 平安 | Peaceful Mind, 1-4 |
| Shihohai | 四方拝 | Four Quarters |
| Tai Ho Jitsu 1 – 5 | - | - |
| Seisan | 正整 | Correct Arrangement |
| Niseishi | 二十四歩 | Twenty-four Hands |
| Rohai Sho | 鷺牌 小 | Vision of a Crane |
| Rohai Dai | 鷺牌 大 | Vision of a Crane |
| Sochin | 荘鎮 | Tranquil Force |
| Tenshin | 転身 | Twisting Body Motion |
| Mugen | 無限 | Endless |
| Bassai | 披塞 | To Penetrate a Fortress |
| Chinto | 鎮東 | Subdue the East |
| Kusanku | 公相君 | Viewing the Sky/Night Fighting |
| Sanshiryu | 三十六歩 | Thirty-six Hands/Dragon |
| Ryusan | 龍山 | Dragon Spiraling Upward |
| Sanchin | 三戰 | Three Battles |
| Tensho | 転掌 | Rolling Palms |
| Tai Ho Jitsu 1 – 10 | - | - |
| Hen Shi Ho Jitsu 1 – 50 | - | - |
| Hanten | - | - |
| Rinten | - | - |
| Kakete | - | To advance against the opponent |
| Te Waza | Upper body throwing technique | |
| Koshi Waza | Mid body throwing technique | |
| Ashi Waza | Foot, lower body throwing technique | |
| Ne Waza | Ground technique | |
| Nage Waza | - | Throwing technique |