


Valvoja: Valvoja
Jurassic-kan, Geriatria Ryu!
Reading through the comments there are a lot of misunderstandings about the name of the school and the name of the group(s).
The karate 'group' which we know today as JKF Wadokai was established by Otsuka Hironori and Kawakami Daisaburo in April 1934 under the name 'Dai Nippon Karate Club'. They were both still members of Funakoshi's dojo at the time so it wasnt a separate style.
Otsuka was expelled from the Funakoshi group in Dec 1935. Fortunately for Otsuka, he had been appointed as teacher to several university clubs already and they followed him and Kawakami.
In 1938 they changed the name of the group to 'Dai Nippon Karatedo Shinbukai', coinciding with Kawakami's exit from the group. Around this time Otsuka and his students had the opportunity to participate in the Kyoto Butokusai for the first time and they were asked to provide a name for the school. They used the name 'Shinshu Wadoryu Karate-jutsu'. The following year they shortened the name to 'Wadoryu-karatejutsu' for the subsequent Butokusai. Prior to this, the karate of Otsuka was named as 'Nihon Kenpo Karate-jutsu' in some documents. Wadoryu as a name was only from 1938/9.
The name Wadoryu Karatejutsu was continued through the war and into the 1950's when the organisation was renamed Zen Nihon Karate Renmei in 1954. This was done to rival the JKA name.
In 1967, the AJKF was established (now called JKF). All the styles had to register so Wadoryu style was registered under the group name 'AJKF Wadokai'. That exact same legal entity continues today as 'JKF Wadokai'.
Along the way, there was a ruction and a new private group was established in 1981 called Wadoryu Renmei. That group today continues with the same group name.
The confusion about Wadokai / Wadoryu is naming is quite understandable when we track through all these names.
Regarding the split in 1980-81, this was a split from the Wadokai not the other way around. Unfortunately, a lot of internet sites use the history section written in the 1989 Wado World Cup programme which contained a mistake. In it, the author(s) mistakenly wrote that Wadokai split from Wadoryu. Subsequently, the organising committee sent a clarification and apology to all the country heads who participated in the event correcting this statement. That letter is signed by the chairman of the organising committee of the Wado World Cup. If that is not sufficient proof, there is also a book written by the founders son, explaining the reasons why (in his view) the split ocurred.
So I hope that helps explain the confusion about the names and dates. If anyone would like to read more about the history of Wadoryu and the Wadokai group, then I have covered it in a book re-published last year, details below. The book also includes a full history of the development of Wadoryu in the UK covering all the early competitions held under the ABKA and a selection of the UKKF/UKKW events.
https://jkfwadokai.org.uk/shop