What is Wado Ryu karate?

I will only give a brief but wide overview on Wado Ryu karate here. I cannot provide a definitive answer as there is none. If you are with another Wado Ryu organisation, there may well be items listed that you may not even do that are done in the Wado Academy.

We are all still learning and you may hear very experienced students and instructors of Wado Ryu say that it was never set in stone and was alway evolving as Ohtsuka Sensei grew older. That is not to say that we can tag on anything we like in an ad-hoc fashion and call that progress.

There are many, many more people senior to me that you should seek out and learn from, before they are gone.

Click through the sub-links on the right hand side in the box marked What is Wado Ryu karate?

The information provided is not new. It is a culmination of all the instructors I have been lucky to have access to over the years as well as my seniors and peers.

I guess it all starts with the name and specifically the character for 'wa'. Then we have the image that symbolises Wado Ryu, which is based on a dove. In a very simplified way, both stand for peace.

But there is a lot more beyond the simplified version.

"Violent action may be understood as the way of martial arts, but the true meaning of martial arts is to seek and attain the way of peace and harmony."

Hironori Ohtsuka

On the Wado Ryu Renmei web site it says the name Wado-Ryu comes from the idea of TEN, CHI, JIN, No RI-DO ni Wa suru. I will leave it to you to search on that.

To end this page I would like to say that there are many different organisations and instructors across the world teaching Wado Ryu karate. It is a fact of life that since the style was found by Hironori Ohtsuka times have moved on and we have ended up with several branches of the Wado tree so to speak. It is nothing to get too hung up on.

What is important is quality. With quality comes depth, with depth comes something that is very valuable and that can never be instant.

Note: The views expressed in this website are only my ever changing thoughts and do not necessarily reflect that of the Wado Academy in any official capacity.