Ashihara Karate
芦原空手Full-contact karate founded in 1980 by Hideyuki Ashihara. Instead of trading strikes it circles around the attack and hits from the flank or behind — the tactic called sabaki.
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About Ashihara Karate
Ashihara karate was founded in 1980 by Hideyuki Ashihara (1944–1995) after he left Kyokushin, where he had been one of its recognised instructors. The break was not personal but technical. Kyokushin fights head-on: two opponents stand facing each other and trade strikes until one gives way. Ashihara considered this model needlessly costly and built his style on the opposite principle, called sabaki. The idea is simple and hard in a fight: instead of blocking or answering an attack, the practitioner circles around it and arrives at the opponent's flank or back, where the attacker cannot reply. The strikes then go into the uncovered side. The rules stayed Kyokushin's — full contact, no protectors, no punches to the head — so the style is just as hard, only differently directed. Ashihara rewrote the kata and named them by purpose: Shoshin no kata, Kihon no kata, Nage no kata, Kumite no kata and Jissen no kata; they are built so that sabaki can be trained in them directly, not to preserve older forms. From the same root came Joko Ninomiya's Enshin karate and its Sabaki Challenge tournament. After Ashihara's death in 1995 the organisation split into several branches; the style is strongest today in Japan, Russia and northern Europe.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.