Koshiki Karatedo
古式空手道A competition form of karate in Super Safe protective armour. It allows full contact including head strikes without the injury risk of bare bouts.
Quick Facts
JapanCharacter & Origin
Training
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Koshiki Karatedo
Koshiki karatedo is a competition form of karate fought in protective armour. It grew out of the Shorinjiryu Kenkokan school founded in 1947 by Hisataka Masakuni, with the competition rules developed by his son Masayuki Hisataka. The decisive step came in 1978 with the creation of the protective equipment called Super Safe; only then could bouts be fought at full power without injury deciding the outcome. The World Koshiki Karatedo Federation (WKKF) was founded in 1980, and this page gives that year because it marks the birth of the competitive organisation, not of karate. Armoured bouts are nothing new in karate. As early as 1927 the karate study group at Tokyo Imperial University introduced a form with protective gear; after the war Kanbukan carried it on using kendo armour, and in 1954 Renbukan staged the first national tournament of this kind. Koshiki karatedo is a later and technically more developed branch of that line. The point is to resolve a contradiction competitive karate keeps running into. Point karate under WKF rules stops the technique before impact, so the finish is never practised; knockdown karate strikes at full power but bars punches to the head to prevent injury. Super Safe armour permits both: full force and the head as a target, while the equipment makes the hit clearly visible and easy to judge. The federation today lists branches across five continents and stages both All Japan and world championships.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.