Nanbudo
南部道Japanese art founded by Yoshinao Nanbu in 1978, created in southern France out of his earlier school Sankukai.
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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.
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About Nanbudo
Nanbudo is a Japanese martial art founded in 1978 by Yoshinao Nanbu (born 1943 in Kobe, died April 28, 2020). Nanbu grew up within Japanese competitive karate and belonged to its elite: in 1963 he won the title of university champion of Japan at a tournament attended by 1250 competitors, and he studied under Master Tani and Master Tanaka. Henry Plée invited him to Europe to compete there, and Nanbu went on to win the French Cup and the European championship. In 1968 he returned to Japan, but later relocated to Cap-d'Ail on the French Riviera. It was there, at the age of twenty-seven, that he created his own method, which he called Sankukai. The 1978 Nanbudo is then a second, more mature step along the same path. Its peculiarity is that it arose outside Japan, in a European setting, and was formulated for European practitioners from the outset — an exception among Japanese martial arts, which usually reach Europe already fully formed. Nanbu was thus not merely an exporter of Japanese tradition but an author who built a new system in a foreign country on foundations he had brought with him. Nanbudo is today overseen by the World Nanbudo Federation and spreads chiefly in Europe. The founder himself led it until his death in April 2020. This is precisely why nanbudo is classed more with modern budo than with the sport karate from which its founder emerged.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.