The Big question.

[Russell]

Hi, I'm from South East England. Ive trained in a lot of diffrent clubs over the last 12 yrs and have my black belt in Wado Ryu.

However the only 2 styles I am aware of are Wado Ryu and Shotokahn.

tho since reading this forum ive heard many diffrent names mentioned like shoto ryu, that Ive never heard of.

Im gonna be really cheeky and ask for some one to give me, and everyone else a breakdown of the main types of karate.

The name, Origin and just a few words about how to recognise it.

I hope everyone can take this seriously as I feel it would be a good referance place for many people. Thanks

[Adonis]

thats a big question. wado ryu, shotokan, shoto ryu shito ryu, goju ryu, shorin ryu, there's a bunch of others as well as sub styles from them. I suggest, doing a google search and checking out websites were you can get diffrent history's of the arts as well some of the websites may have pictures of them doing forms or techniques as well as video clips.

Good luck

[karatekid1975]

Here's a good place to start http://www.martialinfo.com/styles.asp It has lots of the styles (not all, but a good amount) on there, plus links and such to sites/info.

[b3n]

http://www.martial-arts-info.com/ - <- Good clean site, should give you the basics.

[aefibird]

Go to my club website and there's a diagram on there that shows the main types of Japanese and Okinawan karate and how they relate to each other.

Click here!

[Russell]

Thats just a tree, it doesnt really explain anything.

[P.A.L]

Go to my club website and there's a diagram on there that shows the main types of Japanese and Okinawan karate and how they relate to each other.

Click here!

there are some missing link in this picture, maybe somebody get a chance and improve it.

[Aodhan]

Go to my club website and there's a diagram on there that shows the main types of Japanese and Okinawan karate and how they relate to each other.

Click here!

there are some missing link in this picture, maybe somebody get a chance and improve it.

Since you know there are missing links, why don't you help him out and point them out? Knowledge dies unless it is shared.

Aodhan

[gojupralgo]

Some of the Mssters listed on the site had more than one instructer from the upper portion of the tree.

For Example:

Mas Oyama trained in GOJU under Gogen Yamaguchi (student of Chojun Miyagi). Kyokoshin is influenced greatly by Goju.

T. Shimabuko trained with Chojun Miyagi.

[Jussi Häkkinen]

Shorin-ryu seems to be covering only Matsubayashi-ryu. There are heaps of others, since Shorin-ryu is probably the widest umbrella name (and has a couple of forms for writing "shorin" -kanji) for styles and substyles ("schools", kan) in Okinawan karate.

For example: Wado-ryu comes from Shotokan (and Shinto Yoshin-ryu jujutsu, since Wado is a combination of karate and jujutsu), which comes from Shorin-ryu (Matsumura-lineage, via Anko Azato and Anko Itosu). Wado-ryu could be called as "Shorin-ryu Shotokan Ohtsuka-ha", or "Ohtsuka's way of Shoto-school of Shorin-style".

Styles are a large issue to be covered here in a satisfactory manner. If you're interested about Okinawan styles, you can find some light scale info here: http://www.wonder-okinawa.jp/023/eng/

However, it's advisable to read even more, compare and study.