Hi everyone,

 

Yesterday I posted a big hello in the "Introduction" and realized many people don't know about Byakuren Karate Kenpo.

 

Byakuren was founded in 1984 by Masayasu Sugihara after So Doshin (founder of Shorinji Kenpo) passed away. He was one of the youngest 6th dans the style never had (6th dan at 28!) and bodyguard of Master So Doshin. Master Sugihara left Shorinji because the style changed to "non contact" and "no competition" and he was one of the few Master So Doshin allowed to enter the full contact karate tournaments.

 

So the style has two sides: a hard side (go-ho) including the strikes (ressembles a lot Enshin or Seidokaikan Karate) used both in the street and the full contact tournaments and a soft side (ju-ho) including joint locks, throws and different submission techniques.

 

The Byakuren Kaikan organization has the honbu dojo in Osaka and has several international branches (USA, Canada, France, Holland, Spain,Italy,...).

 

Best regards.

I already wrote you, but will post also. I have trained numerous times with Sugihara Kancho, and co run the head school in the USA. My father is Shihan, and I am a Shihan dai. You left out a third aspect of Byakuren, and also shorinji. Go ho and ju ho are the most practiced, but there is also Sei ho. For lack of a better translation, this means "healing techniques". It is really more fighting specific first aid, but also includes pressure points used for pain relief and the causation of pain! These techniques are very difficult, Kancho has shown me a few and I still cannot do them properly. I am still very curious as to where you train. I'd prefer an email, but this will do. Maybe we could travel to train together sometime! OSU

I know byakuren fairly well as my teacher trained with byakuren but broke off to form his own dojo. I guess we train a similar style though. We still have a lot of contact with the members as it is so big it`s the main organiser of the full contact competitions around here.

 

I don`t know the guy well but he strikes me as being an absolute nutcase. He certainly is strong though.