Master Hironori Otsuka

Founder of Wado Ryu Karate

Mas­ter Hironori Otsuka
Founder of Wado Ryu Karate
June 1, 1892 — Jan­u­ary 29, 1982

Karate is a term which orig­i­nally meant “T’ang hand”. This is in ref­er­ence to the T’ang Dynasty of China from which the Oki­nawans adapted many karate con­cepts. In the 15th and 16th cen­turies the Oki­nawans had devel­oped a sys­tem of unarmed com­bat called Oki­nawate or Tode or some­times sim­ply Te. This art was sup­pos­edly enhanced by the influ­ence of Chi­nese emis­saries in the 17th Cen­tury, who intro­duced kata, or forms, and other Chi­nese prin­ci­ples. Among the kata believed to have been intro­duced were, notably, Kusanku and Chinto which were named after the men who intro­duced them. This was at a time when Oki­nawa had come under the con­trol of Japan and Oki­nawans were required to sur­ren­der their weapons or be exe­cuted. The empty handed fight­ing arts may have been stud­ied so that the Oki­nawans might defend them­selves from their con­querors. More recent inves­ti­ga­tion reveals that the “Pechin” class, who were respon­si­ble for law and order as well as for the mil­i­tary, prob­a­bly devel­oped the empty handed fight­ing sys­tems of Okinawa.

In 1933, Funakoshi changed the kanji, or writ­ten form for “karate” from one that meant China (T’ang) hand to one which meant empty hand (though pro­nounced the same). The term “empty hand” car­ries with it many Japan­ese Zen con­no­ta­tions appro­pri­ate to the con­cept of a “do” or “way” and was prob­a­bly more accept­able to Japan­ese, due to the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion at that time. Main­land Japan already had sev­eral indige­nous empty hand com­bat arts (i.e., jujitsu, aik­i­jitsu, aikido, kenpo and judo), and many Japan­ese found karate to be highly com­pat­i­ble with these exist­ing systems.

Oki­nawate is often described as hav­ing devel­oped in three main areas around the towns of Naha, Tomari and Shuri and was taught secretly for cen­turies, usu­ally within fam­i­lies. We often asso­ciate dif­fer­ent empha­sis in inter­nal, exter­nal, and lin­ear tech­niques as being rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the tode from these three areas. Over time this art also came to be called karate jitsu (Chinese-hand fight­ing art).

Hironori Otsuka (stand­ing lef) with his mother, brother, and sisters.

Hironori Otsuka in 1912

Eight years later, after much ded­i­cated study, he over­took the mas­ter­ship of Shindo Yoshin Ryu Jujitsu from Nakayama after being hon­ored with the “Menkyo Kaiden” (Cer­tifi­cate of Full Pro­fi­ciency) in that art, mak­ing him the Fourth Grand Mas­ter of Shindo Yoshin Ryu Jujitsu. This was on June 1, 1921, his 29th birth­day, and was an out­stand­ing accom­plish­ment for a man so young.

Gichin Funakoshi

A first visit by Funakoshi was not suc­cess­ful, as the demon­stra­tion was given pri­mar­ily to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of samu­rai fam­i­lies who were not much inter­ested in an empty-handed art but a later demon­stra­tion in May of 1922 at the first pub­lic sports fes­ti­val in Tokyo caused a great deal of inter­est in karate. Otsuka heard of this visit and jour­neyed to Tokyo to wit­ness the demon­stra­tion and after­wards met with Gichin Funakoshi at the Mei­sei Juku (a res­i­dence for Oki­nawan stu­dents) where he was stay­ing at the time, and they spent many hours dis­cussing ideas about the mar­tial arts. Funakoshi was asked to stay and teach his art, and in Sep­tem­ber, agreed to accept Otsuka as a stu­dent of his karate.

Otsuka imme­di­ately saw the advan­tages of com­bin­ing the karate of Funakoshi, espe­cially the kata, with the tech­niques and prin­ci­ples of Shinto Yoshin Ryu Jujitsu. Because of his mar­tial arts skill, he was able to grasp the prin­ci­ples of karate very quickly, it took him only one year to learn the 15 katas that Funakoshi brought with him from Oki­nawa. By 1924 Otsuka had become his chief assis­tant instruc­tor, which raised more than a few eye­brows, par­tic­u­larly among Funakoshi’s Oki­nawan stu­dents and on April 24th of that year Otsuka became one of the first seven men to receive the rank of ShoDan (black belt) in karate. He soon intro­duced the con­cept of yaku­soku kata (pre-arranged fight­ing tech­niques), which was warmly accepted by Funakoshi.

(1 & 2) Oht­suka (uke) demon­strates Tantodori (defense against knife attack) with Shimizu Toshiyuki (tori).
(3 & 4) Gichin Funakoshi (uke) demon­strates Idori tech­nique (defense in sit­ting posi­tion) with Otsuka (tori).
Images from Gichin Funakoshi’s book “Karate-do Kyohan”

In 1927 he left the bank at Shi­mo­date and became a med­ical spe­cial­ist treat­ing mar­tial arts injuries, (set­ting bones and resus­ci­ta­tion), in order to devote more time to the mar­tial arts. He was now free to devote his time exclu­sively to his stud­ies. Undis­tracted, he sorted through a vari­ety of styles and tech­niques, reject­ing the triv­ial, retain­ing the sig­nif­i­cant, refin­ing the essen­tial, com­bin­ing the strengths of many, while using the warrior’s code as his basic phi­los­o­phy. He stud­ied many styles and with many peo­ple includ­ing, Yoshin Koryu Jujitsu from Motoo Kanaya (ca. 1919–1921). He also began to train with Kenwa Mabuni (the founder of Shito Ryu Karate, 1889–1952), Choki Motobu, (a stu­dent of Bushi Mat­sumura (the founder of Shorin Ryu, 1796–1893)), Yasut­sune (Anko) Itosu, (cre­ator of the five Pinan katas, 1831–1915), and Yasuhiro Kon­ishi, (1870–1944), and oth­ers, from whom he learned much addi­tional infor­ma­tion, espe­cially con­cern­ing kata. Dur­ing the late twen­ties it is known that Otsuka was on good terms with both Mori­hei Ueshiba (founder of Aikido, 1883–1969) and Gogen Yam­aguchi (founder of Gojo Ryu, 1909–1989), while it is not doc­u­mented whether Otsuka ever stud­ied under them or not.

Left to Right: Kanken Toyama, Hironori Otsuka, unknown, Gichin Funakoshi, Choki Motobu, Kenwa Mabuni, Genwa Naka­sone, Shinken Taira

Con­stantly learn­ing, teach­ing, build­ing and never con­tent with the sta­tus quo, he was among the first to study ways of orga­niz­ing the kumite tech­niques of the dojo (at that time taught in a man­ner that fre­quently resulted in injury) into con­trolled meth­ods of free-style fight­ing that could be used in com­pet­i­tive matches. He was also the first to develop kumite kata for karate, which would become a major inno­va­tion adopted by many styles. He intro­duced dif­fer­ent kinds of body shift­ing tech­niques, a more upright stance for mobil­ity, and reliance on eva­sion and counter tech­niques. He also intro­duced throws and joint locks into the reper­toire. As described by Masa­fumi Shiomitsu, 8th degree, Wado Ryu may be con­sid­ered a syn­the­sis of four ele­ments: Shu­rite Karate Do, Shindo Yoshin Ryu Jujitsu, Toda Ryu Kodachi, and Yagyu Ryu Ken­jitsu. To the lin­ear tech­niques of Shu­rite are added the body move­ment prin­ci­ples and grap­pling tech­niques of Shindo Yoshin Ryu, the nagasu tech­niques of Toda Ryu (which is a sys­tem of fight­ing with short sword against longer weapons), and the move­ment and flow of Yagyu Ryu style of swords­man­ship. From these sources are defined sev­eral prin­ci­ples which are fun­da­men­tal and par­tic­u­lar to Wado Ryu.

After Otsuka began to teach his karate at Tokyo Uni­ver­sity, he began to have con­flicts with Funakoshi over the intro­duc­tion of jujitsu tech­niques and the prac­tice of jyu kumite (free spar­ring), of which Funakoshi did not approve and in 1935 there was a part­ing of the ways. Research seems to sug­gest that most of the prob­lems between Otsuka and the Shotokan group seemed to have cen­tered around Funakoshi’s third son, Yoshi­taka (also known as Gigo, 1906–1945). It is also pos­si­ble that resent­ment and embar­rass­ment over a money issue con­tributed to the sep­a­ra­tion. By the time he resigned from the bank Otsuka had saved 1000 yen for his retire­ment. He put 200 yen toward a fund he set up for the pur­pose of build­ing a per­ma­nent dojo for Funakoshi. Other sup­port­ers of Funakoshi also con­tributed bring the total to about 700 yen. Mean­while Funakoshi’s eldest son, Giei, had allegedly been accu­mu­lat­ing gam­bling debts and pres­sured Otsuka to loan him some of the money from the fund to pay off some of these debts. Otsuka bowed to the pres­sure and called a meet­ing of the other senior stu­dents to approve the loan to Giei. Out of feel­ings of loy­alty to Funakoshi it was decided to loan the money but unfor­tu­nately Giei never paid the money back. Then to com­pound an already del­i­cate and embar­rass­ing sit­u­a­tion, Giei implied that Otsuka had kept the money for him­self. Any­way, it seems that senior Shotokan black belt Gen­shin Hironori sug­gested to Yoshi­taka Funakoshi that for the good of the Shotokan orga­ni­za­tion Otsuka should be dis­missed. Another Shotokan senior stu­dent, Mit­susaka Harada, con­firms that it was Yoshi­taka who expelled Otsuka from the group. Obvi­ously some­thing hap­pened because in 1934 Yoshi­taka Funakoshi replaced Otsuka as the instruc­tor of the Waseda Uni­ver­sity Karate Club.

In May of 1938 the Dai Nihon Butokukai, a gov­ern­ing body for Japan­ese mar­tial arts, hon­ored him with the title Ren­shi Go. In 1939 Otsuka wanted his stu­dents and new style to be rep­re­sented at a mar­tial arts fes­ti­val com­ing up in Kyoto. Otsuka and his stu­dents had dis­cussed a new name for the orga­ni­za­tion between 1934 and 1939 and when the mar­tial arts board in Kyoto asked Kihara the name of his orga­ni­za­tion, he listed it as Shin­shu Wado Ryu Jujitsu. After the name reg­is­tra­tion Otsuka was advised by Mas­ter Gihachiro Kubo (the suc­ces­sor of Yagyu Shink­age Ryu in the Tosa Clan) that since the char­ac­ters for Shin­shu and Wa both can be rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Japan, his name was rather redun­dant. The term wa means peace or har­mony, but it also rep­re­sents Japan as a short­ened form of Showa, which was the name for the era of Emperor Hiro­hito. Otsuka heeded this advice and the next year, on May 5, 1940, while par­tic­i­pat­ing in the “Cel­e­bra­tion for 2600 B.C. and 44th. Butoku Fes­ti­val”, when requested to sub­mit the name of the founder and the offi­cial name of the style by the Dai Nihon Butokukai, Otsuka reg­is­tered the short­ened “Wado Ryu” along with Shotokan, Shito Ryu and Goju Ryu. This was a big step for Wado Ryu because this occa­sion is con­sid­ered to be the first offi­cial nam­ing of the karate styles.

At the Dai Nihon Butokai reg­is­tra­tion in 1940 Otsuka reg­is­tered six­teen katas. These were the five Pinan katas: Nai­hanchi, Kusanku, Niseishi, Pas­sai, Chinto, Jion, Jitte, Rohai, Wan­shu, Seisan, and Suparem­pei. He also reg­is­tered thirty-six kihon kumite katas. It was believed in order to have a new style reg­is­tered a founder would need quite a volu­mi­nous syl­labus. This might have been the rea­son for this num­ber of katas. In 1970 ‘Karatedo Vol. 1′, by Otsuka, was pub­lished. He said, “Wado Ryu has only nine katas, which is already too many if you want to train seri­ously”, and pre­sented nine Wado Ryu katas, the five Pinans, Nai­hanchi, Kusanku, Seisan, and Chinto. He orig­i­nally stud­ied the Pinans under Funakoshi (Funakoshi was called Pinan Sen­sei in Tokyo, today they call these katas, Heians), but mod­i­fied them after work­ing with Mabuni and also incor­po­rat­ing some ideas from Shindo Yoshin Ryu. He said he took Nai­hanchi from Motobu. Both Kusanku and Chinto are very sim­i­lar in Shito Ryu and Shotokan. It is obvi­ous that he took Seisan from Funakoshi (Shotokan today, calls this kata Hangetsu), in no other style is Seisan per­formed in this way. Pas­sai of Shito Ryu, Shotokan and Wado are basi­cally the same, but Otsuka took his directly from Funakoshi. Jion, Jitte, and even Jiin seem to be katas of sim­i­lar type, they are basi­cally the same in Shito Ryu and Shotokan. He may have stud­ied Niseishi under Funakoshi but he later mod­i­fied it to Mabuni’s way. Otsuka’s ver­sion of Rohai is Rohai Sho, from Mabuni, while Funakoshi ran Rohai Ni. It is prob­a­ble that he took Wan­shu straight from Funakoshi. As the years went by many orga­ni­za­tions added back many of the old katas but with so much time elapsed it is not sur­pris­ing that these katas were run a bit dif­fer­ently from one school to the next. For some rea­son many Wado orga­ni­za­tions failed to add Suparem­pei back into the kata set. Suparem­pei was taught to Otsuka by Kenwa Mabuni. By stream­lin­ing the Wado Ryu kata set Otsuka was stress­ing qual­ity over quan­tity. Today, Wado Ryu schools run only ten Kihon Kumite katas, culled from the orig­i­nal thirty-six.

The kanji that Otsuka used for “kata” was dif­fer­ent than other styles. The kanji they use (also called “Igata”) means “mold”, stan­dard­ized, not trans­formable, and not chang­ing. Otsuka believed kata should not be like that but should be alive and able to con­form and change as sit­u­a­tions dic­tate. He taught that while doing any part of a kata you should not think of the move before, or after, but live only in the moment of the par­tic­u­lar action leav­ing you able to deal with what­ever may happen.

In 1942, Otsuka obtained the title Kyoshi from Dai Nihon Butokukai. Dur­ing World War II he was involved with the treat­ment of wounded sol­diers return­ing from the war. In the imme­di­ate after­math of World War II the newly formed Wado orga­ni­za­tion got it’s first per­ma­nent home. The dojo was located in front of the Tsuk­iji police sta­tion, in Tokyo, and was large enough to accom­mo­date 24 tatami. He only remained there for three years then relo­cated to the gym­na­sium of the Nakano Pri­mary School in the north of the city.

Otsuka’s abil­i­ties and ded­i­ca­tion brought him fame and honor, bestowed from many quar­ters. As well as found­ing Wado Ryu Karatedo Ren­mei he was vice-chairman of the All Japan Karatedo Fed­er­a­tion, a found­ing mem­ber of the Koku­sai Budoin (Inter­na­tional Mar­tial Arts Fed­er­a­tion), and Direc­tor of the Japan Clas­si­cal Mar­tial Arts Pro­mo­tion Soci­ety. In 1966, Emperor Hiro­hito hon­ored him with Shiju Hoosho Medal (Fifth Order of Merit, Cor­don of the Ris­ing Sun) for his con­tri­bu­tions to karate. Otsuka was still actively teach­ing at the Tokyo Den­tal Col­lege when on Octo­ber 9, 1972 he became the first karateka ever hon­ored by Prince Higashi Kuni No Miya, the younger brother of the emperor, and the pres­i­dent of the pres­ti­gious Koku­sai Budo Ren­mei (Inter­na­tional Mar­tial Arts Fed­er­a­tion). Prince Higashi Kuni No Miya bestowed him with the title of Mei­jin, this made him the head of all mar­tial arts sys­tems within the All Japan Karate do Fed­er­a­tion. Otsuka held this title until his death.

Otsuka was as unique and full of vital­ity as the style of karate he founded. Even an above aver­age man in his 70’s or 80’s would prob­a­bly have been con­tent to rest and let oth­ers con­tinue his work but Otsuka was not. Never believ­ing that he or even the mar­tial arts in gen­eral had learned all that there was to know, he con­tin­ued to prac­tice. Putting on his gi he would train every day for twenty min­utes on just one tech­nique and con­tinue this for a full month. He remarked one time how he enjoyed walk­ing on the unbe­liev­ably crowded streets of Tokyo so he could prac­tice smoothly weav­ing and twist­ing with­out let­ting any­one touch him. Otsuka was a very moral man and always showed great con­cern for his stu­dents. Many of his stu­dents, now senior instruc­tors, called him a gen­tle man and con­sid­ered him a father fig­ure. Otsuka’s belief in karatedo as a pow­er­ful means for spir­i­tual and moral improve­ment is reflected in his poetry and writ­ing on the sub­ject. Otsuka, weigh­ing about 120 pounds, and stand­ing 5’5″, was wil­lowy and lean. He main­tained rel­a­tively good health through­out his long life. He never drank, and even though he was a heavy smoker until he was in his six­ties, main­tained a health con­scious regime to the end. He pre­ferred to walk when pos­si­ble and when rid­ing trains would stand rather than sit, in order to chal­lenge his bal­ance. When asked about his secrets for good health and longevity he said, “I never fret about the past. I con­cen­trate on the present and plan for the future”. With his health fail­ing, on Novem­ber 20, 1981 Otsuka abdi­cated his posi­tion of Grand­mas­ter of Wado Ryu. In front of, and with clear agree­ment and acknowl­edg­ment of all his lead­ing stu­dents, Otsuka appointed his son Jiro, as Grand­mas­ter of Wado Ryu Karate Do. On Jan­u­ary 29,1982 Mas­ter Hironori Otsuka passed away. He prac­ticed karate up until his death and at the age of 89 was the old­est prac­tic­ing karateka. His son Jiro took his father’s name along with the mas­ter­ship of the Wado style at his father’s death. Otsuka formed one of the most com­plete sys­tems of self-defense ever devised. A fit­ting epi­taph for him could surely be a state­ment made by him; “the dif­fer­ence between the pos­si­ble and the impos­si­ble is one’s will”, for surely to this giant of a Budoka noth­ing could seem impossible.

Due to Otsuka’s com­mit­ment and inno­va­tion of tech­nique, Wado Ryu has rapidly become one of the most pop­u­lar karate sys­tems through­out the world. Unfor­tu­nate con­flicts in 1981 shortly before the death of the founder, caused Wado to be split into two orga­ni­za­tions, usu­ally referred to as Wado Ryu and Wado Kai. Wado Ryu Karate is directed through the Wado Ryu Karate Do Ren­mei in Tokyo, Japan, which is headed by Hironori Otsuka Ni Dai, 10th degree and son of the founder. Wado Kai is rep­re­sented by JKF Wado Kai in Japan, headed by Eichi Eriguchi. In 1989 a third major orga­ni­za­tion, Wado Koku­sai (Wado Inter­na­tional Karate Fed­er­a­tion) was founded by Tat­suo Suzuki Sen­sei in Lon­don, after split­ting from Wado Ryu Ren­mei. Wado Kai orga­ni­za­tions retained the orig­i­nal sym­bol of a fist enclosed by a dove. Wado Ryu Karate Do Ren­mei has adopted the kanji for “wa” enclosed by the dove as it’s sym­bol, and the Wado Inter­na­tional Karate Do Fed­er­a­tion has adopted the ris­ing sun enclosed by the dove as it’s symbol.

Many thanks to Sen­sei Wayne Tyler and David Everett sen­sei for the exten­sive research and guid­ance in the cre­ation of this biog­ra­phy of Mas­ter Otsuka. Many sources were used in this arti­cle. All mis­takes how­ever, are the author’s own. Don­ald Mor­ris, 4th Dan Wado Ryu Sep­tem­ber, 2004

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