Yoshukai Karate
| Also known as | Yoshukan, Chito-Kai |
|---|---|
| Focus | Striking |
| Hardness | Full contact |
| Country of origin |
 Japan |
| Creator | Mamoru Yamamoto |
| Famous practitioners | Mike Foster, Cheryl Wheeler-Dixon |
| Parenthood | Chito-ryu |
| Ancestor arts | Shorin-ryu, Shorei-ryu, Chinese martial arts, indigenous martial arts of the Ryūkyū Islands (Naha-te, Shuri-te, Tomari-te) |
| Olympic sport | no |
Yoshukai (養秀会 Yōshūkai?) karate is a branch discipline of the Japanese/Okinawan martial art, Karate–dō, or "Way of the Empty Hand." The three kanji (Japanese symbols) that make up the word Yoshukai literally translated mean "Training Hall of Continued Improvement." However, the standardized English translation is "Striving for Excellence." Yoshukai Karate has been featured in Black Belt Magazine.
The body of fighting and self-defense techniques which became Japanese Karate-do is thought to have originated about a thousand years ago in India and spread from there to China, Okinawa and finally to Japan in the early 1900s. Gichin Funakoshi (Funakoshi Gichin), founder of Shotokan karate, is considered to be most responsible for the systemization and introduction of karate to Japan. Afterward, many other masters emerged, including Tsuyoshi Chitose, who developed Chito-ryu karate from a combination of Shorin-ryu and Shorei-ryu karate styles. After moving from Okinawa to Japan in 1922, Chitose began teaching karate in Kumamoto, Japan. He refined the Okinawan techniques based on his medical knowledge and officially founded his own style of karate in 1946, in 1952 naming it Chito-ryu, meaning "1,000 year-old style."
In the late fifties, Chitose's top ranking student and protégé was Mamoru Yamamoto (Yamamoto Mamoru). After establishing his own training dojo, Yamamoto adapted new fighting techniques and traditional weapons from Okinawa into Chito-Ryu. After leaving the Chito-Kai Federation in 1971, Yamamoto became noted for founding the style of karate known as Yoshukai.
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