The martial arts themselves hail from the east. They span a huge range of times, from centures BC to as recent as under a century ago. There are many, many different martial arts, and each instructor may have his or her own interpretation.

Karate is instantly accessible. The basic movements are intuitive and simple with practice, but when strung together in a spar can provide lightning-quick and powerful tests of skill.

Perhaps the best way to get a taste of Karate and its origins - apart from actually training in it - is to learn more about the founder of our style, Wado Karate.

Founder of the Wado style, Sensei Ohtsuka began martial arts training at six in Shindo Yoshin-ryu ju-jitsu, a traditional Japanese marial art from which Judo was derived. By 1921, at the relatively young age of 29, he was awarded the coveted menkyo-kaiden, designating him the successor as master of this style. A year later he began Karate training under Gichin Funakoshi, the man who introduced Karate to Japan from Okinawa. He became one of Funakoshi's senior students, but eventually travelled to Okinawa to learn from the masters who had instructed his Sensei. It was his belief that Funakoshi had over-simplified and over-modified several Karate techniques and kata in the interests of teaching large groups of beginners. Sensei Ohtsuka combined his new knowledge of Karate with several of his adaptions from Japanese Bushido (the Way of the Warrios) to form Wado Karate.

Sensei Ohtsuka founded Wada Karate in 1939, which became one of the four major styles of Karate (along with Shotokan, Shito and Goju). In the same year, Sensei Ohtsuka organised the All-Japan Karate-do Federation, Wado-Kai, which serves as the world-wide sanctioning body for Wado Karate and all its affiliates. As early as 1939 he had developed rules for competative free sparring to be incorperated into his system, the first Karate style to do so. These rules have been wholly or partially adopted by virtually all modern martial arts competitions. In 1972, Sensei Ohtsuka recieved the highest Japanese decoration from the Emperor for all his contribution to Karate as well as being designated head of all martial arts systems within the All Japan Karate-do Federation.