Contact Karate: Durham Location Only
Kenkojuku Karate-do is the style of Tomasaburo Okano, a student of Gichin Funakoshi and his son, Yoshitaka (the “young master” who was credited with making many changes to his father’s style, including the beginning of free-sparring and new methods of kicking). After Yoshitaka’s premature death, Okano asked the elder Funakoshi in 1942 for permission to split off and form a karate research & training group which became the Kenkojuku Budokan in 1948.
This school would keep training more similar to Yoshitaka Funakoshi’s methods, as opposed to Nakayama’s JKA which turned kumite into a shiai sport with ippon rules based on Kendo and Judo. Kenkojuku-style is similar to JKA Shotokan, but focuses on continuous fighting practice, without any of the usual modern karate rules of stopping when contact is made to score a point and reset the action. The fighting continues and at higher rank it includes basic Judo groundwork. This makes the Karate taught at Bushido Judo School more applicable to real fighting and self-defense than what is taught at most dojos.
Class at Bushido is not structured around kata, but instead live partner drills which teach students in a fun, dynamic way how to punch and kick with correct body mechanics for maximum power, how to avoid attacks and counterpunch, and how to set up an opponent for your attack with feints and unbalancing techniques.
Our students practice with a specific set of time-tested safety gear, including a headgear with a face shield, allowing students to make solid contact so that they know their technique really works. This practice is similar to a much older Japanese & Okinawan Karate method called bogu kumite, which used boxing gloves and Kendo headgear.
This type of training greatly reduces injury chance and can allow the most average students to feel safe trying their technique under real pressure, giving them a ore enjoyable, richer Karate experience and confidence in their ability to handle themselves in a self-defense situation.
