How Many Karate Schools Are There in Thailand? Karate-do Styles and Full Contact Karate

According to the record collected on the history of karate in Thailand, karate began to spread here around 1957 through tourists and foreign residents. Between 1963 and 1964 there were Muay Thai versus karate matches, which is what first brought the art to wide attention.

The moment usually treated as a landmark came in 1965, when a karate demonstration was given during a judo competition at Gymnasium 1 of the National Stadium, before the Crown Prince, with Seiichi Murakami demonstrating. Teaching began afterwards at a private residence, with only four or five students in the first group.

In 1966 Tetsuo Sadahiro arrived to teach in earnest, and in 1970 the first karate club at an educational institution was formed at Thammasat University. I often tell students at IMAC Dojo that every martial art begins from a small group like that. The perseverance of those pioneering teachers is what carried Thai karate to where it is now.

The honest answer is that there is no single official number. In Japan itself, counting the style organisations listed by the Japan Karatedo Federation gives five, while people commonly speak of four major styles, and the full-contact branch sits outside that count altogether. In Thailand no body publishes a summary figure at all.

The origin of the name 空手, the Kyu and Dan belt system, and the detailed count of styles are all covered in what karate is and how many styles there are. This page stays on what you can actually decide with, in a Thai context.

That frame is to divide by contact rule into two groups. The first is traditional Karate-do, which uses the sundome rule, holding the strike back before real contact. The second is Full Contact karate, where strikes land on the body and legs. Once you know which group a dojo sits in, you can predict what the training, the equipment, and the grading will look like.

The traditional styles commonly met in Thailand are the ones gathered under the Japan Karatedo Federation. All of them use the same sundome rule, and differ in body structure and in how they generate power.

None of this makes one style stronger than another. It means each conditions the body differently. Goju-ryu also trains with old weighted implements under the heading 補助運動 (hojo undo, supplementary conditioning), using stone tools such as 力石 (chi-ishi, a weighted stone handle), which the Shotokan curriculum does not include.

Full Contact karate is the form where strikes land for real, with bare hands and bare feet. Its origin is the Kyokushin Kaikan school founded by Grandmaster Oyama Masutatsu. The lineage later branched into several organisations, the internationally known one being Shinkyokushin (新極真会) under WKO.

The rules that earn it the name are these: strikes to the body land at full force, kicks to the head are allowed, and bare-hand strikes to the face and throat are not. That is the competition rule set. A class is a different context, where the instructor sets the drills, the equipment, and the level of force according to each student's experience.

What this format gives that a points rule set cannot is that the technique is tested under real impact. A practitioner has to develop kicks and body strikes with genuine power behind them, rather than a light touch that registers a score, and has to learn to keep going while tired and hurting — which no points system measures.

The other side of that is real: an art with contact carries an injury risk that cannot be reduced to zero, and we do not say there is none. What can be done is to place the risk deliberately. The rules and the kind of pain that actually occurs are covered in whether Kyokushin karate hurts.

Thailand's national competitive path runs on point-scoring rules under the Thailand Karate Federation, which connects to the international system of the World Karate Federation. That body began in 1976 as FATKO and was renamed several times under sports law; the full timeline is in the Olympic path of Thai karate.

Under WKF rules a scoring technique is worth one of three values: 一本 (ippon) for three points, 技あり (waza-ari) for two, and 有効 (yuko) for one. A competitor who builds a lead of eight points wins. Full-contact karate follows its own path, with its Japanese parent body setting grading and competition standards separately.

Before deciding, three questions help more than any photo gallery. Which organisation does this dojo belong to, and whose grading criteria does it use? What level of certification do the instructors hold from that organisation? And can you come and watch training during a group class, to see the real atmosphere before you decide?

The first question matters especially around the word Kyokushin, because several organisations run their own networks under that name today. Seeing the words full contact on a sign does not yet tell you how a dojo connects to a parent body in Japan.

At IMAC Dojo we teach Shinkyokushin Karate, the full-contact branch of the Kyokushin lineage. Training and grading run under Shihan Fumiaki Frank Nagashima, Branch Chief Thailand for WKO, so the standard applied to one student is the standard used across the whole lineage rather than one the school invented for itself.

And for beginners worried by the phrase full contact: the programme opens with stances, punching, kicking, blocking, balance, and basic movement. Instructors adjust the drills, the training partner, and the level of intensity to each student's age, size, and goal. Nobody is pushed into contact on day one.

To see how grading works, there is the grading preparation course, and for how this lineage travelled from Japan to Thailand, read Shinkyokushin Karate from Japan to Thailand.