Japanese Karate Cooperates for the Olympic Path. Which Direction Is Thai Karate Heading?

The first time I read the history of karate, I did not expect that 唐, read as kara, originally referred to the Tang dynasty or China, and that 手 meant hand, together suggesting China hand, because the Okinawan art had blended deeply with Chinese boxing. In the early twentieth century, when relations between Japan and China were tense, a name meaning China hand became a sensitive matter, so the masters chose 空, which can also be read as kara.

For me that change was not only political. It lifted the art from a fighting technique to a Way, or Do: emptying the mind and setting the ego aside so that you can read the situation in front of you clearly. I tell this to every student at IMAC Dojo, because students who understand what they are training usually go further than students who only memorise movements. If you want to follow the Kyokushin line further, read our article on the history of Shinkyokushinkai karate alongside the story of Masutatsu Oyama.

The difference between the two approaches became visible in 1969: on 20 September that year Kyokushin held the 1st All Japan Karate Championship at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium under knockdown rules with genuine contact, in contrast to sundome (寸止め), where the strike is stopped before it lands and the bout is decided on points. Both approaches have their own reasoning, but over the decades that difference hardened into an institutional wall.

The full-contact side began moving at a meeting in the Akasaka district on 9 April 2012, then established the Japan Full Contact Karate Organization, JFKO, on 18 March 2013, and gathered 1,033,095 signatures supporting karate's inclusion in the Olympics. In September of that same year Tokyo was chosen to host the 2020 Olympics, which made the conversation urgent for everyone.

The moment I find most important is 16 April 2015, when the Japan Karatedo Federation under chairman Takashi Sasagawa and the International Karate Organization Kyokushinkaikan under its kancho, Shokei Matsui signed a memorandum as friendly partner organisations to push for Olympic inclusion together. That was not a merger of rules. It was an acknowledgement that the other side has its own legitimate place.

The visible result is that karate appeared at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics under World Karate Federation (WKF) rules, and although it did not continue on the Paris 2024 programme, the relationship built between the organisations endured. In 2025 the full-contact side held the 1st World Full Contact Karate Championship, run by the World Fullcontact Karate Organization (WFKO), from 31 May to 1 June at Ariake Arena in Tokyo. The lesson I want the Thai karate world to see is that unity does not have to mean identical rules, but it does require a table where people genuinely talk.

Thailand's national karate body began in October 1976 as the Federation of All Thailand Karate-do Organizations, or FATKO. It was recognised by the Sports Authority of Thailand (SAT) in May 1987, was renamed the Thailand Karate-do Federation (TKF) in February 1996, and its name was adjusted under sports law until it became the Thailand Karate Federation in full in 2016.

Because the route to the SEA Games, the Asian Games and the Olympics runs on WKF rules, it is understandable that the association concentrates on that system. National team athletes have to train under the rules they will actually compete in. I respect the work the association has done over these decades, because building athletes who can stand on an international stage is not easy.

Still, this structure leaves one gap: practitioners of full-contact karate have no competition pathway inside the same system. That is the same gap Japan once had, before it found a way to connect two systems.

I teach the Shinkyokushin Karate lineage — the NPO World Karate Organization Shinkyokushinkai (WKO) — myself, so I see three layers of obstacles from the floor of the dojo. The first is that Muay Thai is Thailand's national martial art and already carries the country's attachment; when Thais think of full-force contact, they think of Muay Thai first. The second is that Taekwondo has built a broad and accessible black-belt pathway for children. The third is that the state competition pathway is tied to WKF rules, so full-contact practitioners have no arena inside that system.

Our dojo, IMAC Dojo in Lat Phrao, belongs to the WKO Thailand network led by Shihan Fumiaki Frank Nagashima, WKO Branch Chief Thailand, so we stand mainly on our own feet without state funding. I chose this path because I believe in training that puts safety and discipline before speed. If you are looking for martial arts classes in Lat Phrao that care about correct fundamentals rather than movements that merely look good, I think this path answers the need better than people expect. Karate is not only for competitors: working adults, parents and children all train it for health and confidence.

Japan's story taught me that unity does not come from dissolving everyone into identical rules. It comes from the courage to sit down together and design sincere channels for working side by side. Two lineages that had disagreed for decades still signed as friendly partner organisations, and neither had to abandon its own identity.

So I hope that in the near future full-contact karate, such as Kyokushin and Shinkyokushin Karate, will have the chance to become part of the Thailand Karate Federation in a form that fits our own context, drawing on the lesson from Japan that has already proved it can be done. This hope is not built on arguing about who is more correct. Every organisation is devoted to the same art, and I respect the work of all of them sincerely.

While that door is still closed, my work at IMAC Dojo stays the same: passing on skill, discipline, safety and respect for this art to every student, whether or not the national competition route ever opens wider. If you would like to talk about training or watch a class, the schedule and fees page has the class times, and you can read the instructor background on the instructor profile.