World Genseiryu Karatedo Federation

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World Genseiryu Karatedo Federation is a karate organization.

Seiken Shukumine, as the founder of Genseiryu Karate and Taido, was considered the head of his own styles up until his death. However, since 1962 he was mainly occupied with Taido and was no longer involved with Genseiryu, apart from some occasional lessons (pictures of one of these lessons can be found here: [1]). Shukumine held a friendly relationship with some of his former students of Genseiryu. Seiken Shukumine appointed a successor for Genseiryu, the first one being Yamada, later followed by Saito and after his death, Yasunori Kanai. In 2003 the World Genseiryu Karatedo Federation (WGKF) was established. Clubs adhering to the agreement of the WGKF follow Shukumine's first book 'Shin Karatedo Kyohan'. Yasunori Kanai is the President of the WGKF. The Japanese organization Japan Karate-do and Martial Arts Association (Japanese name Nippon Karate-do Budo Kyokai), of which Kanai is President as well, also takes a part in this federation.

The World Genseiryu Karatedo Federation has its Japanese office in Ito, Japan, the place where Shukumine lived for many years and where he is now buried. The head quarter (Honbu) of the Japanese branch of Genseiryu, Japan Genseiryu Karatedo is also situated in that office in Ito and Kanai is also the president of this Japanese branch. Japan Genseiryu Karatedo is a member of Nippon Karatedo Rengoukai, and since Nippon Karatedo Rengoukai is a member of the Japan Karatedo Federation (JKF) ([2]), Japan Genseiryu Karatedo is that as well.

n 2003, many Genseiryu instructors from all over the world came to Oviedo, Spain for a meeting held by the World Genseiryu Karatedo Federation. At this meeting they all signed an agreement where they state a.o. that they will follow Sensei Shukumine's book "Shin Karate-do Kyohan" as a guideline to train what is considered by the W.G.K.F. to be the original Genseiryu. Especially the basic kata Ten-i, Chi-i and Jin-i no kata are considered by the W.G.K.F. to be important kata. Some instructors choose to train Heians (basic kata from Shotokan) as well, but they did not reject any of the kata in the book. So they still train Ten-Chi-Jin as it is sometimes abbreviated. It is free to mention and free to train kata from other styles in our Genseiryu organization, but we, will never change things as mentioned in this book. In the book "Taido Gairon" sensei Shukumine wrote a note about his first book, saying that people studying Genseiryu would find important information in that book. The agreement of the several branches can be read here.

[edit] History of Genseiryu (additional to the article Genseiryu)

In 1962 Seiken Shukumine introduced a new martial art which he called Taido. It is a further development of Genseiryu and is not to be regarded as karate, but as a new martial art. From that point on, Shukumine was mainly involved with Taido and most of his pupils started to train Taido as well. However, Taido people have always kept a friendly relationship with Genseiryu people and Shukumine was occasionally involved with Genseiryu lectures to his former students of Genseiryu. However, since October 1961 he held only occasionally examinations in Genseiryu, only in Japan.

In 1964 he published his book "Shin Karatedo Kyohan", which is the first book on Genseiryu Karate. In this book he describes the techniques, which are being taught in Genseiryu schools that are connected to the W.G.K.F. In the book he also describes some of the kata very thoroughly, together with pictures. The most distinguished kata of Genseiryu according to the W.G.K.F. are the basic kata Ten-I, Chi-I and Jin-i-no Kata and the kata Sansai and Tai-i. Shukumine pointed out the importance of these kata in an open letter he wrote not long before he died (letter in Japanese).

In the mid 1970s Shukumine wrote another book about Karate: "The Karate training by complete drawing", which is a much lesser known book. It contains over 200 pages, where he describes some karate techniques but he also describes the differences between karate and arts such as judo, aikido, Taido, and others.

[edit] Reasons for the establishment of WGKF

In the early days of Genseiryu, Shukumine had a student called Kunihiko Tosa. When Shukumine decided to stop training Genseiryu, this student decided not to follow him, together with some other students, but in stead he continued to train Genseiryu and opened his own dojo in 1962. He named his dojo "Butokukai" (武徳会), meaning something like "martial arts association" (although in the beginning the term kai (会) could have been translated as 'gathering' or 'meeting', so freely translated 'dojo' or 'place to meet/train'). Since Tosa had been changing the techniques and curriculum of the original Genseiryu he had learned from his master, the name of this new style was called after his dojo Genseiryu-Butokukai.

Kunihiko Tosa also created the organization Nippon Karatedo Genseiryu Butokukai. He wanted to join the JKF and presumably to increase the chance of being accepted to this federation he changed his lesson curriculum. He implemented kata from Shotokan and Shito-Ryu. The most important difference of his curriculum was his choice of discarding the basic kata Ten-i, Chi-i and Jin-i no kata and to replace them by the basic kata of Shotokan (the so called Heians). Tosa also wrote a book (1984) and named it "Genseiryu Karate Kyohan 2". Tosa's book is used in dojo that train Genseiryu-Butokukai. Because Tosa still named his style Genseiryu, so after the style he had learned from his master, there were suddenly two styles calling themselves "Genseiryu", and a 'problem' arose. This problem was solved when, through legal intervention, it was decided that his karate style is to be called Genseiryu-Butokukai. However, this is by Japanese law and outside Japan, he and some of his followers (not all) are still using the name Genseiryu. Some of these schools have grouped in the Genseiryu Karate-do International Federation, the overseas name of the Nippon Karatedo Genseiryu Butokukai.

Other students of Shukumine, like Yamada and Kanai, continued with the curriculum that Shukumine was teaching. So they kept training the 'original' Genseiryu, as was first taught by Shukumine. Their guideline was and still is the first book of Shukumine "Shin Karatedo Kyohan". This can be read in this agreement. This agreement was signed and the World Genseiryu Karatedo Federation was established amongst others to prevent history from repeating itself and other schools changing the curriculum again, and to ensure international conformity about the original Genseiryu, the karate style as it was developed by Seiken Shukumine.

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