Dear Karate friends,
With this letter we want to clarify some things about EFKO/WFKO because we want to inform you in a very transparent and open way. As you know Japan and his leader Shihan Kenji Midori have been working for a long time to bring people and organizations together. First the focus was a unification from all Fullcontact Organizations in the hope that Karate/Fullcontact karate could become an Olympic sport with all benefits that would follow from there. In the mean while we have to be realistic to see that it won’t be easy. Out of this goal we organized a lot of activities and camps. In Japan, JFKO could unite in more than 320 Fullcontakt Karate organizations. The JFKO is very strong based on Budo and the values of Kyokushin/Fullcontact Karate. Also our headquarters are based in the mother country of Karate Japan, and that is very important for us. For a few years WKO and JFKO have asked the rest of the world to make were possible a national Fullcontact karate organization and also a region (Europe, Asia, Africa, America) Fullcontact Karate organization. The meaning of these organizations is not to make a new karate organization to compete the exist organizations like EKO, but to bring people together for the benefit of all. EFKO has nothing to do with positions, money, gradings or karate syllabus. We will never compete or interfere in the exist organizations. So please don’t see it as a treat or a concurrent because that will never be. The goal of WFKO is to organize a united world championship like in the time that we all where one. The last World Championship under Sosai Oyama was in 1991 when Midori shihan became the World Champion. So after 28 years we will have again a United World championship in Japan and that is an enormous goal to make.
The goal of EFKO is the same as WFKO, we are responsible to organize a selection Tournament for this World Championship for our region, Europe. Therefore WFKO has asked 5 person from Shinkyokushin, 2 person from Ashihara and 2 people from other organizations in Europe to make a board to organize this selection Championship. The first selection championship , as you know, has been held in in Antwerp on January 18th and 19th 2020. Shihan Midori, Shihan Koi and Shihan Tsukamoto were there to support EFKO. Also other leaders from other organizations were there to be our special guests like Shihan Antonio Pinereo KWF, Shihan Alexander Pichkunov KWU, Shihan Nicu Dascalu Ashihara, Sensei Jonathan Tineo, Paul Lorist and many others. Another thing what we want to do is to attract people to take part in this united goal. What is better to make a bound then train, sweat and share our passion together. Therefore we will organize united European Fullcontact karate camps, open to all karate organizations. We all saw that the EFKO camps in Belgium and Romania where a big success with a lot of attention and promotion, so it was a good example for showing the power of unification. In Tokyo at the World Championship and later in Belgium and Lithuania, the EFKO board had a meeting to set up the first points that need to be taken to make a strong fundament. We hope that you will help us, because we can’t do this alone and we need your support in this. We will be open and transparent for everybody to make a strong chain of Budo and Fullcontact. We are aware of the fact that there were some worries because we haven’t explain the purpose of EFKO yet to everybody. We hope that this letter with explanations gives you more inside information Off course we will try to answer all questions that come to us and we will be glad to help in any way.
EFKO board