The Australian Shorinjiryu Karatedo Association was formed over 30 years ago as an organization to preserve, teach and develop the Shorinjiryu Karatedo of Kaiso Kori Hisataka throughout Australia. For the first 16 years of our existence, we were the official branch of the hombu dojo of Shorinjiryu Kenkokan Karatedo, under the leadership of Kaiso Kori Hisataka and later his son, Hanshi Masayuki Hisataka. Most of our current senior instructors had the origins in the organization at that time.
In 1994, Australian Shorinjiryu Karatedo became an independent organization based largely on the teachings of Shorinjiryu Kenkokan Karatedo.
In 2000, we joined the International Shorinjiryu Shinzen Kyokai, and then in 2007 we became part of the Shorinjiryu Kenyukai Watanabe Ha World Federation. This was a great chance for us to continue to develop our Shorinjiryu practices under the leadership of Hanshi Shunji Watanabe, a direct student of the founder. In the 4 years of our working with Hanshi Watanabe we have learned a lot about the original Shorinjiryu.
On 25 March 2011, the Chief Instructors of the Australian Shorinjiryu Karatedo Association have made the decision to re-establish the independence of our organisation, and to form a new school - Shorinjiryu Koshinkai Karatedo - of Shorinjiryu that combines the teachings of Hanshi Watanabe and Hanshi Hisataka. This decision has the unanimous support of the Executive Committee.
Our organization shall continue to be known as the Australian Shorinjiryu Karatedo Association, while our “school” of Shorinjiryu shall be known as Shorinjiryu Koshinkai Karatedo. Koshinkai means the “old (ko) and new (shin) group (kai)”. We believe that this new name accurately reflects the contributions of our current and former leadership and provides a path forward.