Grand Master Hironori Otsuka I was born on June 1, 1892. He was the founder of the Wado School of Karate. He contributed to the establishment of the International Martial Arts Federation and he was the technical council and member of the standing committee. He was First Vice-Chairman of the Japan Karate Federation for two years and then became a senior statesman for the Japan Karate Federation. In 1966, the Japanese government honored him with the Fifth Order of Merit (the Cordon of the Rising Sun) for his contributions to karate.

    April 1, 1897, when he was five years old, Grand Master Otsuka began practicing jujutsu under the tutelage of his great uncle. At the age of 13, he began studying judo for junior high school students under Master Nakayama who was the head of the Shinto Yoshin Ryu style, specializing in throwing and ground techniques, the school also stressed striking and kicking.

    In the spring of 1910, when Grand Master Otsuka was 18, he entered Waseda University. While majoring in business administration, he also started training in other jujutsu schools besides Shinto Yoshin Ryu since by this time there were 100 t0 200 schools standing side by side on some streets. He continued this for 4 years until he began to realize that all techniques in jujutsu were the same, so he quit going to the different schools and began training on his own. After the death of his father in 1912, during his junior year at Waseda, his mother convinced him to withdraw and go to work at the Kawasaki Bank owned by his great uncle, because she was concerned about him being crazy about just martial arts. He continued to work at the bank for 12 years as an obligation to his mother, but he never stopped practicing jujutsu during that time. On June 1, 1921, Grand Master Otsuka celebrated his 30^th birthday by taking over the mastership of Shinto Yoshin Ryu, from Master Nakayama, upon receipt of a certificate of "full proficiency" in the jujutsu style. He succeeded the 4^th generation of Shinto Yoshin Ryu.

    The residence of the local government officials was located across from the bank where he worked, so, he continued asking the Okinawa officials if someone would be coming to teach karate, but it never happened. In 1922 when Funakoshi Sensei came to Tokyo, Grand Master Otsuka began training with him. The same year, an article in a newspaper reporting on Crown Prince Hirohito’s visit to Europe was destined to profoundly affect Grand Master Otsuka’s life and provided a new direction in his martial arts career. The story mentioned that the Crown Prince had also visited Okinawa where he was entertained with a dancing performance and a demonstration of karate. In return, Gichin Funakoshi and different cultural groups arrived in Tokyo for an Expo to demonstrate the different cultures of Okinawa and to demonstrate their local martial arts.

    When he was 31 years old, he heard of Funakoshi Sensei from Okinawa living in a Meiseijuku dormitory, which was for the university students of Okinawa and he started studying at the Meiseijuku dormitory in the dining room. Funakoshi Sensei asked Grand Master Otsuka if he knew karate before because Shinto Yoshin Ryu already included striking and kicking techniques. Funakoshi Sensei knew only 15 katas at that time and Grand Master Otsuka completed those in less than one year. Then he wasn’t satisfied with only learning order of katas, so he wanted to visit Okinawa to find out about meaning of each movement, but Funakoshi Sensei denied him going to Okinawa. Funakoshi Sensei had reasons for not wanting to return to Okinawa. Because of debts incurred by Giei, his son, he was unable to return to Okinawa. Three years later, Grand Master Otsuka visited two Okinawa senseis, Mabuni Kenei and Choki Motubu who were living in Osaka City, in order to learn more detail about Okinawan karate. He asked Motobu Sensei about details of each karate techniques and they shared techniques with each other. He then asked about the actual situation of karate in Okinawa and found out there was no further information for him there, so he decided not to travel to Okinawa but to study himself about karate and jujutsu and to create a new style.

    After Grand Master Otsuka’s mother died, he quit the bank and he had retirement money of 1000 yen, which had a value to executives as one year of income. He contributed 200 yen of his money for Funakoshi Sensei’s dojo fund and at that time, due to being a banker, he kept the funds for Funakoshi sensei to build his dojo. Other students also contributed money to this fund so the total was 600-800 yen. At the same time, the son, Giei found out Grand Master Otsuka had collected the money for the dojo and Giei wanted the money to pay off his gambling debts. He kept asking Grand Master Otsuka for the money to pay off his debts. After getting tired of listening to him, Grand Master Otsuka had a meeting with other senior students to see what they wanted to do about loaning him the money to pay his debts. They felt that since he was the son of the sensei, they should help him, so they loaned him the money but he never paid it back. After that happened, Giei started a rumor that Grand Master Otsuka had stolen the money. Funakoshi Sensei asked Grand Master Otsuka to teach at the university but Giei denied Grand Master Otsuka, because he was afraid he would take over since he knew more kumite techniques. Since it was getting difficult to stay with them and he saw it was not a good situation for the second son, Yoshitaka, he left with permission from Funakoshi Sensei because he knew the whole story. The year this happened was 1926.

    While Grand Master Otsuka was working at the bank, he went to school to study orthopedics and was the first to graduate from the school. After finishing orthopedic school, he met Ryotaro Kanai who was an orthopedic doctor. He was concerned about Judo injuries and asked Grand Master Otsuka to create a group of judo instructors to study the knowledge of orthopedic injuries. He was Vice-President of this organization, which still exist today. He held the position for only one-year due to his medical school growing so rapidly. He started his own orthopedic hospital called Nagurado which he kept open but did not have many patients because he was teaching karate all the time but, during the war, he was busy helping with injured soldiers returning from the war. He kept the Nagurado Hospital open 14 years until 1938.

Around 1928, Grand Master Otsuka went increasingly on his own, setting up a string of karate clubs at various universities in Tokyo.

    In 1929, he created basic movements, which are today basic wado ryu techniques. Also, the ippon kumite, sanbon kumite and kihon kumite movements were created at that time. He then began a study into a method of arranging kumite (free-style sparring) into competitive matches, laying the basis for present-day kumite-style tournaments. He also incorporated the nage-waza (throwing techniques) into his style of karate.

    In May of 1934, Grand Master Otsuka officially inaugurated his own unique style of karate. He called his new school the All Japan Karate Promotion Club (Dai Nippon Karatedo Shinko Club). It was located at Kanda City in Tokyo until 1938, then moved to Master Gihachiro Kubo’s dojo of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu. During this time, he studied long swordsmanship techniques from him. In May of 1938, when a memorial festival for martial arts originators was held, the Butokukai requested each of its member groups to submit the name of its founder and the official name of the style or school. He registered the name Shinshu Wado Ryu Karate Jutsu. That was when the karate style was recognized with the same status as the other Japanese martial art styles. Before that time, karate styles were not named, only associated with senseis.

    After the war, the Butokukai was dissolved and then it was prohibited for a long time to practice martial arts, but the U.S. Military government officials ignored karate training. Grand Master Hironori Otsuka and the present Grand Master Jiro Otsuka were invited to the base to demonstrate, which they enjoyed because there was no food in Japan and they could eat there but could not take food away from the base. After the ban was lifted, the practice of Judo in 1951 and the practice of Kendo in 1956 were called training sessions. Practiced but not called by they’re original names of Judo or Kendo. But, karate name was still okay.

    In 1972, Grand Master Otsuka was awarded the title of "Meijin" (meaning expert) by the Emperor’s uncle who was the President of the International Martial Arts Federation, making him head of all Japanese martial arts. This was the first time this title had been awarded to anyone and no one else would be considered for it until after his death.

Grand Master Otsuka had four children – two sons and two daughters. His younger son, Jiro took over most of the Master’s duties.