About us

Our message

Even though it sounds like a cliché, the person who does karate needs to serve as an example in any regard.

Because karate is moral, karate is discipline, karate is respect and love.

Developed as a self-defence and survival system in the difficult times of violence and invaders, it transformed itself in time as a way of life and system for the physical and psychological perfection of the person.

Unfortunately during the time of development of karate, not everything was without problems.

This is also related not only to the developed countries where karate was introduced during the 1960s but also for those countries where it was legalised after the democratic changes during the '90s of the twentieth century.

In many of those countries, even until this day, democracy is changed with a totalitarian understanding and dogmatism with regards to the martial arts and sports.

From here the schism and conservatism are along those lines. This brought the devaluing of the ideas of the martial arts and the weakening of influence towards theeducation and motivation for harmonic development and self-discipline of those practitioners.

It is not a secret for anyone, that many of our colleges chose the way of easy fame and profit and went on the "other" - destructive side, as they turned their backs on the main principles of karate and its morals.

This, in some cases, brought a bad image and a stain, and from there even a reflux from the rows of the people that do karate and martial arts.

The new age we live in is a time of changes and challenges.

We, the martial arts teachers, following the way of Budo, need to give our contribution towards the education of the young people and people that do martial arts in the spirit of the family values, traditions and morals.

Let us respect and honour our colleges' martial artists around the world and live in harmony and peace amongst us.

Only like this, the large karate family can walk the hard and honourable way of the martial arts during the new 21st century.

As a traditional martial art F.T.O. KARATE-DO incorporates the prime components of teaching:

Kihon - Kata - Kumite.
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In addition to those components, the classes include “four-by-four” system exercises, giving the karatekas the opportunity to develop those indispensable qualities for the martial arts, such as:

Flexibility - Agility - Strength - Speed - Endurance - Accuracy - Concentration.
‍Special attention is given to breathing exercises and additional supplementary training equipment, including makiwara and others, which contribute to the unique, devastating power of the karate techniques.

Martial art or Sport

F.T.O. KARATE-DO is a martial art. It is founded on the basis of traditional Okinawan and Japanese karate, it has its own philosophy, traditions and peculiarities, distinguishing it from the martial sports.

This is a total karate, which has no rules or dogmas. Here control is one hundred percent necessary because the majority of strokes are directed at the weak, vital parts of the person and every unnecessary contact can be hazardous for health.

Here we don’t have the strict rules of sports karate and the subjectivism of the judges. That’s why in this system no kata and kumite competitions are undertaken.

As every traditional martial art, F.T.O. KARATE-DO has its own katas, but unlike the old styles, there is a lot more freedom of choice, preferences and creativity by the karatekas.

The founder – George Venkov Kaiso presented his style F.T.O. KARATE-DO for the first time in 2011 in Australia.

In his forty years of experience as a martial artist and karateka Kaiso G.Venkov experiments in the Japanese karate-do and the style of Shotokan.

He has been in contact with many specialists in the field of martial arts from different styles and schools and over the years in conjunction with the traditional conception of karate, he created his own concept for the way of the empty hand.

Gradually he discarded the conservatism and commercialisation of karate and its conversion to sports activity. Going along with the new age he created a new system of education and development of the martial arts.

This system he called Free Total Open KARATE-DO, giving an opportunity to the participant (karateka) not only to beeducated but also to be an artist along the way of karate.

Getting the very best, unfortunately often forgotten in the past decades, from the traditional Japanese and particularly the Okinawan karate, the student can develop andbuild the system according to his vision and individuality.

That way F.T.O. KARATE-DO becomes open, with no dogmas and a conservatismtool, which provides everyone with the opportunity of rethinking their path asa karateka and embrace the idea of empathy towards the big martial arts family, giving their contribution to the evolution of karate around the world.
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