Côté Coach · Kyokushin

Coaching kyokushin, from the youngest to the black belts

Choose your age group, find a drill or prepare a session. The guides explain the sources and age-specific guidance.

Sources and overview

A free knowledge base built on the documents of kyokushin's organisations — IKO Kyokushinkaikan, WKO/EKO Shinkyokushin, IFK/IKKU, Kyokushin-kan. Kyokushin has no world governing body: every rule is cited to its organisation, and the contact gate is graded per category — never a hand strike to the head, the IKO under-15 layer, the head as touch only below cadet (WKO/EKO).

Côté Coach

Kyokushin coaching

Four age bands, one square contest area — and a contact grade each organisation writes per category, because kyokushin has no world governing body.

Source: the Paak kyokushin corpus (02 — the per-organisation contact gates; 01 — the area). A = AKA (red), S = SHIRO (white) — the convention is named, never carried by colour alone. The u9 / u13 / u17 / sen bands are a Paak reference, published by no organisation.

Pick an age group

Priorities change completely from one band to the next — and every contact gate is published by an organisation, named each time.

Do

Everything runs through line kihon, games and pads: white-belt stances and strikes (IKO), kicks onto a held shield, non-percussive distance games — the graded form the organisations publish.
The only « kumite » at this age is block-only yakusoku — the first published step of the bridge to fighting (IKO white belt) — and the non-percussive touch game.
Kata starts with Taikyoku Sono Ichi, learned by segments — the white-belt kata at IKO, as Taikyoku 1-2 sits at 9th kyu for IFK/IKKU.

Avoid

Any knockdown round: no organisation has this age fight — the youngest WKO/EKO tournament is U-10, and the IKO under-15 layer already bans pushing, sweeps and floor attacks.
Partner body-hardening (shin conditioning, body-drumming): no organisation publishes youth content for this adult tradition — welfare first.
Sanchin's ibuki and shime: tension breathing and the structure test are not taught to the youngest — breathing is introduced gently, without shime.

Do

Run the grade-by-grade program: at IKO each colour adds its kihon block, its kata and its numbered conditioning (20 push-ups at white → 40 at blue) — this band's content is that table.
The yakusoku bridge widens: block-only, then uke-kaeshi (block + counter) — blue at IKO —, sanbon and ippon kumite at every grade for IFK/IKKU, under control.
Kumite stays TOUCH: controlled body, head as touch only (WKO/EKO below cadet), protectors on — and the IKO under-15 layer applies in full.

Avoid

Percussive head contact: below cadet the head is touch only (WKO/EKO) — and the hand strike to the head is a foul at EVERY age, in every organisation.
Pushing, sweeping, attacking a downed opponent: the IKO under-15 layer bans them in competition — training them at this age rehearses a foul.
Presenting one organisation as « kyokushin »: even the 10th-kyu belt colour diverges (orange at IKO, RED at IFK/IKKU) — name your dojo's organisation.

Do

Protected knockdown begins: cadets 15–16 in helmet + vest, controlled head only — a « clap » mawashi/haisoku/kake onto the helmet, never a percussion (EKO Art. 19).
The low-kick war is learned here on pads and in conditioned rounds — cumulative kansetsu-geri, hands to the body — but gedan-geri stays FORBIDDEN in cadet competition (EKO 19.9).
The mid-program kata arrive (the full Pinan set, Sanchin — at blue for IKO, at green for IFK/IKKU: the placement differs per organisation) with ibuki introduced progressively.

Avoid

Percussion to the head: a head KO at cadet/junior = automatic Shikkaku (EKO 19.13/20.13) — the helmet is not a licence to strike.
Forgetting 13–14 and 15–16 are two regimes: touch head for the first, controlled under helmet for the second — the band straddles them, the rule does not.
Tameshiwari: no breaking test for cadets (EKO 19.1) — it is a senior, graded activity with a real hand-injury literature.

Do

Full knockdown: ippon (opponent down for more than 3 s or the will to fight broken), waza-ari, awase-ippon (2 waza-ari), hantei by 3 votes of 5 — damage first — then extensions, the scale, tameshiwari.
Name the organisation AND the edition: the penalty terminal DIVERGES — Genten-Ni = Hansoku-Make at IKO (2023), Genten-Ni = Shikkaku at WKO/EKO (2018). Both sentences circulate; each is true only at home.
Grade kumite is counted in rounds: 60 s × 10 at IKO brown, × 20 toward Nidan, × 30/40/50 beyond — and a 17-year-old junior still fights in a helmet (EKO Art. 20).

Avoid

The fist to the face: THE constant across every organisation — ganmen-ouda is a foul at any age, any grade; only the leg reaches the head.
Grabbing, pushing, hooking: tsukami, oshi and kake are fouls (IKO §19, EKO Art. 9) — kyokushin infighting is played without a clinch, in short strikes and resets.
Conflating the weight grids: IKO and WKO sit 5 kg apart at EVERY boundary (−70/−80/−90 vs −65/−75/−85) — a weight set is an organisation's fact, never « kyokushin's ».

Session generator

Age band, duration, theme — and a minuted outline. All 30 drills trace to an organisation document (IKO, WKO/EKO, IFK/IKKU, Kyokushin-kan).

The drills

Filter by theme. Any age or contact gate is written into each drill's coaching points, naming the organisation that imposes it.

The guides

Fundamentals by age & contact The contact gates organisation by organisation: the IKO under-15 layer, the WKO/EKO youth categories, the IFK protector mandates — and never a hand strike to the head. Building a session Warm-up, kihon, ido geiko, kata, yakusoku, kumite game, conditioning — the class outline the IKO publishes, and the balance of the three pillars. Kihon & techniques Stances, tsuki, uke, geri — the vocabulary of the IKO and IFK/IKKU syllabi, the Position → Reflex correction ladder, and knockdown's kicking curriculum. Kata & bunkai Taikyoku → Pinan → Sanchin/Tenshō → advanced: two families, two pedagogies — and a per-grade placement that differs by organisation. Knockdown kumite rules Ippon, waza-ari, awase-ippon, hantei — with no points tally — and the penalty divergence: Genten-Ni leads to Hansoku-Make at IKO, to Shikkaku at WKO/EKO. Grades & promotion Kyu, dan, titles — junior grades re-tested at 13, the dan age floors, kumite counted in N rounds and the tameshiwari of senior grades. The grade-by-grade program The IKO syllabus belt by belt — kihon, kata, numbered conditioning, kumite — with the IFK/IKKU deltas: the table to pin in the dojo. Conditioning & physical preparation The graded conditioning ladder, flexibility, the adult tanren tradition and its welfare limits — and what the injury literature honestly says.

These drills are in Paak

The generator above also lives inside the app, on the session itself: pick the age band, the duration and the theme, and Paak builds a five-block minuted outline from this same library of 30 drills — warm-up, two mains, a kumite game form and a cool-down. Edit it, save it to the session — that is free. Printing the session sheet and club-authored drills beyond 5 are in Paak One.

Create a club account See Paak for a Kyokushin dojo

In Paak

These drills are in Paak

The generator is right on the session: plan by the players’ age band and the duration, pick a theme. Paak builds a minuted five-block outline — warm-up, two work blocks, a game and a cool-down — from this same library of 30 drills.

Planning, editing and saving the session is free.

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