Home › Karate stats › Networks & styles

Karate's Biggest Networks & Styles (2026)

Karate is deeply fragmented — most dojos are independent — but it still has real networks, of two kinds. Some are franchises: Tiger Schulmann's, Premier Martial Arts and Villari's run branded schools on a shared curriculum. Others are style organizations: Shotokan (JKA), Kyokushin, Goju-Ryu, Isshinryu and Shorin-Ryu are traditions that thousands of dojos teach under a common name. Here's the league table from our directory, and the equally useful question it points to: what else do these dojos teach? Updated 2026-07-19.

The networks & styles league table

These are the multi-location franchises and style organizations we can identify by dojo name across the 4,577 dojos in the directory, ranked by how many dojos each runs. In karate the name matters two ways — a franchise signals a shared curriculum and belt standards, while a style name (Shotokan, Goju-Ryu, Kyokushin…) tells you the tradition, kata and sparring approach you'll train.

#	Network or style	Dojos in directory
1	Kenpo / Kempo Karate	310
2	Shotokan Karate (JKA)	242
3	Premier Martial Arts	64
4	Kyokushin Karate	58
5	Isshinryu Karate	56
6	Goju-Ryu Karate	31
7	Shorin-Ryu Karate	31
8	Uechi-Ryu Karate	22
9	Tiger Schulmann's Karate	20
10	Shito-Ryu Karate	16
11	Wado-Ryu Karate	12
12	Villari's Martial Arts	8

Even so, most dojos stay independent: 3,707 — 81.0% of the directory belongs to no known franchise or style organization. And a well-known name is a starting point, not a guarantee — every dojo is still its own room and its own sensei, so how to choose a dojo (the style, the instructor's rank and lineage, the culture, how they treat kids and beginners) matters as much as the name over the door.

What else do karate dojos teach?

Karate dojos are rarely a single-art studio. 62.3% of them also teach at least one other martial art, an average of 2.2 other disciplines each — many American karate schools are really full martial-arts centers. Self-Defense is the most common companion art, on the schedule at 58.1% of dojos.

Discipline	Karate dojos that also teach it	Share of all dojos
Self-Defense	2,659	58.1%
Kickboxing	973	21.3%
Jiu-Jitsu	765	16.7%
Taekwondo	756	16.5%
MMA	418	9.1%
Kung Fu	316	6.9%
Judo	292	6.4%

Browse any of these as its own layer — every dojo that pairs karate with, say, taekwondo or jiu-jitsu — from the disciplines directory. Weighing arts against each other? Start with Karate vs taekwondo & other martial arts.

How many arts under one roof?

Counting karate plus every other art a dojo trains, the typical dojo is a small martial-arts school, not a one-style studio. The most common profile is a dojo teaching karate plus 0 other arts. Only 1,726 dojos show karate on its own so far — and some of those simply haven't had their full schedule surface in our crawl yet.

Other arts taught (besides karate)	Dojos
Karate only (so far)	1,726
+ 1 other art	1,163
+ 2 other arts	741
+ 3 other arts	471
+ 4 other arts	307
+ 5 other arts	131
+ 6 other arts	28
+ 7 other arts	10

These are evidence floors — a dojo counts an art only once its website or a reviewer names it — so single-art counts shrink as the crawl fills in.

Cite this data

Suggested attribution: “Karate's Biggest Networks & Styles” — KarateClasses.net, 2026, linked to https://www.karateclasses.net/karate-stats/chains/. The tables are CC BY 4.0: chart them, quote them, publish them — just link back. Want a custom cut (by state, metro, or discipline)? Email us.

Download the full CSV Data updated 2026-07-19

Methodology: network and style assignment comes from dojo names and their brand sites; a dojo is "independent" unless it clearly belongs to a known franchise or style organization. The disciplines mix is mined from each dojo's website and its customer reviews — a discipline counts only when named in the dojo's own copy or a reviewer's words, never guessed from the business category — so all shares are floors that grow with each re-crawl of our 4,577-dojo directory. Share = dojos teaching that art ÷ all directory dojos. We are not affiliated with any dojo, franchise or style organization. More data: the stats hub and America's Karate Capitals.