Toshio Nakamura (1929-2011) was a pioneer of physical education theory after World War II. In 1973, he drew up a curriculum of physical education that has since been referred to as the “Nakamura Plan”, with a scientific basis for development of sports culture. This comprised three areas: skill, history and organization. The “Nakamura Plan” represented the starting point of his overall theory. Previous studies have not focused on the formative process of his theory or the characteristics his thoughts once the theory had been formulated. Therefore, the present study explored the characteristics of Nakamura's thoughts at the inception of his theory by analyzing the formative process of the “Nakamura Plan”. We concluded that the “Nakamura plan” had been created through the Japan Teachers' Union (JTU), and influenced by Yasuo Tange, who had founded a private educational research group called gakkotaiiku-kenkyu-doshikai . Toshio Nakamura had been a member of the JTU in the 1950s, and had given his consideration to the specific values of education promoted by the JTU. Moreover, he had joined the gokkotaiiku-kenkyu-doshikai . Through the formative process of the “Nakamura Plan”, Nakamura acquired a viewpoint that the government's educational policy after World War II was counter to that before the war. He criticized the National Curriculum in 1970 on the basis of this viewpoint, and this formed the theoretical background to the “Nakamura Plan”. This viewpoint, however, was biased. The purpose of educational policy after World War II was to eliminate the gap that existed between the urban and rural educational environments. This required the intervention of the government. Thus, there appeared to be “binary opposition” in that one theory was opposed to the other, under Nakamura's viewpoint, and this “binary opposition” represented the starting point of his overall theory.