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Karate a History
by: Michael Smith
Although the basic forms of
self defense are probably as old as the human race, the art
of
karate as it is practiced today can be traced directly to
the Okinawan technique called, in Japanese, Okinawate-te
(Okinawa Hands). This system of defense in turn is a descendant
of the ancient Chinese art of chuan-fa (kung-fu).
Little is known about the historical
development of karate in Okinawa, but there is an interesting
story to be told about it. About five hundred years ago, the
famous King Hashi of the Okinawan Sho dynasty succeeded in
uniting the Ryukya islands into one kingdom. To ensure rule by
law and to discourage and potential military rivals, he seized
all weapons in the kingdom and made the possession of weapons a
crime against the state. About two hundred years later, Okinawa
became part ot the domain of the Satsuma clan of Kyushu, and for
a second time all weapons were seized and banned. As a direct
result of these successive bans against weapons, it is said that
the art of empty-handed self defense call Okinawa-te underwent
tremendous development.
The man most responsible for the systemization
of
martial arts as we know it today was Funakoshi Gichin. He
was born in Shuri, Okinawa, in 1869, and when only a boy of
eleven began to study karate under the two top masters of the
art at the time. In time he became a
karate expert in his own right. He is credited to be the
first man to introduce karate to Japan proper, when he gave
exhibitions in 1917 and again in 1922 at physical-education
expositions. The art soon caught on in Japan, and Funakoshi
traveled throughout the country giving lectures and
demonstrations. The main universities invited him to set up
karate teams, and hundreds of people studied the art under his
guidance.
As the study of
karate in Japan became increasingly popular, many other
experts from Okinawa came to give instruction. At the same time
the ancient native Japanese hand-to-hand fighting techniques of
jujitsu and kendo (sword fighting) were being widely
practiced, and modern sports imported from the West were
becoming popular. Karate soon took over many elements from
these, and the basis was laid for the modern Japanese-style
karate.
