SHOTOKAN KARATE HISTORY

For hundreds of years the people of the Ryukyu Islands, a small chain of islands just south of Japan, have combined their indigenous hand-to-hand combat techniques with those techniques of mainland China.    This gave rise to a unique form of the martial arts known then as kara-te (Chinese hand) or sometimes referred to simply as te.    On the main island of Okinawa, karate developed into three main styles that were named after the city in which they were practiced: Shuri-te, Tomari-te, and Naha-te.    Later, Naha-te would come to be known as the Shorei style.    Shuri-te and Tomari-te would be combined into the style called Shorin.    Karate at this time was practiced in secret due to a ban on all weapons by Japanese occupational forces that took control of Okinawa in 1609.

The beginnings of the Shotokan school of karate were in 1922 when an Okinawan karate practitioner named Gichin Funakoshi (1868 - 1957) was selected to perform a demonstration for the capital of Japan.    Funakoshi had been a student of two acclaimed teachers of the Shorin style: Yasutsune Azato and Anko (Yasutsune) Itosu.    The Japanese were so enthusiastic about this new martial art that they invited Funakoshi to stay in Japan and start his own school of karate.    Funakoshi decided to remain in Japan to expand the horizons of his art.    Funakoshi's students called their school Shoto-kan, meaning the "House of Shoto", because Funakoshi practiced calligraphy using the pen name "Shoto."    Under Funakoshi's direction, elements of the Shorei style of karate were incorporated into Shotokan creating a more unified style.    Also, the meaning of the word karate, "Chinese hand", was changed to a Japanese homonym meaning "empty hand" to make the art more universal.    Funakoshi's school thrived until the advent of the second World War when the building was destroyed in an Allied air strike.

After World War II a ban was temporarily placed on all Japanese martial arts.   When the ban was lifted Funakoshi's students organized the Japan Karate Association (JKA) in 1948.    The selected chief instructor was Masatoshi Nakayama, one of Funakoshi's senior students who had also studied martial arts in China.    Nakayama attained the rank of 9th degree black belt and was the key figure in developing karate into an international sport as well as an art form.    Nakayama carried out Gichin Funakoshi's dream of sending qualified instructors around the world to propagate the art of karate.    Nakayama was chief instructor of the JKA until his death in 1987.

Today Shotokan karate is the most widely known and practiced martial art.    The International Shotokan Karate Federation (ISKF) under the direction of Teruyuki Okazaki is a recognized member of the JKA.    The JKA and the ISKF subscribe to the five principles taught by Sensei Funakoshi for the practice of karate: