BRIEF HISTORY OF KARATE DO

Where Karate Began?

Very little is known of the exact origins of karate before it appeared in Okinawa (Okinawa is an archipelago, island chain) but one popular theory states that it came from India by a Buddhist monk called Bodhidharma (Daruma Daishi in Japanese). 

Click here to learn more

The historical accuracy of this legend is still an issue of debate today.  In 527 A.D, Bodhidharma travelled from India to China’s Henan Province with the aim of teaching the true Buddhism to the monks of the Shaolin Temple. However, he found that the Shaolin monks were too weak to endure the long hours of meditative practice, so, Bodhidharma taught them exercises that would strengthen their bodies and minds. Under Bodhidharma’s teaching, the monks reached an extraordinary development. They remained in the Monastery 12 years, approximately, and at the end of this time, they left the monastery to travel to several different places. The monks who settled in the north of China developed what would be known as the “Foot of the North”, this occurred since in the North there were plains, open spaces and horses, as well as horse-riders. This required the monks to run and jump high to be able to forcibly dismount other fighters from the horses. Meanwhile, those who settled in the South developed the “Fist of the South”. In that region, the use of kicking techniques was quite difficult because there were many boats and ships, for which the use of hands, elbows, and knees to attack and defend was developed. For the fighting style that was developed, stability and close combat were of fundamental importance. Due to the trading relationships between China and the Ryukyu Kingdom, Okinawa’s culture was greatly influenced by the Chinese. Some military and commercial envoys took these fighting techniques to Okinawa with the name of TODE, which means ‘the hand of the continent’ or ‘the hand of China’. At the beginning, Karate was studied by the “commoners” who wanted to elevate their position and serve various kings at Shuri Castle. Nevertheless, karate could not be practiced by farmers or peasants, as they did not have the time to study such things. In 1509, it was King Shō Shin who put an end to the feudalistic period of the Ryūkyū Kingdom through the ‘Act of Eleven Distinctions’, which prohibited the stockpiling and possession of weapons. As a result, unarmed combat began to be cultivated more vigorously. In 1610 when Tokugawa Leyasu, the founder of the last shogunate in Japan (1603-1867), was the Shogun of Japan (the Shogun was a General Commander of all army forces in Japan. He had all the military and political power, meanwhile, the Emperor had the spiritual and religious power), the invasion of Ryukyu by forces of the Satsuma clan of Kyushu took place. The clan held power over Ryukyu kings for 270 years. The war to conquer Okinawa took place from March to May and marked the beginning of the Ryukyu Kingdom’s status as a vassal state under the Satsuma clan. The invasion forces were met with stiff resistance from the Ryukyu military. Ryukyu would remain a vassal state under the Satsuma clan, alongside its already long-established tributary relationship with China, until it was formally annexed by Japan in 1879 as Okinawa Prefecture. When the Satsuma clan took power, they prohibited all weapons and the practice of all martial arts by the Okinawans. It is said that the Okinawans fought fiercely before the Satsuma samurai over-powered them. Karate is a Japanese word that means ‘empty hands’. The concept of the ‘Art of the Hand of China’ was slightly modified to mean Karate-Do “Empty-hand” instead of “Hand of China” after one of the Okinawan masters, named Anko Itosu (1831-1915), altered the meaning of the word Kara to mean “empty” rather than “Chinese.” Karate-do is to be translated now as ‘the way of the empty hand’.  The Okinawan Karate of today has been developed over centuries and is not the result of a single founder. Many masters contributed to the development of this art, hence it is a combination of Chinese martial arts (quanfa in Chinese and kenpō in Japanese). As explained above, it was not called Karate at first, but it was referred to as ‘te’ or ‘bushi no te’ and ‘bushi nu tii’ in Hogen; the later meant ‘the hands of the gentleman warrior’. In Okinawan, the term ‘bushi’ referred to a gentleman warrior, one who was an expert in ‘te’. In Japanese, ‘te’ referred to a samurai warrior. The main purpose of the Okinawan martial art is to be a gentleman first, and a warrior second. These techniques were developed mainly in three cities Shuri, Tomari, and Naha but with very different societal demands, three separate styles emerged: Shuri-te, Tomari-te and Naha-te, collectively, these styles were called Okinawa-te that means Chinese hand, and over time, the styles merged slightly to become just two: Shōrin-ryū, developed near Shuri and Tomari, and Shōrei-ryū, near Naha. The Okinawans once practiced both unarmed and armed combat openly. This was in the time of conflict between the provinces of Ryūkyū, prior to 1429. Military capability had developed through tribal developments and from the Japanese of the Heian Period, travelling to Ryūkyū and returning with the knowledge of swordsmanship and archery. Kobujutsu would probably have existed at the time, permitting an effective defense against the samurai. The bushi also could have taken the weapons of the samurai to use against them. Nonetheless, they were not successful in defending their island from the Japanese, so Karate became shrouded in secrecy during the Satsuma occupation. Rather than ceasing the practice, martial artists began to study at night in darkness to continue to preserve their fighting arts without easily allowing others to see them practicing. Only Okinawans knew that art was practiced. Although the dual concept of Kenpō and Te together as karate had not yet been developed, both were present by the time of the Satsuma occupation. ‘Karate’, in its embryonic form, evidently existed from the 15th or 16th century.