A Brief History of
Shotokan Karate
Origins
Although the popular notion is that Karate was initially
developed in Okinawa, it's roots are thought to stretch back over
1400 years to Daruma, the founder of Zen Buddhism. Daruma travelled
from India to China to teach Buddhism and taught his followers
techniques to develop and strengthen mind and body, many of which
are basic to modern Karate. His methods were taught in the Shaolin
Temple in China, where they eventually developed into the fighting
technique known as Shaolin boxing.
Shaolin boxing made its way to Okinawa
around the 16th century and was combined with some indigenous
Okinawan techniques to form several different fighting styles.
During many periods of Okinawan history, the general population
were forbidden to own or carry weapons and this resulted in rapid
advancement of fighting techniques and the underground development
of fighting styles using bare hands or common farming implements.
These forms of fighting were known as Okinawa-te or Tode
(Chinese Hand) and resulted in the formation of three distinct
styles, Shuri-te, Naha-te and Tomari-te (named after
the cities where the styles were practiced).
The
Shorin-ryu style
of karate is though to have originated from Shuri and
Tomari and Shorei-ryu from the city of Naha.
The
Shorin-ryu style
consisted of fast, linear movements with natural breathing, whilst
Shorei-ryu taught strong, rooted techniques with synchronous
breathing.
Gichin Funakoshi
was born in 1868 in Okinawa and began to study karate at the age
of 11. He studied under many great Okinawan masters of the time and
rapidly became adept at both the Shorin and Shorei styles. In fact
many of today's modern Shotokan katas have their roots in the
original Okinawa-te or Tode katas.
Tode
could also be pronounced as kara and so Tode-te
became Kara-te or 'Chinese hand'. Funakoshi adopted the alternate
meaning for the chinese character for 'kara' which is empty and so
kara-te came to mean 'empty hand'.
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