Okinawan history relied mainly on oral tradition prior to the 20th century, so it is difficult to separate fact and fiction (or embellishment). It is said that Matsu Higa had forearms like tree trunks and that he could crush a coconut in his bare hands, though he stood only 5 feet 2 inches (157 cm) tall and weighed about 140 pounds (64 kg). Legends state that Matsu Higa with his bo stood up to the head-hunters of Formosa and to Japanese pirates from the north and never lost a battle.

What is known, however, is that Matsu Higa was the teacher of Takahara Peechin, who in turn taught Sakugawa Kanga. Matsu Higa was one of the first to codify a system of kata and techniques. His contributions live on in several weapons katas, especially for tonfa, sai, and bo.

Kūsankū learned the art of Ch'uan Fa in China from a Shaolin monk. He was thought to have resided (and possibly studied martial arts) in the Fukien province for much of his life. Around 1756, Kūsankū was sent to Okinawa as an ambassador of the Qing Dynasty. He resided in the village of Kanemura, near Naha City. During his stay in Okinawa, Kūsankū instructed Kanga Sakukawa.

Sakugawa trained under Kūsankū for six years. After Kūsankū's death (around 1762), Sakugawa developed and named the Kusanku kata in honor of his teacher.

Funakoshi first met Asato when he was a schoolmate of Asato's son; he called Asato "one of Okinawa's greatest experts in the art of karate." According to Funakoshi, Asato's family belonged to the Tonochi class (hereditary town and village chiefs), and held authority in the village of Asato, halfway between Shuri and Naha, and he was not only a master of karate, but also skilled at riding horses, Jigen-ryū kendō (swordsmanship), archery, and an exceptional scholar.

In a 1934 article, Funakoshi noted that Asato and Itosu had studied karate together under Sōkon Matsumura. He also related how Asato and Itosu once overcame a group of 20–30 attackers,and how Asato set a trap for troublemakers in his home village. In his 1956 autobiography, Funakoshi recounted several stories about Asato, including: Asato's political astuteness in following the government order to cut off the traditional men's topknot (pp. 13–14); Asato's defeat of Yōrin Kanna, in which the unarmed Asato prevailed despite Kanna being armed with an unblunted blade (pp. 14–15); Asato's demonstration of a single-point punch (ippon-ken; p. 15); and Asato and Itosu's friendly arm-wrestling matches (p. 16).

Shigeru Egami was a pioneering Japanese master of Shotokan karate who founded the Shōtōkai style. He was a student of Gichin Funakoshi, who is widely recognized as the founder of modern karate.

Early life

Egami was born on December 7, 1912, in Ōmuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. He was one of Gichin Funakoshi's earliest students. Egami met Funakoshi when he began studying at Waseda University. Egami helped to establish the university's karate club. Before that occasion he had already trained in judo, kendo, and aikido.

Karate career

With Funakoshi, his son Gigō Funakoshi, and Takeshi Shimoda, Egami traveled around Japan staging exhibitions to promote karate as a Japanese martial art. He was elected a Member of the Evaluation Committee by Gichin Funakoshi, the youngest instructor to receive that honor. He taught karate at the Gakushuin, Toho and Chūō Universities. On May 27, 1949, he helped establish the Japan Karate Association under Funakoshi.

After Egami turned 40, his health worsened. After 1956, he underwent two operations, and at one point was in cardiac arrest for just under 10 minutes. Following Funakoshi's death in 1957, Egami began trying to change karate's poor reputation as a 'deadly martial art,' something Funakoshi had tried to do all his life. Egami never compromised on one essential aspect of karate: to avoid all aspects of sport-oriented combat and karate. He considered that competitions modified the training and spirit of karate too much, and he emphasized that this would be perfectly clear once one had the insight that karate is much more than winning combats.

In 1973, Egami visited Los Angeles to teach, and in 1976 he toured Taiwan and five European countries on a similar mission. Egami wrote the book The Way of Karate: Beyond technique (1976). Revised editions were published posthumously as The Heart of Karate-Do in 1986 and 2000.

Later life

In his later years, Egami was troubled by many illnesses. A cerebral embolia saw him go three months without eating solid food, which tested his strength, and he eventually weighed only 37 kg. Egami died at 7:00 PM on January 8, 1981, in Tokyo.

Gigo Funakoshi was born in Okinawa and diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of seven. He was sickly as a child and began the formal study of karate-do at the age of twelve as a means to improve his health.   In the early years, Gichin Funakoshi often took Gigo with him to his trainings with Anko Azato and Yasutsune Itosu. Gigo moved from Okinawa to Tokyo with his father when he was 17, and later became a radiographer of the Section of Physical and Medical Consultation of the Ministry of Education.

 Career

When his father's Shihan (senior assistant instructor) Takeshi Shimoda died, Gigo assumed his position within the Shotokan organization teaching in various universities. Gichin Funakoshi transformed karate from a purely self-defense fighting technique to a philosophical martial Dō (way of life), or gendai budo, but his son Gigō began to develop a karate technique that definitively separated Japanese karate-do from the local Okinawan arts. Between 1936 and 1945, Gigo gave it a completely different and powerful Japanese flavor based on his study of modern kendo (the way of the japanese sword) under sensei Hakudo Nakayama. Gigo's work on Karate development was primarily assisted by Shigeru Egami and Genshin Hironishi.

Changes in style

Through his teaching position and understanding of Japanese martial arts, Gigō became the technical creator of modern shotokan karate. In 1946 the book Karate Do Nyumon by Gigo and Gichin Funakoshi was released. Gigo had written the technical part, whereas his father Gichin wrote the preamble and historical parts.

While the ancient arts of To-de and shuri-te emphasized the use and development of the upper body, open hand attacks, short distances, joint locks, basic grappling, pressure point striking and use of the front kick and variations of it, Gigō developed long distance striking techniques using the low stances found in kendo kata. Gigo developed higher kicks including mawashi geri (round kick), yoko geri kekomi (thrusting side kick), yoko geri keage (snap side kick), fumikiri (cutting side kick directed to soft targets), ura mawashi geri (quarter rotation front-round kick—though some credit Kase-sensei with the creation of this technique), ura mawashi geri (360 degrees turning round kick) and ushiro geri kekomi (thrusting back kick). Yoshitaka was especially known for his deep stances and kicking techniques, and he introduced fudo dachi (rooted stance/immovable stance), yoko geri (side kick), and mai geri (front kick) forms to the Shotokan style.  All these techniques became part of the already large arsenal brought from the ancient Okinawan styles.

Gigo's kicking techniques were performed with a much higher knee-lift than in previous styles, and the use of the hips was emphasized. Other technical developments included the turning of the torso to a half-facing position (hanmi) when blocking, and thrusting the rear leg and hips when performing the techniques. These adaptations allowed the delivery of a penetrating attack with the whole body through correct body alignment. Gigo also promoted free sparring.

Gigō's kumite (fighting) style was to strike hard and fast, using low stances and long attacks, chained techniques and foot sweeps. Integration of these changes into the Shotokan style immediately separated Shotokan from Okinawan karate. Gigo also emphasized the use of oi tsuki (lunge punch) and gyaku tsuki (reverse lunge punch). The training sessions in his dojo were exhausting, and during these, Gigo expected his students to give twice as much energy as they would put into a real confrontation. He expected this over-training would prepare them for an actual combat situation, should it arise.

Final years

The difficult living conditions of World War II weakened Gigo, but he continued training. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 39 on 24 November 1945, in Tokyo, Japan.

The Shorei Ryu system was influenced in its early development by Shuri-Te. Kanryo Higashionna originally studied Shuri-Te with Sokon Matsumura but he later traveled to China and studied kempo there. Shorei Ryu has two major styles today. One style is called Goju Ryu and was founded by Chojun Miyagi (1888–1953) and the other is called Uechi Ryu, founded by Kanbun Uechi (1877–1948).

Shorei Ryu as a style was brought to the United States by Sensei Robert Trias.

Gichin Funakoshi was born on November 10 1868 (the year of the, in Shuri, Okinawa, to ethnic Okinawan parents and originally had the family name Tominakoshi. His father's name was Gisu. After entering primary school he became close friends with the son of Ankō Asato, a karate and kendo master who would soon become his first karate teacher.  Funakoshi's family was stiffly opposed to the abolition of the Japanese topknot, and this meant he would be ineligible to pursue his goal of attending medical school, despite having passed the entrance examination. Being trained in both classical Chinese and Japanese philosophies and teachings, Funakoshi became an assistant teacher in Okinawa. During this time, his relations with the Asato family grew and he began nightly travels to the Asato family residence to receive karate instruction from Ankō Asato.

 Shotokan Karate

Funakoshi had trained in both of the popular styles of Okinawan karate of the time: Shōrei-ryū and Shōrin-ryū. Shotokan is named after Funakoshi's pen name, Shoto, which means "pine waves" or "wind in the pines". In addition to being a karate master, Funakoshi was an avid poet and philosopher who would reportedly go for long walks in the forest where he would meditate and write his poetry. Kan means training hall, or house, thus Shotokan referred to the "house of Shoto". This name was coined by Funakoshi's students when they posted a sign above the entrance of the hall at which Funakoshi taught reading "Shoto kan".  By the late 1910s, Funakoshi had many students, of which a few were deemed capable of passing on their master's teachings. Continuing his effort to garner widespread interest in Okinawan karate, Funakoshi ventured to mainland Japan in 1922.  In 1930, Funakoshi established an association named Dai-Nihon Karate-do Kenkyukai to promote communication and information exchange among people who study karate-do. In 1936, Dai-Nippon Karate-do Kenkyukai changed its name to Dai-Nippon Karate-do Shoto-kai. The association is known today as Shotokai, and is the official keeper of Funakoshi's karate heritage.  In 1939, Funakoshi built the first Shōtōkan dojo (training hall) in Tokyo. He changed the name of karate to mean "empty hand" instead of "China hand" (as referred to in Okinawa); the two words sound the same in Japanese, but are written differently. It was his belief that using the term for "Chinese" would mislead people into thinking karate originated with Chinese boxing. Karate had borrowed many aspects from Chinese boxing which the original creators say as being positive, as they had done with other martial arts. In addition, Funakoshi argued in his autobiography that a philosophical evaluation of the use of "empty" seemed to fit as it implied a way which was not tethered to any other physical object.  Funakoshi's interpretation of the word kara to mean "empty" was reported to have caused some recoil in Okinawa, prompting Funakoshi to remain in Tokyo indefinitely.  His extended stay eventually led to the creation of the Japan Karate Association (JKA) in 1949 with Funakoshi as the honorary head of the organization. Funakoshi was not supportive of all of the changes that the organization eventually made to his karate style. He remained in Tokyo until his death in 1957. After World War II, Funakoshi's surviving students formalized his teachings.

 Legacy

Funakoshi published several books on karate including his autobiography, Karate-Do: My Way of Life. His legacy, however, rests in a document containing his philosophies of karate training now referred to as the niju kun, or 'twenty principles.' These rules are the premise of training for all Shotokan practitioners and are published in a work titled The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate. Within this book, Funakoshi lays out 20 rules by which students of karate are urged to abide in an effort to "become better human beings" Funakoshi's Karate-Do Kyohan "The Master Text" remains his most detailed publication, containing sections on history, basics and kata and kumite. The famous Shotokan Tiger by Hoan adorns the hardback cover.

Karate is for everyone!

KARATE (meaning empty hand) is one of the foremost methods of self defense, with roots that can be traced back many hundreds of years to China,. Besides being a traditional method of defending oneself, it is also a very enjoyable way of getting fit.

One of the greatest benefits gleaned from training in the traditional Japanese martial art’s is not only learning to control your body, but ultimately learning to control your mind as well, which creates more self-confidence, and positive assertiveness, which carries over into all areas of your life.

Powers of concentration also improve, especially in the young, which brings with it the ability to apply a focused, single minded approach to any goal you may set for yourself. Respect of yourself and others is key to the teachings of traditional Japanese Karate, as well as the development of patience and tolerance.

Karate students progress through a series of belt rankings, called “kyu’s” or “steps” in Japanese.  Each step signifies a particular skill that the student has gleaned up to that particular point in your training. As you continue to progress, the requirements for each subsequent belt rank becomes a little more demanding culminating. 

Each karate student has individual skills and weaknesses, so in a sense the karate student is “competing” against his or her personal best.  If your training is consistent, the rank of black belt can be attained on the average of four to five years of practice. But, it is important to note that the black belt grading is not the end of your training, but in Churchill's words "just the end of the beginning".  As you progress through the ranks you begin to realize that karate is not about kicking and punching, but a philosophy of positive living, and interaction with others.

Karate is not about breaking bricks or other inanimate objects, although black belts do this in private, to gauge their skills, and to prove to themselves that their technique is effective.  Gichen Funikoshi, the Father of Modern Shotokan Karate-Do, once remarked, “The ultimate aim in Karate-Do lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of ones character.”

Is karate really for everyone?  Yes!  Karate really is suitable for everyone regardless of age, sex or level of fitness.  If you want to find out more, check out our FAQ’s for answers to questions that you may want to ask about Karate.

1.   Wash Every Week:  You sweat in your karate gi each time it is worn. The bacteria remaining in the gi will need to be washed out to prevent odor and disintegration of seams. Your gi should be washed weekly, and if you sweat profusely - wash the gi after each time you wear it.

2.   Wash Instructions - Your gi is 100% cotton and will shrink. Therefore wash your gi with an all temperature detergent, and wash on a warm water wash and cold water rinse cycle.  Do not use liquid bleach as it disintegrates the seams on the gi.  Instead use powdered bleach and/or Oxy Clean.  For stains - treat immediately with oxy clean or similar stain remover.

3.   Dry Immediately - When the wash cycle is complete dry the karate gi right away.

4.   Fold Properly - When your uniform has finished drying, you will find that it is usually quite wrinkled. Ironing of your karate gi is not necessary if the gi is folded correctly.

How to Fold Your Karate Gi

Your gi should be folded after cleaning and after use.

1.   Use the Floor - The first step to properly folding a gi is to get on your knees on the floor. Lay the jacket out with the back down to the floor. Spread the sleeves out so that they point straight out to the sides in opposite directions. Smoothing the gi fabric throughout the process will eliminate wrinkles later.

2.   Fold Left Sleeve Over – Fold the left sleeve towards the center, stopping at the edge of the shoulder seam.

3.   Fold Right Sleeve Over – Fold the right sleeve towards the center, stopping at the edge of the shoulder seam.

4.   Fold Gi Pants – Fold the gi pants in half.

5.   Placing the Gi Pants on the Top – Place the gi pants in the center of the gi top with the bottom edge of the pants at the collar of the gi top.

6.   Fold the Left Outer Edge Inward - Now fold the left side inward to enfold the pants.

7.   Fold the Right Outer Edge Inward - Now fold the right side inward to enfold the pants.

8.   Folding the Package Up (#1) – Fold up the top of the gi pants to enfold the lower edge of the gi top.

9.   Folding the Package Up (#2) – Fold up the previously folded gi waist section to the center of the gi top.

10.  Folding the Package Up (#3) – Fold up the previously folded sections to the meet the shoulders at the top of the gi.

The following is a diagram detailing the folding of the karate gi:

How to Put On a Karate Obi