Places to Go

Karate has a rich and fascinating history. The word karate means "empty hand" in Japanese ("kara" is "empty", and "te" means "hand"), and is pronounced kah-rah-tay, with no emphasis on any syllable. By definition, then, karate refers to weaponless fighting styles. Although it is often used to describe any Asian weaponless martial art, it technically refers only to certain Okinawan styles and "mainland" Japanese styles that are Okinawan in origin. What follows is a summary of the history of karate, and other Asian weaponless martial art styles, according to the data that I've been able to gather so far.

I would also like to point out that my karate history page was one of the first, if not the first, on the Internet to provide a relatively complete, and reasonably accurate history of karate. Frankly, when I put it online, there was hardly anything online regarding karate history. Not long after I put it online in the fall of 1996, I noticed other sites with karate history that sounded unusually similar in wording to mine. I think it unlikely this was coincidence. Note that all material on my web site is copyrighted by me. It is illegal to plagiarize content on my site, but you are free to provide links to it. Source material can be used if credit is given (as I have done with my karate pages).

I don't claim this history to be 100% accurate, and it's likely even a bit simplistic. I have not changed it since probably sometime in 1998. Still, it's good for those looking for the basics in karate history.

Also note that I'm questioning some of this history in light of a book I recently bought called Shotokan's Secret: The Hidden Truth Behind Karate's Origins by Bruce D. Clayton, Ph.D. It has some very interesting, and I suspect, more accurate, ideas on the development of Shuri-te karate. I personally feel the author, who is a Shotokan sensei, is rather blatantly biased toward not only karate, but also Shotokan to the point of making some rather silly statements about chu'an fa and to some degree other forms of Shuri-te, but there is no doubt he has some very good points about the development of karate. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to learn more about karate history, and also the mindset of the Japanese and Okinawan people.

There is debate as to the true origins of Asian martial arts. One school of thought places the origin in ancient China two to three thousand years ago. However, other sources actually place the beginnings of Asian empty-hand martial arts in India. According to this line of thought, the Indian Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma, traveled out of India into China around 522 A.D. In most of East Asia he is credited as the spiritual father of Zen Buddhism.

At this time in India, there were at least two somewhat simple fighting and exercising techniques, vajramushti and kalaripayat. Kalaripayat featured very high kicking, foot sweeps, and low stances. Vajramushti, which was practiced by the Kshatriya warrior class (of which Bodhidharma was a member), used mainly punching and fist techniques. Some believe that Bodhidharma brought this style to the Shaolin monks of China. Others believe that his journey never occurred, or that he never existed at all.

It is possible that even if Bodhidharma did not introduce empty-hand martial arts to China, he may have given them a style that was combined with whatever fighting techniques were already in use in the Chinese monasteries. According to legend, the style he introduced to the Chinese contained only 18 positions, which were, decades after his death, increased to 170 by the two Shaolin monks, Ch'ueh Yuan and Li-shao. Supposedly, this was the basis for ch'uan fa, or kung fu as it's popularly known today, which was probably the basis for all Asian unarmed martial arts.

Okinawa is the principal island of the Ryukyu archipelago. It's uncertain how a population developed in those islands, but it appears to have cultural influence from all areas surrounding it, including Japanese, Chinese, and Malayo-Polynesian. It's most likely, based on substantial archaeological evidence, that people first reached the Ryukyu islands at least 30,000 years ago. They likely crossed a land bridge that would have existed on or before that time.

There is substantial evidence that various martial arts might have made their way into the Ryukyu islands as early as the seventh century A.D. when significant traffic existed between Japan and China. Survivors of shipwrecks (who would have likely included Buddhist priests and Japanese warriors) might have brought martial arts from Japan and China to Okinawa. The earliest history of Okinawa includes dances which contain positions and moves that strongly resemble modern-day karate kata, indicating that this scenario is quite likely.

In 1372 Okinawa's King Satto expressed allegiance to Ming, emperor of China. Okinawa became a Chinese satellite, with great economic benefits. This was also the time when the true infusion of ch'uan fa into Okinawan culture occurred, and placed the seeds for karate. The fighting styles already present in Okinawa were more formally intermixed with ch'uan fa beginning in 1393 when an imperial gift of Chinese artisans and merchants was given to Okinawa by the emperor. These immigrants were referred to as the "Thirty-six Families". These early forms of empty-handed martial arts were called "tode" or "tote" in the Japanese dialect, or "toudi" in the Okinawan hogen dialect, meaning "China hand", or more loosely, "Chinese boxing" (using the kanji in the upper left corner of this page).

Later, in 1429, Okinawa became a unified kingdom under King Hashi. Prior to this, Okinawa was broken up into three kingdoms (symbolized by the "mitsu tomoe" symbol made up of three kama, now associated with Okinawan martial arts). King Hashi learned economic lessons from China, which resulted in a booming economy for Okinawa as it became a center for trade in the region. This promoted cultural intermingling from Arabs, Malays, Indonesians, Thais, and, of course, the Japanese and Chinese. The exchange of fighting techniques at the ports likely furthered the development of karate in Okinawa.

In 1507, King Shoshin put Okinawa under its first weapons ban. This was the first if two weapon bans in Okinawa. The second occurred in 1609 when the Ryukyu islands were invaded by the Japanese Satsuma clan, led by the Shimazu family. This clan was the loser in a Japanese Civil war in 1600, and were sent to invade the Ryukyu islands to keep them occupied on something other than trying to overthrow the victorious clan, the Tokugawa clan, and also to punish Okinawa for refusing to supply Japan with materials needed for a planned attack on China in 1592. It also served to raise money for the clan, and increase the moral of the Satsuma samurai after their previous losses.

The Satsuma clan took control of the Ryukyu islands and ordered that all weapons, as well as empty-handed martial arts, were illegal in the islands. These two bans resulted in the practitioners of ch'uan fa and tode meeting and practicing in secrecy. Many of the practitioners from the two styles gathered together and created a new style from the two, referred to as "te" (sometimes also called "Okinawa-te", or "ti"), for "hand", or "fist", or perhaps, "boxing".

Note that there seems to be some confusion in the karate community about the terms "tode" and "te", and which was which. The information here is from the books written or translated by sensei Ernest Estrada (see the Shorin-Ryu and Karate References pages) who possesses a Ph.D. in Asian studies in addition to his high rank in Shorin-Ryu. As stated by sensei Estrada in History and Traditions of Okinawan Karate-do, "Te might be described as the intermediate stage between Tote-ch'uan fa and modern karate." This is also in agreement with Shoshin Nagamine in his book, Tales of Okinawa's Great Masters.

The occupation of Okinawa by the Satsuma clan lasted until 1875 when the Ryukyu islands officially became a part of the Japanese empire. By this time, the empty hand styles continued to develop, and the term karate came to be used more frequently. Present day karate is thought to be a combination of Chinese ch'uan fa, early Okinawan techniques, finger-thrusting (nukite) techniques from Taiwan, and the kicking techniques of Southeast Asia. The heaviest influence in most modern day styles of Okinawan martial arts is, of course, Chinese ch'uan fa (see the Shorin-Ryu page).

One training tool that is definitely of Okinawan origin is the makiwara. The makiwara (literally, "coiled rope") is a practice board used for punching and kicking. Typically, it's thicker and wider at the base, and has either rope or padded leather at the top for punching. It is used to toughen the fist, knuckles, toes, and balls of the feet, and strengthen the wrists and ankles. One or more of these will typically be found in every Okinawan karate dojo (of all styles).

The beginnings of the styles known today (such as Shorin-Ryu and Goju-Ryu) were generally in the 1800's when certain Okinawans traveled to China specifically to learn Chinese martial arts in Fuzhou province. They brought their skills back to Okinawa, and the styles they created came to be known by the name of the town in which it was taught and practiced. These were Shuri-te, Naha-te, and Tomari-te. Shuri-te developed into various styles of Shorin-Ryu, Naha-te became Goju-Ryu, and Tomari-te, which was a combination of Shuri-te and Naha-te, has mostly disappeared. There are also other styles of karate, such as Uechi-Ryu, which are purely ch'uan fa brought to Okinawa (i.e., with little or no influence by the empty hand Okinawan styles of tode and te).

Karate spread to the rest of the world beginning in Japan when Funakoshi Gichin went to mainland Japan in 1915 to demonstrate karate in a public forum. Other Okinawan masters had done the same less openly since at least 1904, and continued to do so after Funakoshi's visit. Karate spread to the Hawaiian islands in 1927 when the Okinawan karate master Yabu Kensu moved there at the request of Okinawans living in Hawaii. The first "pure", non-eclectic karate school opened in 1956 when Tsutomu Ohshima started a Shotokan Okinawan karate school in Los Angeles, California. However, Americans Robert Trias and Ed Parker, and probably others, who studied various styles overseas, opened schools in the U.S. mainland as early as 1946.

For the curious, the image at the top left corner of this page is the ideograph for tode/toudi, and was also used for karate until the early 1900's. The modern-day ideograph for karate (in the top left corner of the main "Karate & Kobudo" page) was first used in 1905, and in 1936 Okinawan karate masters agreed to use the new form for two reasons: (1) the "kara" ideograph (the first character) in the new form has strong Buddhist ties, and (2) the "to" ideograph of the old method is the symbol for T'ang, the name of the Chinese dynasty that existed from 618 to 906 A.D. This dynasty had such tremendous influence that this ideograph came to simply mean "China" to the Japanese and Okinawans. The karate masters wanted to move away from the Chinese association to the art of karate. Interestingly, though, Okinawan masters have recently begun a trend to emphasize the Chinese origin of karate, and have begun to use the old kanji more frequently. The first kanji in this "spelling" can be pronounced either like "toe" or "kara".