Karate

Karate History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc9tr0ASDf4

Karate-do has an exciting and rich history. It has been featured in many genres as a combative, violent budo style distinguished by a white uniform and the black belt. While all these may be true features for most Karate styles, there is so much more to learn about its origins in Asian culture and beliefs.

To understand its origins, it’s important to look at Karate in a wider context. Much of what we today call Karate or Empty Hand originated from Japan. Sometime in the mid-1300s, the Ryukyu Island chain, situated between China and Japan, became a center for both trade and shipping.

These islands became known as Okinawa today, obeying the cultural and political trade routes of numerous different peoples and countries. Trade and intellectual life were largely driven by the Chinese until the Shimazu clan took control in 1609 and Japan annexed it in 1875.

It was in this same place that Karate and Shito-ryu came to be. While Chinese culture and political influence remained dominant, the heritage of Okinawa’s cultural traditions never truly gave way. For Chinese masters, routine business trips to the island left a lasting impression on the martial arts.

Okinawans have traditionally referred to the Chinese Fighting Art as Te, or Chinese Fist. Masters passed their secretly acquired expertise from generation to generation, perhaps in light of the country’s lack of a connection to Chinese culture.

By the 1800s, three distinct but also somewhat related styles could be discovered in Okinawa Shuri (the erstwhile capital), Naha (the present capital) and Tomari.In reality, while each distinct kind of style focused primarily on one or two one or two particular celebrity innovators who would not have their own individualities, their teachers were centered on widespread ideas and shared a lot of the same ideals. Aside from being situated in a fairly short distance to each other, all three cities shared similar cultural foundations.

In Japan, four conventional styles of karate were created: Shotokan, Goju-Ryu, Wado-Ryu, and Shito-Ryu. The style of Shotokan was created by Gichin Funakoshi. His pen name was “Shoto” so that the name was used for this distinct style he founded. The style of Goju-Ryu was created by Chojun Miyagi. Go means hard and Ju means soft. When Hironori Otsuka combined these two words to form the style Wado-Ryu, he chose the name Wa-Do or custom way, which means “way of the peace.”

The name Shito-Ryu was created by combining two names of the masters responsible for the Shito-Ryu movement. Shito-Ryu came from one of Master Ankoh Itosu’s and Master Kanryo Higaonna’s efforts.

The 2 initial letters of their names in Japanese form a phonemic sequence of śi tó which are the first two characters of our style’s name, Shito-Ryu. Then Master Kenwa Mabuni combined them to form our style’s name, Shito-Ryu, and optimized Shi go inwards to enhance the inner power of the blow, and created our heritage. Born in 1893, Master Mabuni was the 17th generation grandson of Onigusuki.

In 1929, he relocated to Osaka and instructed many students there, among them Ruysho Sakagami, who continued to teach new generations of Shihan Fumio Demura.

Shito-Ryu can be commonly described as both a mix between Shotokan (a form of straight line movements) and Goju-Ryu (a style that involves more rounded techniques).

It is also known that teachers at Shito-Ryū schools often implement exercises learned from Okinawa. However, basic background information fails to explain just what Shito-Ryu truly is, which is much more.