 |
History
In 1940, the Japanese had occupied the island of Okinawa. The law of the land dictated
that anyone found carrying weapons would be put to death. In order to protect themselves from local bandits, who largely
ignored the the prohibition on weapons, Zen Buddhist monks developed the empty-hand system known as te ("hand"), importing
new techniques from China. Eventually the new art was translated as t'ang ("China hand"), but was familiarly known
as Okinawa-te ("Okinawa hand"). It was not until the 20th century that t'ang or Okinawa-te became known as karate
("empty-hand").The suffix do was added by Gichin Funakoshi's son Yoshitaka Funakoshi, in friendly opposition
to his father's Okinawa-te style. Practice and demostrations until that time had been extremly violent. Punches were not pulled
and full contact was intergral part of the Okinawa-te style.
|
