KarateHistory

Karate...how it has developed over the centuries

Karate stems from the 5th century AD and a Zen Buddhist priest named Bhodidharma. At this time Priests would battle against parishioners of different faiths. They used a form of self-defence which was based on yoga techniques.

Towards the end of the 5th century Bhodidharma travelled from India to China and taugh these yoga techniques at the Shoalin-Szu monastery in order to help students with elightenment of their body and soul.

The students found this very strenuous and so Bhodidharma introduced a form of Kempo, chinese fighting, to build up their stamina. This worked, and the Shoalin-Szu was soon one of the most well respected fighting schools in China.

Kempo was also used alongside medicine techniques used in this period and various parts of the body were pinpointed for medical science which Chinese used in acupuncture. These areas were and are still used as areas of attack in kempo and were later to form the basis for attack areas of karate.

The Shaolin-Szu techniques spread across China and into neighbouring countries, and islands. One of the main Islands to benefit from this form of combat was Okinawa.

Okinawa is the main island inthe RyuKyu chain which streches from Japan to Taiwan. The inhabitants of these islands used peculiar bare hands striking and bare feet kicking techniques which constitue special features of karate. They called it 'Te' which means hand.

During the Tang dynasty of China, the special method of Kempo (boxin) was mixed with te and was introduced to the islands together with the culture of the dynasty, and contributed so much to the development of the native way of boxing 'Te' that the inhabitants called this superior foreign way of boxing 'To-dei' which literally means 'Tang Hand' and had a special regard for the new form of boxing.

In 1406, the King of the Loochoo Islands (now Okinawan)proclaimed the establishment of a peaceful country and forbade inhabitants to hold or carry any weapons. This restriction is said to have made 'Tei-do' more popular. However some warriors were allowed to rearm themselves later in order to protect their islands from possible invasion. In 1690, Ryukyu (as Loochoo was sebsequently renamed) was conquered by the Japanese Shimazu Daimyo of Satsuma and made a dominion of the clan, the conquerors confiscated all the weapons of Ryukyuan in order to rule the islands with greater ease, and were stopped from practicing any martial arts. The Ryukyun warriors who fought against the soldiers of the Shimazu clan were renowned for their bravery and fighting skills, consequently this led to them (most were members of Shizoku [samurai] class) practicing the art of weaponsless defence To-dei. This art of Okinawan unarmed combat was introduced to the public of Japan properly for the first time in the spring or 1922, as Okinawan Kenpo of Tei-do or Ryukyu karate-Jutsu (China Hand).

In the 20th Century karate began to be formilised into different styles, each developing its own characteristics and differences.

Japanese Martial Arts master Mr. Hironori Otsuka Studied the Karate-Jutsu with great interest and later combined the art with techniques from an ancient form of Japanese unarmed combat, Jujitsu (at Waseda University) , to produce an advanced fighting art Wado-Ryu Karate-Do in 1934.

Karate worldwide

Because of the high level of European and American serivcemen in Japan during the last world war, many became fans of one stlye or another and some took what they had learnt back to their home countries. It help to spread the 'word' of karate but there was still too many styles making international competition impossible. Organisations were created however, makin this easier. In 1970 the first 'all styles' world championships were held in Tokyo. See KarateCompetition for further detail on this subject.

Wado-Ryu Karate-Do

Wado The way of peace and harmony

Ryu Style

Karate-Do The way of the empty hand (without weapons)

Wado-Ryu Karate-Do is now one of the most popular styles of Karate in the world. However, the most popular style of karate in Great Britain is SHOTOKAN with 20,000+ exponants altogether.

Hironri Otsuka

Hironori Otsuka was the founder of the wadoryu karate system. Otsuka first started training in shido yoshin ryu jujitsu at the age of six, and at the age of 30 began trainig under the foundr of karate-do Gichin Funakoshi, before founding the wado ryu system in 1939. Otsuka organised the All Japan Karate-Do Federation Wado Ki and the Worldwide Headquarters for the Wado system.

In 1967 he was the first karate-ka to be awarded the 5th order of merit of the sacred treasure of the Emperor of Japan as an acknowledge ment of his achievements so far.

Hironori Otsuka died in 1982, at this point his son, Jiro, became the chief instructor of the Wado Ryu system.

Otsuka summary


1892		Birth of Hironori Ohtsuka.
1898		Ohtsuka Sensei begins to learn Jujitsu.
1922		Funokoshi and Otsuka meet
1929		Ohtsuka starts to develop Kumite training.
1934		Otsuka II is born
1938		Wado ryu is registered as an official style of karate.
1944		Otsuka is appointed as Japans Chief Karate Instructor.
1963		Karate is introduced to the West.
1972		Ohtsuka Sensei bestowed with "Meijin" title (an excellent martial artist, 10th dan)
1982		Otsuka dies.

History of the Karate belt and grading system

The idea of students/karate-ka wearing a belt to denote there level of skill and experience was taken from Judo. Gichin Funokoshi is thought to be the first to introduce this idea from Judo to Karate in his style of Gojo Ryu.

It is a well-known characteristic of karate that belts are worn, they are awarded to the karate-ka after taking and passing an exam (grading). The colour order of the belts varies slightly between styles, though is usually fairly similar.

In Wado Ryu the order is as follows:

|White     10th Kyu

|Red         9th Kyu

|Yellow    8th Kyu

|Orange   7th Kyu

|Green     6th Kyu

|Blue      5th Kyu

|Purple     4th Kyu

|Brown      3rd Kyu

|Brown     2nd Kyu

|Brown     1st Kyu

|Black     1st Dan...

|....Black 10th Dan

As is illustrated here, the rank(number) always begins with 10th and works its way to 1st, we then get to black belt, where the numbers then increase again from 1 back up to 10. All Dans are black belts and it is very rare to find a karate-ka above 6th Dan. If a karate-ka achieves 8th Dan they have the option to wear a red belt which shows they have completed their full circle of training from 6th kyu to 6th Dan.

Karate-ka are now usually given a new belt to wear after each grading that they pass, or they go out and purchase their own.

However, the coloured belt system came from the old method of dying your belt after each grading examination that you passed. As you can see starting with the white belt, the colours gradually become darker and darker as they progress. This is purely because it was more practical to dye the belt a darker shade than its previous colour so that it could be easily recognised. After WWII Japan was a very poor country as this was the most practical way for them to cheaply create a ranking system.

The myth of the 'DIRTY' karate belts
There is another story behind the decision of karate belt colours. This is that the old grand masters began their karate training wearing a white belt. As they continued to practice day in, day out they never washed their belts, leading to their white belts becoming black belts! (as the belt got dirtier and dirtier they went from white to red-ish to yellow, then darker, to orange......brown, and finally black.) Obviously the stage of the colours would not come about in reality...although a dirty belt may go yellowish and brown, colour such as orange, blue and purple, make this story hard to believe, although it is a very nice myth...