A martial art of unarmed combat, with strong philosophical undertones, dating from the 17th-c, and developed in Japan in the 20th-c; its name was adopted in the 1930s. The aim is to be in total control of the muscular power of the body, so that it can be used with great force and accuracy at any instant. Experts may show their mental and physical training by performing such acts of strength as breaking various thicknesses of wood; but in fighting an opponent, blows do not actually make physical contact. Levels of prowess are symbolized by coloured belts, as in other martial arts.
| Karate | |
|---|---|
| Japanese | 空手 |
| Kana spelling | からて |
| Rōmaji (Hepburn) | Karate |
| Kunrei-shiki | Karate |
| Nihon-shiki | Karate |
| Okinawan language | Tudi |
Karate (lit. The word "karate" comes from kara (空:から), meaning empty, and te (手:て) meaning hand. Karate has a rich and diverse history of development, incorporating
countless influences from other martial arts and cultures. Today, karate is known primarily as a hard style striking art, featuring linear punches, blocks, kicks, knee/elbow strikes and open
handed techniques. However, soft style punches and blocks, grappling, joint manipulations, locks, restraints, throws, and vital point striking are often an inherent part of many karate styles.
The Practice of Karate
In general, there are many components to modern karate training.
Kata (Forms)
Kata (型:かた) means "form" or "pattern," and despite how they might appear to the outsider, are not simply aerobic routines. It is also the method used by the World Karate Federation.
Styles branching from Mas Oyama's Kyokushinkai school of karate practice knockdown kumite.
A further development to this theme is practiced by daido juku karate tournaments in which participants wear helmets covering their face and head, but there are very few banned attacks (headbutts, punching to the head, grappling and kicks to the shins are permitted, for example). Most full contact karate styles or organizations have developed from Kyokushin karate. Kansui-ryū is a full contact karate style which has developed independently of Kyokushin, while having a number of similarities. Character is a central concept in karate, and in keeping with the dō nature of modern karate, there is a great emphasis on improving oneself. It is often said that the art of karate is for self-defense; Some popularly repeated quotes implicating this concept include:
"The ultimate aim of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants." -Hironori OhtsukaRespect is another very important part of karate; This is why it is said that "Karate always begins and ends with rei."
Kobudō (Weapons Training)
Although technically meaning only "old martial way," in context kobudō refers specifically to the old martial way of Okinawa, and even more specifically, to the traditional weapons of Okinawa.
Conditioning
Many styles of karate also include specialized conditioning equipment, known in Japanese collectively as "hojo undo."
Sport
Japanese karate competition can be in three disciplines: sparring (kumite]), forms kata (empty handed forms), or kobudō kata (weapons forms); Traditionalists feel this should not be regarded as emblematic of karate;
Self-defense
Karate may be practiced for many reasons, but was developed for self-defense.
Some schools are criticized for claiming to teach practical martial arts despite a lack of two-person training to develop needed attributes.
Other schools may intentionally place emphasis on tournament preparation, physical conditioning, or aesthetics (developing form for form's sake), rather than self-defense.
Rank
Originally, karate training did not use a ranking system. Here is the original belt system:
Ungraded - white 8th kyū through 4th kyū - white 3rd kyū through 1st kyū - brown 1st dan and above - blackAs karate became more widespread, some organizations added more colors and ranks to the system. Many schools have systems that look roughly like the following (with wide variations):
10th kyū - white 9th kyū - yellow 8th kyū - orange 7th kyū - orange 6th kyū - green 5th kyū - blue 4th kyū - purple 3rd kyū - brown 2nd kyū - brown 1st kyū - brown 1st to 5th (or all levels of black) dan - black 6th to 8th dan - black, or red with white stripes 9th and 10th dan - black or redThe requirements for each belt vary as a student progresses, and each form of karate has a different grading system, however it is commonly noted that the progression of learning is in the following order:
Position - Stance Balance - Control of position Coordination - Control of balance and position in technique Form - Performing the above correctly Speed - Increase the rate of performance without loss of form Power - Strengthening the techinique Reflex - The technique becomes a natural movement Conclusion - It is essential that the progression is not rushed, but developed at each stage.Etymology of "Karate"
In the modern world, some could (and do) make the argument that due to the generic meaning of the word "karate," (i.e. "empty hand") that any unarmed combat system or sport could technically refer accurately to itself as karate.
China Hand
The word "karate", while always pronounced the same, was originally written with different kanji (ideographic characters). The first use of the word "karate" is attributed to Gichin Funakoshi, who wrote it not as we do today as 空手:からて (empty hand), but rather, as 唐手:からて (Tang Dynasty hand). Thus "karate" was originally a way of expressing "China hand," or "martial art from China."
Empty Hand
The original use of "Chinese hand," "Tang hand," “Chinese fist,” or "Chinese techniques" (depending on one's exact interpretation of 唐手) reflects the documented Chinese influence on karate. Since this 1933-1936 period, the word pronounced "karate" has almost universally referred to the written kanji meaning "empty hand"(空手) rather than "Chinese hand"(唐手).
The Way and the Hand
Another nominal development is the addition of dō (道:どう) to the end of the word karate.
History of Karate
Okinawa
Japan annexed the nominally independent Ryūkyū island group in 1874 after centuries of strong Japanese influence over the kingdom's affairs following the invasion by the Japanese Satsuma clan in 1609. For purposes of discussing karate, it is convenient to speak of Okinawa and Japan as separate entities. The question of whether karate is Japanese or Okinawan is somewhat akin to asking whether the luau or the hula dance are American traditions or Hawaiian ones: They developed in Hawaii prior to when Hawaii became one of the United States, and so are usually described as Hawaiian, not American. The case is similar for karate, which is originally of Okinawan origin.
The Okinawan martial art "ti" was practiced by Okinawa royalty and their retainers for centuries before, and alongside, later Chinese influences. Early styles of karate are often generalized as Shuri-te, Naha-Te and Tomari-te, named after the three cities in which they emerged, although these are not concrete distinctions. Estimates of the Chinese influence in modern karate styles (or schools) vary considerably, and there are no clean divisions among 'styles'. To this day karate styles from some areas bear a striking resemblance to Fujian martial arts such as Fujian White Crane, Five Ancestors, and Gangrou-quan (Hard Soft Fist, pronounced "Gōjūken" in Japanese), while some karate looks distinctly Okinawan.
In 1806, "Tode" Sakukawa (1782-1838), who had studied pugilism and staff (bo) fighting in China (according to one legend, under the guidance of Koshokun, originator of kusanku kata), started teaching a fighting art in the city of Shuri that he called "Karate-no-Sakukawa" (at that time meaning "China hand of Sakakawa"). This was the first known recorded reference to the art of karate (written as 唐手).
Matsumura taught his karate to Anko Itosu(1831-1915), among others. In 1901 he was instrumental in getting karate introduced into Okinawa's public schools.
Itosu's influence in karate is very broad. The forms he created for beginners are common across nearly all forms of karate. His students included some of the most well-known karate practitioners, including Gichin Funakoshi, Kenwa Mabuni, and Motobu Choki. He is sometimes known as the "Grandfather of Modern Karate." In addition to the three early "ti" styles of karate, a fourth Okinawan influence is that of Kanbun Uechi (1877-1948), who, at the age of 20, went to Fuzhou in Fujian Province, China, to escape Japanese military conscription. He later developed his own style of karate and brought it to Japan, though the style itself was neither taught in Okinawa nor rooted in Okinawan "ti".
Japan
Gichin Funakoshi, father of Shotokan karate, is generally credited with having introduced and popularized karate on the main islands of Japan. He was a student of Anko Asato and Anko Itosu, who had worked to introduce karate to the Okinawa Prefectural School System in 1902. He brought Itosu's pinan kata to Japan (as did other of Itosu's students, such as Kenwa Mabuni, founder of Shito-ryu karate). Funakoshi worked specifically to introduce modernizations into karate and to spread it to Japan. The karate styles within Japan have fairly clean lineages.
Japan was occupying China at the time, and Funakoshi knew that the art of Tang/China hand would not be accepted; Like most martial arts practiced in Japan, karate made its transition from -jutsu to -dō around the beginning of the 20th century. The "dō" in "karate-dō" sets it apart from karate "jutsu", much as aikido is distinguished from aikijutsu, judo from jujutsu, Iaidô from Iaijûtsu and so on.
As mentioned, Funakoshi changed the names of many kata and the meaning of the art itself (at least on mainland Japan). He most likely did this to get karate accepted by the Japanese budo organization Dai Nippon Butoku Kai. Funakoshi had trained in two of the popular branches of Okinawan karate of the time, Shorin-ryū and Shorei-ryū.
The modernization and systemization of karate in Japan also included the adoption of the ubiquitous white uniform which consisted of the kimono and the dogi or keikogi - mostly called just karategi (pronounced 'gee' like 'key') - and colored belt ranks. Both of these innovations were originated and popularized by Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, one of the men Funakoshi consulted in his efforts to 'modernize' karate.
The Influence of Karate
In Korea
Japan occupied Korea from 1910 until 1945. After liberation from Japanese colonialism and following the turmoils of the Korean War, many of the martial arts schools in Korea were started by masters trained in Japanese karate with varying degrees of training in Chinese and Korean martial arts. Although major techniques of taekwondo largely differed from Japanese Karate as they were centered around kicks from indigenous arts such as taekkyon, karate's influence was nonetheless significant. For example, the earliest forms called poomse were adopted entirely from karate, as was the belt and degree system.
In the United States
Traditional karate entered the United States principally via those members of the military who learned it in Okinawa or Japan and opened schools upon their return to the United States. For example, Robert Trias is often credited with opening the first Western karate school in the United States in Phoenix, Arizona in 1942, though some historians note that Ron Keiser instructed a number of his fellow Americans in his family's karate tradition while imprisioned in a Japanese-American internment camp. Although there are many who claim to be the "founder" of American karate, or to have made fantastic innovations/studied with esoteric unknown Asian masters, these claims are impossible to verify, and have little to do with actual karate.
Internationally
Since the 1950s, karate has exploded in popularity worldwide. By the end of the 20th century, karate was one of the most pervasive cultural exports from Asia to the Western world. It is impossible to enumerate the various schools and styles worldwide that are identifiably "karate". Nowadays one can learn karate (or one of its offshoots) almost anywhere. It is no longer something practiced in just certain countries: karate is universal.
There were two main avenues for the propagation of karate to the rest of the world. First, Allied servicemen, stationed in Japan and Okinawa after 1945, who studied karate and returned to their home countries. Second, the emigration of karate masters from Japan or Okinawa to other parts of the world, where they taught their art.
In film and popular culture
Another factor in the enduring appeal of karate is film; kung fu movies have propelled karate and other Asian martial arts into mass popularity. Some well-known stars who were students of karate or related styles are:
Chuck Norris - Tang Soo Do Cynthia Rothrock - Tang Soo Do Jean Claude Van Damme - Shotokan Jeff Speakman - American Kenpo Fumio Demura - Shito-Ryu Karate-DoSports and the Olympics
An additional factor in the interest in karate is the availability of international competitions. There are bodies which sponsor competitions, including the U.S. Karate Association and Professional Karate Association.
Japanese karate does not have Olympic status, although it received more than 50% of the votes to become an official Olympic sport; The World Karate Federation (WKF) is the recognized International Sport Federation by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for karate. karate activities in individual countries are organized through national karate federations, recognized by each official national sports governing body and a National Olympic Committee. Each continent has one federation for continental karate activities. There are many organizations on national and international karate organization, regarding competitive activities and styles activities. Each country organizes their own karate championships following WKF rules.
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