KARATE

Master Funakoshi Master Gichin Funakoshi is widely considered the primary "father" of modern karate due to his efforts to introduce the Okinawan art to mainland Japan, from where it spread to the rest of the world. Born in 1868, he began to study karate at the age of 11, and was a student of the two greatest masters of the time, Azato and Itosu (see also history). He grew so proficient that he was initiated into all the major styles of karate in Okinawa at the time. For Master Funakoshi, the word karate eventually took on a deeper and broader meaning through the synthesis of these many methods, becoming karate-do, literally the "way of karate," or of the empty hand. Training in karate-do became an education for life itself. Master Funakoshi was the first expert to introduce karate-do to mainland Japan. In 1916 he gave a demonstration to the Butokuden in Kyoto, Japan, which at that time was the official center of all martial arts. On March 6, 1921, the Crown Prince, who was later to become the Emperor of Japan, visited Okinawa and Master Funakoshi was asked to demonstrate karate. In the early spring of 1922 Master Funakoshi traveled to Tokyo to present his art at the First National Athletic Exhibition in Tokyo organized by the Ministry of Education. He was strongly urged by several eminent groups and individuals to remain in Japan, and indeed he never did return to Okinawa. In 1936, Master Funakoshi established the Shotokan Dojo (so named because Shoto was Funakoshi's pen name) at Zoshigaya, Tokyo. This was the first Karate Dojo (training hall) in Japan. Although others named his style the Shotokan style, Funakoshi himself believed that Karate is one and that there is no "style" of Karate. In 1948, the Japan Karate Association was organized, with Funakoshi as the chief instructor. Because this organization made it possible for leading Karate-Ka (practitioners of Karate) to pool their knowledge and ability, from that time onward progress was rapid, leading to development of the three aspects of present-day Karate -- self-defense, sport, and physical/mental art. In April of 1957, Master Funakoshi passed away at the advanced age of eighty-eight. Tens of thousands of Karate-Ka who learned under him remain, insuring that the art he taught would not die with him. On the contry, people in many foreign countries have shown an avid interest in Karate, and it is now a world-wide martial art. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Shotokan Tiger Master Funakoshi's pen name Shoto, literally means "pine waves", and today is synonymous with the tiger symbol and Shotokan Karate-do. But few people understand the relationship of Shoto to what is commonly known as the Shotokan Tiger. When Master Funakoshi was a young man, he enjoyed walking in solitude among the pine trees which surrounded his home of Shuri. After a hard day of teaching in the local school and several more hours of strenuous karate practice, he would often walk up Mt. Torao and meditate among the pine trees under the stars and bright moon. Mt. Torao is a very narrow, heavily wooded mountain which, when viewed from a distance, resembles a tiger's tail. The name Torao, in fact, literally means "tiger's tail". In later life, Master Funakoshi explained that the cool breezes which blew among the pines on Mt. Torao made the trees whisper like waves breaking on the shore. Thus, since he gained his greatest poetic inspirations while walking among the gently blowing pine trees, he chose the pen name of Shoto, "pine waves". The tiger which is commonly used as the symbol for Shotokan karate is a traditional Chinese design which implies that "the tiger never sleeps". Symbolized in the Shotokan tiger, therefore is the keen alertness of the wakeful tiger and the serenity of the peaceful mind which Master Funakoshi experienced while listening to the pine waves on Tiger's Tail Mountain. This second story was originally put forth by Sensei Randall Hassell in the first edition of his _Shotokan Karate: Its History and Evolution_ text. Sensei Hassell has since abandoned the second story in favor of the first, which (to him, at least) has more foundation in verifiable historical fact.