gichin

It is a perhaps unfortunate truth that fighting seems to be a natural activity of humanity. In all times and places, as individuals or as nations, people have competed with each other for dominance over a geographical area, a particular resource, or simply to promote their ideas and beliefs over those of their neighbors. As in many other countries, in Okinawa and Japan indigenous methods of both armed and unarmed combat developed and were perfected over thousands of years. These fighting methods,
or jutsu, would eventually give rise to Karate-do, but not until they had been influenced by some fairly far removed sources. It is historically verifiable that Okinawa and Japan were influenced in the development of their martial arts by various Chinese sources. It is also clear that at least one source of influence on Chinese martial arts came from India. It has even been suggested that India may have in turn been influenced by Greek fighting methods imported by Alexander the Great in 327 B.C.E. There were numerous fighting methods in Greece at that time. Two of these were the sport of Pancration
which used kicks, punches, and throws, and a dance form called the Pyrrhic, used to train young men for fighting (perhaps similar to Karate's kata training). In any case, there existed in India, perhaps as long ago as 1000 B.C.E. an unarmed fighting method called Vajramushti. Statues of temple guardians dating to 100 B.C.E. are posed in martial arts postures assumed to be taken from Vajramushti. This would indicate at least some connection between the fighting arts and the religious establishment in India at that time. In about 520 C.E. a Buddhist monk named Bodhidharma, or Daruma Taishi, traveled to China where he taught Chan (or Zen) Buddhism to the monks at the Shaolin Temple in Henan province. The monks were not physically capable of withstanding the ascetic practices of his teaching, so he began to teach them exercises based on a fighting system. As a boy , Bodhidharma was a member of India's Kshatriya, or warrior, caste. As such, he had been taught Vajramushti, and it is likely that this was the basis of the techniques he taught. The Shaolin monks eventually gained the reputation of being the most formidable fighters in all of China. Their fighting method became known as Shorinji Kempo and as they traveled to teach about Zen, it influenced and was influenced by numerous other Chinese fighting systems. In the late 12 th century, Zen was introduced to Japan and readily became the religion of the Samurai class. As such, it would influence all of Japan's traditional martial arts. If Shorinji Kempo was introduced with Zen, as seems likely, it may also have had some influence on the traditional fighting methods of Japan. Due to Okinawa's proximity to China, cultural exchanges between the two countries undoubtedly took place even before written history. When the first exchange of martial arts techniques and ideas occurred is not known. It is known that in 1372 Okinawa's King Satto exchanged diplomatic delegations with the Ming Emperor. Part of this exchange included people knowledgeable in the martial arts of their respective countries. Thus the Okinawans refined their own fighting methods further by incorporating ideas from foreign sources and adapting them to their own styles and needs. One important factor in the development of Okinawan fighting methods was the advent of repressive rulers. Between 1477 and 1526 Okinawa was ruled by King Sho Shin who banned the ownership of weapons. In 1690 Japan's Satsuma clan came to power and continued the ban. The various schools of fighting practiced in secret, so as not to be observed by the rulers, and in deadly earnest. This was critical when the only weapon available against the Samurai sword was one's own body or, at best, a simple farm implement. At this time, the various schools shared techniques with each other in an effort to combat a common enemy. In this way, a more unified Okinawan jutsu evolved. It was called simply "te", or hand. This Okinawa-te continued to be practiced in secret, even after the end of the Satsuma rule in 1872, when the only "enemies" left were the other schools. The secrecy did not end until 1902 when Commissioner of Education Shintaro Ogawa recommended that it be included in the physical education of the first middle school of Okinawa. By this time, it had come to be known as kara-te, meaning Tang or Chinese hand, in reference to its early Chinese influences. While the need for a true jutsu had somewhat declined by the advent of the 20th century, karate's value as a character building and health promoting martial art was recognized, and it was soon being taught in many of Okinawa's schools. The first karate master to teach in Okinawa's schools was Anko Itosu. He was soon followed by a number of others, including Chojun Miyagi, Kenwa Mabuni, and Gichin Funakoshi ( the founder of Shotokan).

"The ultimate aim of the art of karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the
characters of its participants."
GICHIN
FUNAKOSHI
founder of Shotokan Karate

In 1868, Gichin Funakoshi was born (prematurely) to the wife of a minor government official in the Okinawan capital of Shuri. He was sickly as a child and, at the age of eleven, he began to study Karate under Yasutsune Azato, the father of a school classmate. It was Funakoshi's good fortune that Azato was one of Okinawa's greatest martial artists. He would later also train with Azato's good friend Anko Itosu, another of Okinawa's greats, who was the instructor that Azato sent his own son to since he felt it was improper to teach his son himself. Eventually, Funakoshi trained under other Masters as well, including Kiyuna, Niigaki, Toonno, and the famous "Bushi" Matsumura. Funakoshi became a school teacher by profession, and also continued his study of Karate throughout his life. In 1906 he gave the first public demonstration of Karate in Okinawa and he was also one of the first people to teach Karate in the Okinawan public school system. In 1921, Crown Prince Hirohito visited Okinawa and Funakoshi performed a Karate demonstration in his honor. The captain of the Prince's ship suggested that this fine art should be introduced to the Japanese mainland. Consequently, in 1922, Funakoshi was invited to Tokyo to perform a demonstration as part of The All Japan Athletic Exhibition. So, at 53 years of age, he left Okinawa to go to Tokyo to spread Karate to Japan, and eventually the rest of the world. He would never return to Okinawa to live again. When Funakoshi first moved to Tokyo, he lived and taught in the Meisojuku, a boarding house for Okinawan students. He helped to pay his rent by doing gardening, cleaning, and kitchen work. His demonstration at the Athletic Exhibition had been well received and he was soon invited by Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, to do a demonstration at the Kodokan Judo hall. Sensei Kano was duly impressed by Funakosi's Karate, and his appreciation of this little known Okinawan martial art helped it to become accepted in the Japanese martial arts world. At first, classes were small, with less than ten students training at the Meisojuku. Within a couple of years, however, Funakoshi had begun to teach at other institutions, including several universities. Funakoshi originally taught as he himself had been taught: training consisted solely of the repetition of Kata. He also believed that each Kata should be practiced for about three years before one had mastered it enough to move on to the next Kata. He taught what today are the "basic fifteen" kata of the Shotokan system: the five Heian (then Pinan), three Tekki (Naihanchi), Kanku Dai (Kushanku), Bassai Dai (Passai), Jion, Jutte (Jitte), Hangetsu (Seisan), Gankaku (Chinto), and Empi (Wanshu). Even this was considered to be a lot when most Karate systems had perhaps only five Katas. As time passed, Funakoshi made changes to both the Katas and to his teaching methods. He changed the Kata names to make them more Japanese and so that they would reflect the characteristics of the Kata. He incorporated ideas gleaned from other Japanese martial arts into both the techniques and his training methods. Prearranged sparring and the use of the makiwara (striking post) were among the other training methods. Although jiyu-kumite (free sparring) was eventually incorporated into Shotokan, it was not an idea that Funakoshi was very comfortable with. It was included at the behest of the younger, more enthusiastic college students who were familiar with the concept from Judo and Kendo. These revised Kata and training methods were to become the Shotokan style and, as such, a standard in the modern Karate world. Indeed, Funakoshi wouldcome to be known as "the father of modern Karate". One of the most important changes Funakoshi made was to encourage the use of the Japanese term "kara", meaning empty, as opposed to "kara", meaning Tang (i.e Chinese), when writing the word "Karate". He felt that "empty hand" was a better name for his art for several reasons. First, Karate was essentially an Okinawan / Japanese art which differed significantly from the Chinese fighting systems. Second, "empty hand" was a very apt description of the weaponless art. Third, and most important, the term "empty" reflects the Zen Buddhist concept of the calm detachment that is necessary to achieve perfection in Karate as well as in life. This use of empty/kara promoted the idea that Karate-Do is a philosophical "way" similar to the other Zen influenced Japanese martial arts of Kendo, Kyudo, etc.
Funakoshi continued to teach regularly into the 1930's (i.e. into his 60's) and, in his 70's, would often sit and observe classes being taught by his son, Yoshitaka, and other instructors he had trained. He is even known to have taught a class every Saturday at Waseda University after he turned 80! On April 26th, 1957, Gichin Funakoshi died in Tokyo at the advanced age of 88. In his life he had brought Karate from relative obscurity to an art that is now practiced world wide. He produced many of the world's most renowned instructors, including Okazaki, Oshima, Nishiyama, Ohtsuka (the founder of Wado-ryu), and Masatoshi Nakayama, the man Funakoshi picked to continue his teaching.

NIJU KUN

1.Karate is not only dojo training.
2.Don't forget that Karate begins with a bow and ends with a
bow.
3.In Karate, never attack first.
4.One who practices Karate must follow the way of justice
5.First you must know yourself. Then you can know others.
6.Spiritual development is paramount; technical skills are
merely means to the end.
7.You must release your mind
8.Misfortune comes out of laziness.
9.Karate is a lifelong training.
10.Put Karate into everything you do.
11.Karate is like hot water. If you do not give heat constantly it
will again become cold.
12.Do not think you have to win. Think that you do not have to
lose.
13.Victory depends on your ability to tell vulnerable points from
invulnerable ones.
14.Move according to your opponent.
15.Consider your opponent's hands and legs as you would sharp
swords.
16.When you leave home, think that millions of opponents are
waiting for you.
17.Ready position for beginners and natural position for
advanced students.
18.Kata is one thing. Engaging in a real fight is another.
19.Do not forget (1)strength and weakness of power,
(2)expansion and contraction of the body, (3)slowness and
speed of techniques.
20.Devise at all times.

Dojo-Kun
Japanese translation:

HITOTSU! JINKAKU KANSEI NI TSUTOMURU KOTO!
HITOTSU! MAKOTO NO MICHI O MAMORU KOTO!
HITOTSU! DORYOKU NO SEICHIN O YASHINAU KOTO!
HITOTSU! REIGI O OMONZURU KOTO!
HITOTSU! KEKKI NO YU O IMASHIMURU KOTO!

Dojo-kun compliments of Sensei DeToro

SEEK PERFECTION OF CHARACTER!
BE FAITHFUL!
ENDEAVOR!
RESPECT OTHERS!
REFRAIN FROM VIOLENT BEHAVIOR!

MAXIMS FOR THE TRAINEE
By Master Gichin Funakoshi
(An excerpt from Karate-do Kyohan)
The word "bu" of budo (martial arts) is written with the Chinese character for "stop" within a

character signifying two crossed halberds meaning to stop conflict. Since karate is a budo, this
meaning should be deeply considered, and the fists should not be used heedlessly.
Youth is justice and vigor. Vigor is stimulated by bu (martial arts) and it overflows into good or
sometimes bad actions. Thus if Karate-do is followed correctly, it will polish the character, and
one will uphold justice, but if used for evil purposes, it will corrupt society and be contrary to
humanity.
Force is used as a last resort where humanity and justice cannot prevail, but if the fist is used
freely without consideration, then the user will lose the respect of others and be shabbily treated, while being censured for barbaric action. At any rate, the high-spirited youth in the prime of life
is prone to rash speech and action, so prudence is essential.
One must have dignity without ferocity. Martial arts must bring one to this height. It will not do
to act recklessly to no purpose and cause trouble for others. Masters and saints may appear as
simpletons. Those who are pretentious declare to the world that they are just novice scholars or
martial artists.
To stand still is to regress; those who think that they have learned everything and become
conceited braggarts proclaiming their own merits after learning the movements of some kata and
acquiring dexterity in their physical movements are not fit to be considered as serious trainees in the martial arts.
It is said that even a worm that is an inch long has a soul half an inch long; thus as one continues
to gain skill in karate, one must become more careful with one's speech. Again, it is said that the
higher the tree, the stronger the wind, but does not even the willow manage to withstand the
wind? Similarly the trainee of Karate-do must consider good behavior and humbleness as the
highest of virtues.
Mencius said, "When Heaven is about to confer an important office upon a man, it first embitters
his heart in its purpose; it causes him to exert his bones and sinews; it makes his body suffer
hunger; it inflicts upon him want and poverty and confounds his undertakings. In this way it
stimulates his will, steels his nature and thus makes him capable of accomplishing what he
would otherwise be incapable of accomplishing."
If introspection reveals the self to be unjust, then no matter how base the opponent may be, will I not be afraid? If introspection reveals the self to be just, then I will go even though against a
thousand or ten thousand men.
A gentleman should be gentle and never be menacing; close, yet never forward; slay but never
humiliate; no sign of indecency is found in his abode; his nourishment is never heavy; even a
minor mistake is corrected but there is no accusation. Thus is his strength of will.
A gentleman must be broad-minded and strong willed. The responsibilities will be heavy, and
the way is long. Make benevolence your lifelong duty. This surely is an important mission. It is a lifelong effort, truly a long journey.
An ordinary man will draw his sword when ridiculed and will fight risking his life, but he may
not be called a courageous man. A truly great man is not disturbed even when suddenly
confronted with an unexpected event or crisis, nor angered upon finding himself in situations not
of his own making, and this is because he has a great heart and his aim is high.
Eight important phrases of karate:
The mind is the same with heaven and earth.
The circulatory rhythm of the body is similar to the sun and the moon.
The Law includes hardness and softness.
Act in accordance with time and change.
Techniques will occur when a void is found.
The Ma requires advancing and retreating, separating and meeting.
The eyes do not miss even the slightest change.
The ears listen well in all directions.
Therefore I say: Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in
peril.
When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are
equal.
If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.
For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the highest skill. To subdue the
enemy without fighting is the highest skill.
When birds of prey are attacking, they fly in low without extending their wings. When wild
beasts are about to attack, they crouch low with their ears close to their heads. Similarly, when a sage is about to act, he always appears slightly dull.
Lin Hung-nien says a stone with no water within it is hard. A natural magnet with no water
within it is dense. If a body is hard within and dense without, how can it ever be penetrated? If a
thing has an opening, then it will be filled. If a thing has an inch of cavity, then one inch of water
will fill it.

Gichin 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 called the "shotokan tiger". When Gichin Funakoshi was a young man, he enjoyed walking in solitude among the pine trees which surrounded his home town 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 tigers tail. The name "Torao", in fact, literally means "tigers tail". In later life, Funakoshi explained that the cool breezes which blew among the pines on Mt.Torao made the trees whisper like waves breaking 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 Gichin Funakoshi experienced while listening to the pine waves on Tiger's Tail mountain.

Master Masotoshi Nakayama

In 1913, in Kanazawa, Japan, Masatoshi Nakayama was born to a samurai family that, for many generations, had been attached to the Sanada clan as kendo instructors. Nakayama's grandfather, Naomichi, was the last family member to teach fencing. His father, Naotoshi, studied judo and was a doctor in the army. Since the senior Nakayama was stationed in Taipei, Taiwan, that was where young Masatoshi spent his grammar school years. In addition to academic studies, he also spent time practicing kendo, swimming, skiing, playing tennis, and running on the track team. Naomichi Nakayama, in addition to being a kendo instructor, had been a surgeon in Tokyo. Naotoshi had followed his father's
footsteps into medicine and naturally expected Masatoshi to do the same. The future karate master, however, had developed a strong interest in visiting and studying China. Consequently, he secretly took the entrance exams for Takushoku University, which specialized in preparing students for overseas work.
In 1932, when Nakayama arrived at Takushoku to begin his studies, he also intended to continue his practice of kendo. Due to a misreading of the schedule, however, he showed up at the dojo when the karate team was practicing instead. He was fascinated by what he saw and was invited to come back for the next class to give it a try. As he would put it later, "I completely forgot about kendo".
At that time, Master Funakoshi was still active in teaching and the training was grueling. Only about 10% of the students lasted longer than six months. The training consisted of repetitions of a single kata, perhaps as many as 50 or 60 times, and hitting the makiwara (striking post) as many as 1000 blows. Nakayama's generation, however, had been raised practicing kendo or judo and thus they were all used to various types of matches in which one faced an actual opponent. This led to the development and
inclusion in karate training of five, three, and one step sparring in 1933, semi-free sparring in 1934, and free sparring in 1935. In the fall of 1936, Nakayama and other students of Funakoshi's gave the first public performance of these new training methods in a demonstration at the Tokyo Civic Center.
In addition to his five hours a day of karate training, Nakayama pursued an academic course in Chinese history and language. He spent 3 or 4 months traveling in Manchuria during 1933, his sophomore year, and returned to China in 1937 as an exchange student at Peking University. He was a student there for 5 years and then went to work for the Chinese government. He did not return to Japan until 1946.
During the decade he spent in China, Nakayama continued to practice and teach karate, but he also studied various Chinese martial arts with a number of masters there. In the interim, he missed the founding of the first dojo built for karate in Japan: the Shoto-kan, built for Master Funakoshi by a group of his students in 1938. Nakayama also escaped the horrors of World War Two as experienced in Japan.
Upon his return to Japan, Nakayama found that many of his karate peers, as well as the Shoto-kan dojo itself, had perished in the war. He began to organize classes again and, in May of 1949, he helped to found the Japan Karate Association, which would be incorporated as an educational body under the Ministry of Education in 1955. Although Funakoshi was the honorary head of the new organization, he was 81 years old at it's founding, and it was Nakayama, Funakoshi's hand picked successor, who was the Chief Instructor of the J.K.A. from it's founding until his death. As early as 1947, Nakayama had become the Coach of the Takushoku University Karate Team. In 1952 he was hired as part of the physical education staff and would eventually rise to become the director of that department. Among his many
accomplishments are the creation of sport karate (the J.K.A. hosted the first All Japan Karate Tournament in 1957, which was the first world karate championship), the creation of the J.K.A. Instructor Training Program, and the spreading of karate to the United States and the rest of the world. These last two achievements went hand in hand. In 1951, the U.S. Strategic Air Command instituted a program of training in the martial arts. They sent their physical training instructors to the Kodokan in Tokyo for instruction in Judo, Karate, Aikido, and other arts. Nakayama, along with Isao Obata and Toshio Kamata, was chosen by Funakoshi to provide the karate instruction for this program. The problem with this was that people who had had some limited training in karate returned to the United States and began to teach on their own. The same situation had developed in Japan at that time. By the mid 1950's there were
over 200 so-called styles of karate being taught, many of them by people with very little training. Thus Nakayama, under Funakoshi's direction, created the Instructor Training Program to ensure the quality instruction of true karate. He was assisted in this by Motokuni Sugiura (the current Chief Instructor of the J.K.A.), Hidetaka Nishiyama (the head of the A.A.K.F.), and Teruyuki Okazaki ( the current Chairman of the J.K.A. World Federation). The final step in the process of spreading karate to the world was the sending of instructors to America and then to other countries. The first Japanese to teach karate in the U.S. was Tsutomu Oshima, a student of Funakoshi's from Waseda University, who came to Los Angeles in 1955. He was later replaced by Nishiyama, who founded the All American Karate Federation, the U.S. branch of the J.K.A. Okazaki came to Philadelphia in 1961 as the first graduate of the Instructor Training
Program assigned to the U.S. and founded the East Coast Karate Association as part of the A.A.K.F.
On April 14th, 1987, Masatoshi Nakayama died at the age of 74. Until his death, he continued to travel, teach, write books about karate (over 20), and oversee the growth of the J.K.A. into a world wide organization of over 10 million people in 155 countries. He was a true Master of Karate-do who, as Sensei Okazaki has said, completely absorbed all of Master Funakoshi's philosophies, techniques, and ideas, and spent his life passing them on to the world.