Sensei Gichin Funakoshi is known as the Father of Modern Day Karate and is probably the best known name in karate history. He was born in the city of Shuri on the island of Okinawa in 1868 and by the age of 11, Funakoshi was training with the great Okinawan teachers Anko Itosu and Yasutsune Azato.
At this time it was illegal to learn martial arts, though that did not stop him and many others practicing in secret. Around the turn of the century the art came out into the open and began to be taught in public schools, thanks largely to the efforts of Anko Itosu.
Sensei Gichin Funakoshi and Japan
By the time Funakoshi was an adult he excelled in karate, so much so that when the Crown Prince of Japan, Hirohito, visited Okinawa, Funakoshi was chosen to performed a demonstration for him.When the Japanese Ministry of Education held a demonstration of karate in Tokyo a year later in 1922, the Okinawan Department of Education who he worked for as a school teacher asked him to be the one to perform it and introduce the art to Japan; when he did, a new era in the history of the martial arts was born.
The Japanese were so impressed that he was asked to stay in the country to further demonstrate and teach his art. This began with an invitation from Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, who asked Funakoshi to demonstrate karate in front of over one hundred of his students.
After this, the requests kept coming so Master Funakoshi decided to move to Japan permanently. He quickly gained students in the universities in and around Tokyo and soon he had enough interest to start his own dojo.
Sensei Gichin Funakoshi’s Development of Karate
Sensei Gichin Funakoshi earned the title the Father of Modern Day Karate in a number of ways. One was that he adapted the training methods so that they could be more easily practiced by everybody, regardless of age, ability or sex.He also made karate more accessible to the Japanese by changing the meaning of the word ‘Kara’. Originally the meaning used was ‘Chinese’ with ‘Te’ meaning ‘hand’ but the characters used for Kara could also mean ‘empty’ in Japanese.
As this fitted the style so well and because karate had developed to be very different from the Chinese styles, it became the new meaning of the word. He also changed the name of many of the kata, again making them more acceptable to a Japanese culture that hated everything that was Chinese.
Amongst his more prominent beliefs was Funakoshi’s conviction that the best martial arts exponents should be so confident that they had nothing to prove about their fighting prowess. The true art was found in subduing an opponent without fighting, echoing the teachings of the legendary samurai Tsukahara Bokuden from over 400 years previously.
In 1955, Sensei Gichin Funakoshi made another momentous contribution to the karate world when he was instrumental in founding the Japanese Karate Association (JKA). Funakoshi was the chief instructor but unfortunately, the great master died not long after in 1957.
However through his most senior students such as Hidetaka Nishiyama and Masatoshi Nakayama, Shotokan karate lived on and grew. Today, it is practiced by millions of students and is a famous fighting system, respected and feared throughout the world.
Further Reading
Early Karate Origins. [Internet]. 2012. The University of Columbia. Available from: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/jka/history.html [Accessed 29 January, 2013].History of Shotokan Karate. [Internet]. 2012. Northwestern University. Available From: http://groups.northwestern.edu/karate/history.html [Accessed 29 January, 2013].
Karate-do: My Way of Life. [New Edition]. 1981. Gichin Funakoshi. Kodansha America, Inc. Tokyo.
Shotokan’s Secrets. [Internet]. 2004. Via Google Books. Available from: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BGxQeTMnPzQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=shotokan%27s+secret&hl=en&redir_esc=y [Accessed 13 November, 2012].
