In its current form, karate history is less than two hundred years old but it does have roots that date back thousands of years.
Much of what developed prior to the nineteenth century came from the Shaolin style of kung fu, which can be traced back to around the fifth or sixth century when an Indian monk named Bodhidharma is said to have taught fighting techniques to the monks at the temple there.
Early Okinawan Karate
The origins of Karate on the island of Okinawa can be traced back to the late seventeenth century when a ban on weapons and martial arts was imposed by the Japanese ruling samurai clan, the Satsuma.
As a result, the exact evolution of karate history is lost due to the lack of information being written down. All training had to be done in secret and as weapons could not be carried on the island, self-defence tended to revolve around empty-hand techniques.
The earliest surviving written evidence of Okinawan karate was a mention of the word Tode (the Okinawan name for the art) in the late eighteenth century. It was in reference to a visitor to the island from China named Kushanku who taught a form of Chinese boxing (kung fu) and may have introduced the first version of some of the Shotokan kata, including kanku sho and kanku dai.
Tode blended with another style of martial arts already being cultivated on the island, which was known as Te, meaning hand, a marriage that was instrumental for karate’s origins. Te was popular in three cities in particular, Shuri, Naha and Tamarai. Each city had its own way of doing the martial arts and modern-day styles reflect this; Shotokan and Shito-Ryu are mostly influenced by the style from the city of Shuri, that is Shuri-te, and to a lesser extent Tamarai-te. Goju-ryu on the other hand is more influenced by Naha-te.
Traditional Karate History in the Twentieth Century
At the turn of the twentieth century, Anko Itosu gained permission to end the shroud of secrecy for those who wanted to learn martial arts and began teaching in Okinawan schools. This led to further expansion by one of Itosu’s students, Sensei Gichin Funakoshi, who had a major influence on the history of karate when he introduced the art to Japan in 1922.
Funakoshi made many modifications to Okinawan karate to make it more accessible to the Japanese and karate as we know it today was born. Towards the end of his life, Funakoshi was instrumental in forming the Japanese Karate Association (JKA) which set about making the fighting style a world-renowned martial art by sending out its best instructors to teach it all over the globe.
Today, karate is practised by millions of people right across the world and although the lines are often blurred between karate history facts and legends, the contribution made by the old Okinawan masters such as Anko Itosu, Gichin Funakoshi and many others should not be forgotten.
Written by Andrew Griffiths – Last updated 24/06/2023. If you like
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Further Reading:
A Brief History of Karate-Do. [Internet]. 2012. The University of Hawaii. Available from: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~uhkarate/history.html [Accessed November 7, 2012]. Early Karate Origins. [Internet]. 2012. The University of Columbia. Available from: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/jka/history.html [Accessed November 7, 2012].
History of Karate from Ancient Combat System to Modern Global Phenomenon. [Internet]. 2012. Dynamic Karate. Available from: http://www.dynamic-karate.com/history-of-karate.html [Accessed November 7, 2012].
History of Shotokan Karate. [Internet]. 2012. Northwestern University. Available from: http://groups.northwestern.edu/karate/history.html [Accessed November 7, 2012].
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