A history lesson on Karate
It is nowadays almost universally accepted that Karate has its origins in the meditative health systems of India. While devoted monks travelled taking their relgious beliefs to the outside world, in particular China, they also took with them a range of elementary exercises designed to assist in their religious practises. Under the social pressures of the day these exercises slowly became more systemised and the emphasis was shifted towards the practise of movements relevant to self-defence. In China the first ancestor of Karate the martial art was born.
Over hundreds of years these movements spread throughout China, attracting the interest of many talented people whose names are lost to us now, but with each one adding his own small contribution and eventually giving rise to a number of contrasting systems across the Chinese empire. During this period the practise of these systems was always linked with other fields such as religion and medicine, and it was rare to find an expert practitioner interested solely in a system for its martial content. The land incorporated into the Chinese empire at this time was so vast that it is difficult to imagine it as one entity. Religions had distinctly different characters, due in some part to those other countries nearby which would participate in trade and consequently social interaction with the Chinese. The martial arts was, of course, one of the areas experiencing the interchange of ideas, snd knowledge developed in China, slowly filtered outwards and was grafted onto the indigenous systems of its neighbours.
Of particular interest to us in Karate is the small island of Okinawa lying off the south coast of China where people practised a system known as "To-de". Thanks to the influence of the many visitors and immigrants from China and from Okinawa spending time as residents on the mainland the main school of Okinawan Karate developed. These were known as Shurie, Nahate, and Tomarite after the three towns around which they sprang up. As in any useful practical tradition Karate knowledge diffused over Okinawa with the three styles becoming less distinct until eventually they blended into the complementary schools of Shorin Ryu and Shorei Ryu. During this period the leaders of the Okinawan schools met and adopted the name of "Karate"for their art. The name came from the two words "Kara"meaning China and "Te" meaning hand. Along with the word "Jutsu"implying the study of the technical nature of a practical art, the name Karate Jutsu was first applied.
