The origins of karate in Okinawa

By Ric Light

Karate is a Japanese martial art first formally established in Japan early in the 1920s but has a history originating in Okinawa and influenced by Chinese martial arts. The long chain of islands known as the Ryukyu Islands south of Japan was invaded in 1609 by Satsuma which was a province in Japan and is now the western part of Kagoshima, in Kyushu.  In 1879 it became part of Japan. Okinawa is the home of karate with hundreds of years of development that was very evident over the 17th century following the Satsuma invasion and occupation. Like anywhere, there are different versions of the history of Okinawa but here I present a version reasonably well supported by historical research and with the help of Sensei David Eckford.

What we consider as karate today was originally known as ‘tode’—sometimes pronounced ‘todi’ in the Okinawan vernacular. Tode stands for ‘Tang Hand’ with ‘Tang’ referring to the Tang Dynasty. It is thought by some that in Okinawa, martial arts from China were combined to an extent with the native art of ‘Okinawa Te’ resulting in what was referred to as ‘tode’ and later ‘karate’. It seems that the Chinese influence came largely from the Canton area such as from Hung Ga and White Crane kung fu. There is even a kung fu kata called sanchin which is very similar to the Japanese kata by the same name of sanchin.

Tode (唐手) made its way to the Japanese mainland in the 1920s and as militarists increasingly controlled Japan, took on a militaristic approach. In 1922 Sensei Gichin Funakoshi gave the first official public demonstration of karate in Japan and then established Shotokan Karate. The use of the Chinese Tang (唐) in the name did not sit well with the sentiment of the time so, was replaced with kara (空). Kara (空) is a homophone (same pronunciation but different meaning and origin) of the kanji for Tang (唐). Tang could be read as to and kara, but the use of kara with the kanji (空) was used to disassociate any connection with China and karate (空手) became the new name.

There are reports of the term 空手 being used in Okinawa in the early 1900s, but it seems tode was the common term. The Okinawan masters agreed to their art being called karate (空手) at a meeting in Okinawa around 1937.

Compared to a style such as Shotokan with its deep stances and large movements Shitoryu styles are closer to the Okinawan approach. Our kata has shorter stances with smaller, more subtle movements of the body and we have some different stances. While we do zenkutsu dachi, we have a strong emphasis on neko ashi dachi, shiko dachi and sanchin dachi. Neko ashi dachi features in all our kata from Heian Nidan on and takes a lot of concentration and work to do well.

Kobudo

While it now seems certain that Okinawan farmers did not develop combative arts using agricultural tools to battle the Satsuma clan in some type of regular guerrilla warfare, kobudo does exist. The agricultural implements used in kobudo would most likely have been part of the Chinese martial arts curricula that were brought to Japan or studied by Okinawans visiting China. While it seems that there was weaponry on Okinawa the elite would have had a monopoly on its use and mastery.