Karate – The Way of the Empty Hand

Karate (空手), also known as Karate-dō (空手道) “the way of the empty hand”.

Karate is believed to have arrived in China around 1,400 years ago by Daruma, the founder of Zen Buddhism in western India. His teaching methods were very hard and exhaustive, which he developed as a training system so that his disciples would have more strength and endurance. His method is recorded in a book, the Ekkin-Kyo. Probably the first karate book in history.

This method reached the island of Okinawa (which was an independent kingdom at the time) in the 14th century or so. as an unarmed self defense technique.

Gichin Funakoshi, is generally credited as the person who introduced and popularized karate to the rest of Japan during the 1920s. He also renamed several kata .

With the suffix dō , the meaning of karatedō (空手道) is given as a path of self-knowledge without the technical part of combat (jutsu). Almost all the martial arts that were practiced in Japan passed from -jutsu to -dō at the beginning of the 20th century.

In Japan, modern karate adopted the white uniform (kimono) and colored belts for ranks (karategi).

Karate training is normally divided into kihon (basic or fundamental), kata (forms), and kumite (sparring).

Each part of the body can be transformed into a combat weapon, and to defend yourself there are techniques to block and evade your opponent’s attacks. These techniques are known as Kata , set sequences of movements that represent various defensive and offensive positions.

In the following video you can see the first kata:

In addition to kata, karate-ka ( ka means the person who practices it) must train by hitting objects (such as poles covered with straw) to toughen the skin on their knuckles, wrists, legs, etc. The more advanced can demonstrate their progress and strength by hitting boards or breaking ceramic tiles.

It is estimated that the population of karata enthusiasts worldwide is about 50 million people!

In the following video you can see a karate match in the National Karate Competition