9781422286678

K A R A T E

Karate has deep spiritual roots that can be traced back to ancient temples—like the one shown here—places where people still go to train themselves rigorously in martial arts.

techniques developed by the Chinese masters—and mistresses, too— spread throughout Asia, eventually finding a home on the Ryukyu Island of Okinawa, one of a small chain of islands roughly midway between China and Japan. By the mid-17th century, a small and elite group of karate-ka secretly molded the Chinese techniques into several versions of their own, which they referred to only as “te,” meaning “hand.” The three leading schools of the day were located in three major Okinawan cities: Shuri, Naha, and Tomari. Each school had its own distinctive characteristics, which were recorded in choreographed sequences of martial arts movements known as “ kata . ” The original meaning of kara-te on Okinawa was

12