Okinawa (Karate)

Okinawa is a chain of islands sitting between China and Japan. At the time of the creation of Okinawan Karate, Okinawa was neither part of China or Japan, and enjoyed political freedom for more than two hundred years. Thus, the first known martial arts in Okinawa was Kari Te, meaning 'Chinese Hand', influenced heavily by the booming Kung Fu popularity in China. It was only much later when Okinawa became a part of Japan that they changed the name of Kari Te to a more Japanese 'Karate' meaning 'empty hand'.

China was influential in the formation of Karate and indirectly, India was too. Karate adopted much of the philosophy and technique from China and over the years, developed in the small villages of Okinawa around the 17th century. It was said that each village personalised their own style of Karate, demonstrating the reason for so many styles today.

Like how the Chinese exercised certain forms to enhance health and strength, a teacher by the name of Itosu Ankoh popularised 'kata', a series of forms emphasising the importance of preparing the mind before training the body. He is famous for his belief that Karate was not just a combat art but 'a way of life' and for the fisherman in the villages who learnt it, it was. 

In 1609, Okinawa became Japanese Territory. The weapons ban actually progressed Karate as practitioners were forced to practice in secret. If any soldiers were suspicious of the Okinawans practicing kata, they would claim it was a harmless folk dance. Kata, then, became the primary way of transmitting knowledge and information to other masters and down through generations as it did not change throughout the years. While Japan had pre-existing martial arts such as Kendo and Jujitsu, they did not have any 'empty hand' striking arts and became interested after a Karate demonstration in Okinawa. After an invitation to demonstrate in Japan, Karate was surprisingly well received and spread quickly throughout the country where it is still popular today.

Other Japanese influence also includes the uniform which is adopted from the Japanese Judo uniform.

http://www.shuriway.co.uk/ryukyuhist.html (a useful karate resource website which details the history of karate)

http://www.shinjinbukan.com/history.html (another website useful on karate history complete with timeline and pictures) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4xPcmodWuk (this is an excellent tv series that was aired in 2007 which follows two mixed martial artists on a road to discovering different martial arts, travelling to each country of origin to train for a week in that particular art before engaging in a match to test their skills. this is the karate episode and while its extremely entertaining to watch it's also informative on okinawan history)