The History of Karate.
The two Chinese characters KARA and TE make up the ideographs in Japan for the word Karate and thus denote that it is of Chinese origin. It appears that this evidence points towards the fact that Karate was practiced in china first before it was ever practiced in Japan or the Ryukyu islands.
It is known that in the 6th Century, an Indian Buddhist monk, Bodhidarma, journeyed from Asia to china. His role was to establish the Zen school of Buddhism. Bodhidarma travelled to the Shaolin temple, where his teaching began. Many of the monks were very weak and found such physical exercise too exhausting. Bodhidarma devised a training method that would assist the monks both physically and mentally so they could continue their Zen practice.
The word Karate means "empty hand"- Kara meaning empty and Te meaning hand. It is an art, which teaches its students self-defence by using their arms and legs as controlled weapons.
The master behind Karate was Gichin Funakoshi (pictured above). He was born in Shuri, Okinawa Prefecture in 1868. It was whilst he was lecturing at the Okinawa Teachers Collage that he was given the opportunity, in 1922, to lecture and demonstrate his art of Karate. The ministry of education sponsored the event. After such a demonstration, Funakoshi received a multitude of requests for him to teach in Tokyo.
In 1936 Funakoshi formed "Shotokan", a true landmark in Karate history.