IF THERE IS ONE MAN WHO COULD BE CREDITED with placing karate in the position it enjoys today, it is Gichin Funakoshi. This Meijin (Master) was born in Shuri, Okinawa, and didn't even begin his second life as harbinger of official recognition for karate on the mainland until he was fifty-three years old.

    Funakoshi's story is very similar to that of many greats in karate. He began as a weakling, sickly, and in poor health, whose parents brought him to Yasutsune Itosu for his Karate training together with Yasutsune Azato (Azato is considered by many the reason Funakoshi developed such a disciplined mind and karate technique). Between his doctor, Tokashiki, who prescribed herbal remedies that would strengthen him, coupled with Azato's and Itosu's good instruction, Funakoshi soon blossomed. He became a good student with Arakaki and Matsumura as his other teachers, he developed expertise and a highly disciplined mind.

    When he finally came to Japan, from Okinawa in 1922, he stayed among his own people at the prefectural student's dormitory at Suidobata, Tokyo. He lived in a small room alongside the entrance and would clean the dormitory during the day when the students were in their classes. At night, he would teach them karate.

    After a short time, he had earned sufficient means to open his first school in Meishojuku. Following this, his Shotokan in Mejiro was opened and he finally had a place from which he sent forth a variety of outstanding students, such as Takagi and Nakayama of Nippon Karate Kyokai, Yoshida of Takudai, Obata of Keio, Egami from Waseda (his successor), Hironishi from Chuo, Noguchi of Waseda, and Ohtsuka. It is known that in his travels in and around Japan, while giving demonstrations and lectures, Funakoshi always had Takeshi Shimoda, Yoshitaka (his son), Egami and Ohtsuka accompanying him. His main instructors in the thirties and forties were T. Shimoda and Y. Funakoshi. Shimoda was apparently an expert from the Nen-ryu Kendo School, he also studied Ninjutsu, but he unluckily died very young in 1934 after one of the exhibition tours. He was replaced by Gigo (or Yoshitaka) Funakoshi, a man of excellent character, highly qualified technically. Shigeru Egami's opinion is that there was nobody better qualified for taking over the teaching. Due to his youth and vigorous training methods (sometimes classified as brutally strong training) immediate hierarchical conflicts arose with the older Ohtsuka Hironori. Some actually say he was not able to take the hard training. What is sure is that he left the school to establish his own style, the Harmonious Way, Wado-ryu. It's quite obvious that the name alludes to the conflict with Yoshitaka. Yoshitaka's influence was very important for the future of Karate-do but once again death came very soon for Yoshitaka, dying at age 39 of a lifelong affliction (tuberculosis) in 1945.

The martial arts world in Japan, especially from the early Twenties and up to the early Forties, was an ultra-nationalist moment in history, and they looked down their noses at any art that was not pure, calling it a pagan and savage art.

From our Shotokai friends in Chile