Chester
County Shotokan Karate Club - info@ccskc.org
- 3838 West Lincoln Highway, Downington, PA 19335
. . .
Gichin
Funakoshi, the founder of Shotokan Karate, was born in the Shuri,
Okinawa Prefecture of Japan in 1868. Though a sickly child, who was
not expected to live long, he developed both his body and mind through
the study of Karate and the scholastic works of ancient China. Master
Funakoshi spent his life as a school teacher, a poet and, most
importantly to many, a martial arts instructor.
He
was credited with introducing the martial art of Karate-Do to Japan in
the early 1900's. In fact, his demonstration for the emperor, held at
the first Japanese National Athletic Exhibit in 1921, lead to the
Japanese interest in Okinawan martial arts and the eventual founding
of the Shotokan Dojo in Tokyo, Japan.
The
name Shotokan, quite likely not the name that Master Funakoshi would
have chosen, because of his strong sense of modesty, came from
combining his pen name Shoto "Pine Waves" with the term Kan "way or
house of." To his students, the name Shotokan quite literally meant
"Funakoshi's way."