Biographical Information
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.
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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."
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