Yang Chien, the emperor of China, wanted to live forever. Around the year A.D. 600, in the hope of finding a "fountain of youth" somewhere beyond China's borders, he sent out several sea expeditions on the search. Before long one of the expeditions happened upon a chain of rugged islands off the coast of China, where, unfortunately, the explorers did not discover any life-giving potions. Instead, they found numerous beautiful beaches and lush vegetation. Many of the ship's passengers remained on these islands, especially on the largest one, called Okinawa. With this episode began what was to be centuries of contact between the Chinese and Okinawan peoples, and many years of strong Chinese influence on Okinawan life.

The martial arts of Okinawa were also strongly influenced by China. In 1429 a man named Sho Hashi became ruler of Okinawa. To make his position stronger, he decided to take away all weapons from the Okinawan people. Soldiers were sent out to collect knives, spears, and even old rusty swords from the people of the island. Hashi placed guards outside the warehouses, where day after day mounds of unused weapons piled up. Oddly, the same thing happened again in 1609, when the powerful Satsuma clan of Japan conquered the islands. The Satsumas ruled the Okinawans for many years, and they too proclaimed a ban on all weapons and on the practice of any fighting arts. Anyone found with a weapon was punished severely.

The proud and spirited Okinawans, anxious to be rid of their various conquerors, as well as needing to protect themselves against the pirates and brigands who infested their waters and lands, began to develop secret ways of fighting that could not be detected by their rulers. Lacking swords and spears, they began practicing how to use their hands, feet, and other parts of their bodies as weapons instead. They also began to practice ways to use farm and fishing tools as weapons, for these objects were always near at hand but didn't took like weapons to the unsuspecting conquerors.

The Okinawans searched into their past for their native fighting ways, and at the same time began to look to China, which they knew had had centuries of experience in the fighting arts. In the darkness of night they sent off the best of their village youths disguised as various kinds of travelers. The youths' mission was to sail to China and seek out kung fu masters who would teach them their art. Others brought back Chinese masters who were then hired to teach the villagers kung fu. The Okinawans diligently and secretly practiced the Chinese methods, combined them with their own ideas about fighting, and gradually developed their own martial arts, which were referred to as Okinawa-te. Te meant "hands," and Okinawa-te meant "Okinawa hands." Sometimes the people referred to their forbidden training simply as te. This was a fine name, for not only were hands important weapons in their style, but te was also a name that sounded harmless and could be used as a code word for underground arts.

Sometimes the Okinawans also called their combat methods kara-te. Kara was the character referring to the Tang Dynasty of China, and kara-te essentially meant "Chinese hands," reflecting the important influence of Chinese kung fu on their fighting ways.

While many Okinawan karate masters continued to follow traditional Chinese training methods, the crisis situation on the island prompted many other masters to develop their own ways. Since the islanders needed Te for survival, teachers often stressed the self-defense aspects of the martial arts rather than the spiritual ones. When it was necessary for the Okinawans to become powerful quickly, then masters often speeded up the training practices.

If they wanted to develop an iron palm technique quickly, instead of working gradually from striking sand, to pebbles, to rocks, and then to iron filings, they might begin immediately with rocks and iron filings. If the Chinese practiced striking into the sides of trees or other natural objects one hundred times a day, the Okinawans would do it one thousand times. If it took the Chinese one thousand days to develop strong iron palm technique, it took the Okinawans only one hundred.

Through these and other rugged exercises the Okinawans got very quick results, and as they had hoped, they developed a phenomenal barehanded strength that could deal successfully even with armed and armored rulers. The only drawback was that they often injured their hands during this training and didn't have time to use the special herbal medicine used by kung fu practitioners to keep their bands soft and flexible. Instead their knuckles enlarged and their hands often became excessively callused and bruised.

In the darkness of night or out alone at sea, boat people began practicing how to use their oars, nets, and hooks as weapons. Women and men farm workers alone in the forests or fields practiced fighting with their sickles, called kamas, and with long wooden poles called bos. They even used their agricultural tool, the nun-chaku. This harmless-looking implement had two sticks connected at one end with a cord, and looked like a big nutcracker. If the Okinawans were grinding grain, the handles of their millstone, called a tui-fa, could be used as a weapon. The Okinawans studied ways in which the Chinese had used these same implements in their own years of trouble, and also learned how to use the three-pronged metal Chinese weapon, the sai.

In time, the busy-looking woman pulling in her net loads of fish, or the peaceful looking farmer cutting grain with his sickle, became serious forces to contend with, even against the strong military occupiers. Carrying on a guerilla war in their own land, the Okinawans used their te to strike unexpectedly and secretly, trying to overthrow their Japanese occupiers, just as the Chinese had looked to their own martial arts years before to help them get rid of their foreign Manchu rulers.

Over the years, three leading schools of te developed, centered in three different Okinawan cities-Shuri, Naha, and Tomari. The te of Shuri, called Shuri-te, is said to have been directly related to Shaolin kung fu. The style from Naha was called Naha-te, and apparently developed from the Wutang school in China, named after the Chinese mountain where it was practiced. Tomari-te, from Tomari, was influenced by both Naha-te and Shuri-te. Countless marvelous and heroic women and men martial artists developed during these years. One of the earliest stories we have is of an Okinawan man called Chatan Yara, who in the late 1600's spent twenty years in China studying the martial arts. He studied in Fukien Province, which at that time, following the burning of the Shaolin temple, was the hub of kung fu activity.

According to legend, Yara returned to Okinawa when he was thirty-two. To reacquaint himself with his homeland, he often took long walks along the beach. One night, while in calm meditation, listening to the surf and gazing at the natural beauties of the water and sand, he was startled by a sharp scream. He rushed ahead to find a husky Japanese soldier attacking a lone woman. "Stop," yelled Yara. "Why should a proud soldier like you want to attack this woman?" "Go away, boy," replied the soldier, swiftly drawing his sword. Yara suddenly realized with a shock that his days of training were over, for the soldier was intent on doing battle with him. As the angry soldier took one step forward with the sword outstretched in front of him, Yara was seized with panic. Suddenly he remembered what his teacher had said long ago: "Unless your mind is calm, you will never be able to concentrate." Now as the soldier stepped closer and closer, Yara began to regain his calm. A poor move would surely be his death. As the soldier swung his sword, Yara quickly stepped back and avoided the first cut. The soldier kept advancing and Yara knew he had to stay out of range.

Meanwhile, the woman cleverly grabbed an oar from a boat nearby, quietly crept near Yara, and quickly threw it to him. With the oar, Yara now had a chance. This time as the soldier swiftly attacked, Yara expertly swung his oar, knocking the sword downward and out of the soldier's hand. At the same time, he powerfully kicked the soldier, knocking him unconscious.

To help Yara avoid the Japanese soldiers who would surely hunt him down for this act, the woman took him to her village in the mountains. Here Chatan Yara remained for many years, teaching his arts quietly to the villagers. In time he became a legendary hero to the Okinawans, and many great masters came to visit and study with him. Numerous young men, anxious to make a quick reputation against this great man (who was somewhat like "the fastest gun in the West"), also came to challenge him.

One such challenger was a famous man named Shiroma. Yara accepted his challenge and they decided to fight each other with sais. On the appointed day, Yara arose just before dawn and made his way down the Mountainside to meet Shiroma on the beach. When he arrived he saw the shadowy outline of his opponent through the early morning mist. He walked toward Shiroma slowly, and the two men faced each other.

Yara, by now a veteran of many matches, showed great confidence and stood totally relaxed, his sai at his side. Shiroma, knowing then that he was up against a great master, devised a clever plan. As the sun began to rise over the horizon, Shiroma planned to maneuver so that his own back would be to the sun, while Yara would have the sun shining directly into his eyes, momentarily blinding him. With just one more step to go, Shiroma moved very slowly so that Yara would not be aware of the trap. Shiroma took the final step and moved to attack. Instantly Yara picked up his sai, reflecting the blinding sun back into Shiroma's eyes, blinding him instead. Yara then attacked Shiroma with a powerful kick, defeating him at his own game.

Later, when Shiroma came to after having been knocked unconscious, he realized the greatness of Yara, who was not only calm in the face of danger, but also displayed brilliant ingenuity in the use of his weapon.

Several years later, in the area of Shuri, two very colorful characters dominated the karate scene, the husband called Matsumura, the wife Yonamine Chiru. Matsumura's teacher, and some say even Matsurnura himself, had studied Shaolin kung fu in China. Yonamine Chiru came from a very famous Okinawan karate family. Both were considered formidable Shuri-te fighters.

According to legend, one evening Yonamine and her husband dressed up in their best clothes and ventured out to visit relatives. As the evening progressed, Matsumura and several others proceeded to get a little drunk and rowdy. Yonamine, anxious to get home to attend to some business, decided to leave early on her own. On the way home, however, three rapists attacked her. Perfectly able to handle the situation, she used her Shuri-te to take care of the three men.

Later in the evening Matsumura staggered home with his friends. Suddenly he came upon three disheveled, black-eyed, messed-up men tied to a tree with the sash from Yonamine's dress. Understanding instantly what had happened, Matsumura smiled to himself and mused, "Ah, these men certainly picked on the wrong woman tonight."

This is just one of the many stories about this strong couple who were not only great themselves, but who also produced generations of Matsumuras who were karate masters as well. One of these later Matsumuras even taught a young man who in time became known as the "father" of Japanese karate.

Gichin Funakoshi was born in Shuri in 1868, just eight years after the birth of the founder of judo, Jigaro Kano. Like Kano, Gichin was also a small and sickly child. Following his father, who was an expert in the use of the bo, the boy began studying Shuri-te at the age of thirteen. During this period, karate was still practiced secretly, and young Funakoshi would sneak out at night, making his way by lantern to the house of his teacher, Master Azato, where he was at first the only student. In later years he also studied with Masters Itosu and Matsumura.

After studying karate for some time, Funakoshi got stronger, tougher, healthier, and increasingly serious about his training. He became so dedicated, in fact, that once during the middle of a typhoon, when other people huddled inside their homes frightened of the storm, Gichin climbed up on the slippery wet tiles of the roof of his house. Here he put himself into a Horse Stance, gritted his teeth, and tried to test the strength of his stance against the force of the gale winds and rains. His body became totally mud covered from being blown off the roof time and time again, yet he kept reappearing to try one more time.

Over the years, because of such perseverance, Funakoshi became highly skilled. During this period he also married, and his wife (whose name unfortunately is unknown) also became skilled at karate. Gichin reports that when his wife tired from her daily chores she didn't lie down to rest, but instead went outside into the yard to practice karate. Funakoshi says, "in due course she became so adept that her movements were as dexterous as those of an expert." At this time, Funakoshi had also begun teaching a few students of his own. When he wasn't home, his wife would often go outside where the students practiced and give them pointers on their karate.

In the early 1900's, with the passage of time, the secrecy surrounding karate began to wear away. The Okinawan government, realizing that all people could benefit physically and mentally from karate training, even began to have it taught in the public schools. Funakoshi by this time was a recognized master of karate and was often called upon to give exhibitions of the art around the island. At one such demonstration, in 1921, Crown Prince Hirohito of Japan, who was touring Okinawa, saw Funakoshi and was so impressed that he told everyone back home about it. Soon Funakoshi was invited to sail to Japan to demonstrate Okinawan karate for the first time to the Japanese people.

In 1923, this barely five-foot-tall, middle-aged man performed his Okinawan karate techniques in Tokyo, and proceeded to flabbergast the masters of the various Japanese arts (who were not so easy to astonish). Many of these Japanese observers wanted to test their skills against Funakoshi, and were quite surprised at how easily this tiny man defeated them, improving upon some of their own techniques with his new methods.

Seated among the notables at this demonstration was none other than Jigaro Kano. Kano was so thrilled with the exhibition that he asked Funakoshi to please teach him some of this new karate. Funakoshi agreed and went to the Kodokan a few times, where he taught Kano and his students some basic karate techniques. He also introduced some throws that are still used in judo today.

Funakoshi originally planned to return to Okinawa after his demonstration, but so many other Japanese people wanted to learn karate from him that he decided to stay. During his first years in Japan, Funakoshi was very poor. He lived in a dormitory for Okinawan students and, to pay for his room, did odd jobs as a watchman, a caretaker, gardener, and even a room sweeper. He even gave free karate lessons to the cook in exchange for better food prices. Funakoshi himself remembers the day a newspaper reporter came to the dormitory while he was sweeping the garden path:

"Where can I find Mr. Funakoshi, the karate teacher?" he inquired. "One moment, sir, " I replied, and scurried away. I went quickly up to my room, changed into my formal kimono, and then descended to the entranceway where the reporter was waiting. "How do you do?" I said. "I'm Funakoshi. " I shall never forget the expression of astonishment on the re- porter's face when he realized that the gardener and the karate teacher were one and the same!"

Gradually, the Japanese people fell in love with karate, and by 1932 it was being taught in almost all Japanese universities. More and more students came to Funakoshi for lessons, and in 1936 he opened a big school in Tokyo, calling it Shotokan. Shoto was the pen name he used for writing, and kan meant "hall," so Shotokan meant "Shoto's Hall." In time, however, Funakoshi's vigorous style of Shuri-te itself began to be known as the Shotokan karate style. It is still called by this name, and has become a popular style practiced the world over.

During the 1930's, Funakoshi made a change in the word karate to reflect the growing "Japanization" of the Okinawan art. He altered the writing of the characters which meant "Chinese hand" to mean "empty hand." Both writings, however, are pronounced the same. It is Funakoshi's writing of karate that is used throughout the world today. Moreover, just as Kano had once changed the word jujutsu to judo, so too Funakoshi now began calling karate karate-do, meaning "the way of the empty hand." This mirrored the change in karate practice from a rugged guerilla-war- fare art to one practiced in both Okinawa and Japan primarily for physical health, character building, and spiritual development. Funakoshi said many times, "The ultimate aim of the art of karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants."

As Gichin Funakoshi got older and older, he still remained strong and highly skilled. A story is told that when he was in his sixties one of his students, Masatomo Takagi, caught him napping and decided to sneak up on him. Just as the student attacked, Funakoshi jumped up, successfully blocking the attack even as he was getting up. Takagi also says that in daily training he could never break through Funakoshi's defense, even though he tried repeatedly. Funakoshi, who also loved to spend his free time doing calligraphy and writing poetry, lived to be very old. He said that despite his sickly childhood, he lived to a healthy old age because of his lifelong study of karate.

Other famous Okinawan masters of different te styles followed Funakoshi to Japan. In the late 1920's, Chojun Miyagi brought a style of Naha-te to Japan which was called goju. According to legend, this style acquired its name in the following way: One day karate practitioners from the Okinawan city of Naha attended a martial-arts conference where, to their surprise, they were asked to identify their style by name. Since they had never had to give their te a specific name before, other than Naha te, they described it to the people. "Well," they said, "it's a little bit hard, like this, and a little soft, like this." Master Miyagi, quite enchanted by this explanation, thereafter began to call his te style goju-go meaning "hard" and ju meaning "soft."

Okinawan Master Kenwa Mabuni, who had studied te from both Shuri and Naha, followed Miyagi in 1930. He introduced to Japan a style called shito, a word made from a combination of the names of his two teachers. Just as the Okinawans had developed their own distinct styles from Chinese kung fu, so too the Japanese now began to develop their own styles from the Okinawan systems. In addition to Shotokan, goju, and shito, there were many other fascinating masters and wonderful styles of Japanese karate. All of the styles and there are as many as seventy today-have their merits, and there is really no such thing as "the best style." Much depends upon the skill of the individual practitioners.

Karate next traveled from Japan to Korea. The Koreans already had been strongly influenced by the Chinese martial arts, and had practiced the various kung fu styles for centuries. From 1909 to 1945, however, Japan took control of Korea, just as they had earlier taken over Okinawa. They also banned the practice of the Korean martial arts. As a result, over this thirty-five- year period many of the Chinese arts that had been practiced in Korea were lost. In their place the Japanese introduced many of their own martial arts, especially kendo, judo, and karate. Some Koreans also went to Japan to study, and quite a few even trained with Master Funakoshi himself.

Gradually the Koreans took from the Japanese and developed their own brand of karate. Master Won Kooh Lee opened the first dojang (training hall) in Seoul with a style called chung do kwon. These were followed by Ki Hwong's moo duck kwon, Song Sup Chun's yun moo kwon, and Pyang In Yun's chang moo kwon.

In 1955, General Choi of South Korea named the art tae kwon do. Tae means "smash with the feet," kwon means "punch," and do, just as in Japanese, means "the way." This term, tae kwon do, meaning "the way of kicking and punching," has become the generic term for all these Korean styles, parallel to the word karate for the Japanese and Okinawan arts. Choi is sometimes called the "father of modern tae kwon do."

In 1966, General Choi, in an effort to make tae kwon do more Korean and less Japanese, developed an entirely new system of Korean "forms" (like kung fu sets) called International Tae Kwon Do Forms. He tried, though quite unsuccessfully, to get all the individual Korean styles to adopt this one, unified national system. In 1973, Korea established the World Tae Kwon Do Federation in a further attempt to unify the art.

The major difference between the Okinawan and Japanese karate and Korean tae kwon do is that the former generally places equal emphasis on the use of both hand and leg techniques, while the Koreans tend to place about seventy percent of the emphasis upon leg techniques.

During World War 11 and the Korean War, many Westerners stationed in Asia were exposed to the fighting arts for the first time. Many of them studied karate in Okinawa, Japan, and tai kwon do in Korea, and brought the arts back to their home countries. In time, teachers from Japan, Okinawa, and Korea also came to the West to help teach. Karate is now popular the world over, and some say there are several million practitioners.

Karate became especially popular in the United, States. People study it for character building, good health, self-defense, and sport competition. Moreover, carrying on karate's traditions of the past, many of the liberation movements of the 1960's and 1970's movements of the Third World peoples as well as the women's movement have looked to karate once again as a means of giving people strength of body as well as dignity and pride in their struggles.