Karate as the way to mind and body harmony.

Added: 12/21/2005

Karate is not only one of the most popular martial arts. First of all it is a unique unit of oriental philosophy and physical skills trainings. It was created and developed in Japan, Okinawa many centuries ago. The purpose of this martial art was self-defense technique that worked without using weapon or anything else except the parts of body. Kihon, kata and kumite form the set of modern karate disciplines.

Karate-do is one of the martial arts that is traced to Japan history. Karate was transformed and developed in Okinawa. At the first stages of existence it was just a set of techniques that helped in self-defense without using of any means, such as weapon. The secret was hidden in ?magic? human?s hands and feet. As it was invented long ago it inherited some parts from Chinese martial art tradition. The legend says that the creator of long liver karate was some Master and his follower Funakoshi helped to spread this art.

Many centuries karate had a supplement ?jutsu? that means ?art? but afterwards it was changed into Japanese variant traditional to almost all martial arts ?do? ? ?way, path?. The combining of budo (the way of the warrior, martial way) and karatedo creates the Japanese martial art substance that influenced not only political life long ago, but even social and private life today.

Karate word origin?s meaning explains its content: kara (empty) and te (hand). It means that the person following this way uses nothing for the self-defense except hands, feet and other parts of body. Another very important meaning leads to oriental philosophy and psychology. Your soul should be free (empty) of secular vanity. Just pure thoughts and blessed motives can fill it. And the human has to feel himself as emptiness as he is a grit of universe representing only emptiness.

At the moment it is obvious that karatedo and budo are more than just self-defense techniques. So western variant of translation of karate erases and abuses its very deep philosophy that proclaims karate essence as a way of inner quality development.

Often people perceive karate as mixture of fighting arts that were brought to Japan by sailors, merchants and politician ambassadors from China and developed into a special martial art with its philosophy and rules. During the history of development karatedo was divided into three branches (schools) Shuri-te, Tomari-te and Naha-te named after the cities where they got the individual development. The teacher represented his own techniques and basic principles distinguishing theses schools.

The most of modern karate styles and karate disciplines appeared after World War II and not only in Japan but even in the USA, Hawaii and other countries. The most famous styles consist of 72 variants. That is mostly sport karate-do, excluding the most effective but at the same time dangerous grips. Sport karate-do is named ?noncontact?, although some rules? systems can be rather strict and cruel. But in any case it is just comparison of participants? skills and experience through the mediation of judges. Also there exists the style of contact (fighting) karate, where kekushinkai and renbukai variants can be marked out.

All modern styles are united by some common karate competition disciplines: kihon, kata and kumite. Kihon represents the ?major technique?, and is destined for body-mind connection establishment. Kata is a set of formal exercises working for development and advancing of personal qualities and self-control. Kumite (sparring) helps to strengthen spirit through realization of the technique , when you realize the most important items while sparring with rival. Today team and individual karate competitions are wide-spread all over the world.

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