What is Shotokan Karate?
Shotokan Karate is the most widely practised form of Karate in the world today, following the teachings of Gichin Funakoshi, the schoolteacher and poet who brought Karate out of Okinawa in the 1920s. Funakoshi’s pen-name was Shoto (meaning ‘pine waves’) and so this style of Karate came to be known as Shoto-Kan, or ‘the House of Shoto’. Thus the full name of the Art, Shotokan-ryu Karate-Do translates as ‘The Way of the Empty Hand as Taught in the House of Funakoshi’. Shotokan emphasises a balanced development of speed, skill, strength and range of technique taught within a system which instils self-confidence and self-discipline.
