What is Karate? (Page-1)


It is strange that the films of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, who are practitioners of Kung Fu, did a great deal to popularize the art of Karate! Although Karate, which originated in Okinawa, Kung Fu (or Wu Shu, as it is now known as) which originated in China, Tae Kwan Do, which originated in Korea, Muay Thai (or Kick Boxing), which originated in Thailand, and Pentjak Silat of Indonesia, are all Martial Arts, and are similar to each other in many ways. They all teach the art of fighting without weapons and a skilled practitioner of any of these arts can often take on and overcome even armed warriors.

The `Boxer Rebellion’ in China in the middle of the 19th Century gave the Western World it’s first taste of the Eastern Martial Arts, the European Forces occupying most of China at that time did not learn much from it, because the `Boxers’ were few and unorganized, and did not give as much resistance as the Japanese did in a later century

During the Second World War, the combined might of the British and American forces found it very difficult to push back the Japanese soldiers from the lands they had occupied, and it was only the devastation caused by the atomic bombs unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which brought the war to an end. Many Japanese soldiers knew something of karate, and in hand to hand fights, the much smaller Japanese soldiers could often overcome the taller and heavier British or American soldiers. So, in spite of all the films about the cruelty of Japanese Prisoner of War Camps, the English and Americans and their allies developed a grudging respect for the Japanese soldier and his fighting abilities.

Immediately after the war, when Japan was occupied by the British and American forces, the Generals of their Commando Forces thought it would be a good thing to learn the Japanese fighting Arts, and sent officers to learn Judo and Karate from Japanese instructors. The Japanese instructors, on their part, were not sure that they should teach their arts to foreigners, but did not have too much choice with their country being occupied, and in the end, had to accept the idea that their Martial Arts were about to spread throughout the world.