Tora Kodo Karate Kai

The origin of karate dates back more than a thousand years. When Daruma Taishi was at the Shaolin monastery in China, he taught his students physical training methods in order to build endurance and physical strength required to carry out the rigid discipline that was part of their religion. This physical training method was further developed and adapted to become what is known today as the Shaolin art of fighting.

The martial art was imported to Okinawa and blended with the indigenous fighting techniques of the islands also known as Te. The lord of ancient Okinawa and later the feudal lord of Kagoshima, on the southernmost tip of Kyushu in Japan, banned the use of weapons, thus giving rise to the development of empty hand fighting and self - defense techniques. This martial art, due to its Chinese origin, was called karate, written in characters with the literal meaning Chinese hand.