Funakoshi Gichin (1868-1957) was the founder of the Shotokan-ryu style of Karate. Funakoshi was born in the Okinawan capital of Shuri into a family of the Shizoku class (upper class).
He began his karate training at the age of 12, with master Azato and then with Master Itosu. He worked for many years as a primary school teacher, but then resigned to open a karate school. He was chosen by the Okinawa Karate Masters for a karate demonstration to be held in Kyoto, in 1922. He remained in Japan and began to teach karate in some Tokyo University clubs.
Master Gichin Funakoshi was instructed by Yasutsune Azato and Yasutsune Itosu. He was also responsible for changing (or defining, depending how you look at it) the meaning of the word Karate-do. He changed the “kara” symbol in Karate from the old symbol, meaning “China”, to the new symbol, meaning “empty”. In his book Karate-Do Nyumon, he writes: “Just as an empty valley can carry a resounding voice, so must the person who follows the Way of Karate make himself void or empty by ridding himself or all self-centeredness and greed. At first times were very hard, but soon karate became to grow; in 1935 Funakoshi pupils built the Shotokan dojo, and karate was taught in many places in Japan.
Make yourself empty within, but upright without. This is the real meaning of the ’empty’ in Karate. “…Once one has perceived the infinity of forms and elements in the universe, one returns to emptiness, to the void. In other words, emptiness is none other than the true form of the universe. The 2nd World War was a ruin for karate. The Shotokan was destroyed, karate people was dispersed, many died. Okinawa was nearly destroyed too. After the war Funakoshi reorganized karate in Japan, Gichin Funakoshi died in Tokyo in 1957.
There are various fighting techniques – yarijutsu (spear techniques) and bojitsu (stick techniques), for example – and forms of martial arts, such as Judo and Kendo. All share an essential principle with Karate, but Karate alone explicitly states the basis of all martial arts. Form equals emptiness; emptiness equals form. The use of the character for “empty” in Karate is indeed based on this principle.”
The result of this change is that Karate-do, which formerly translated loosely to “Chinese hand”, now translates to ‘the way of the empty hand’.
Here are some photos taken from the book Funakoshi published in 1924: “Rentan Goshin Karate-jutsu”. From them we can see how different the old Shotokan style of karate was.
For more of these photos please check out the links page
Sensei Keinosuke Enoeda 9th Dan
Sensei Enoeda was born in Kyushu, an island in the South of Japan, on July 4th 1935. A strong and natural athlete, he initially took up baseball, kendo, and judo, as did many of his contemporaries – these being the popular sports in Japan at that time. He proved particularly adept at Judo, and by the age of 16 he had reached 2nd Dan. However, as is often the way, fate guided him to a demonstration by two top Karate exponents from the famous Takashoku University. The two Karateka, Senseis Irea and Okazaki, so impressed him, that there and then, he decided to channel his energy into Karate.
He enrolled at Takashoku University, joined the Karate section, and within two years was the proud holder of Shodan. Another two years found him Club Captain.
One his teachers was the great Master and founder of modern Shotokan Karate, Funakoshi Gichin, whose instruction and advice is still a source of inspiration to him to this day.
He graduated with a degree in economics before joining the JKA instructors class which he attended for three years, during which time his main instructor was Sensei Nakayama. He also trained with many of the top Sensei of other schools and styles of Karate. It was this quality of instruction, combined with a fiercesome determination, which molded Sensei Enoeda into one of Japan’s finest ever competitors and instructors.
After achieving his aim of becoming JKA Champion, Sensei began to receive invitations to instruct in various countries – Indonesia, South Africa, Hawaii – and eventually joined his friend, Hirokazu Kanazawa, to instruct in England.
Sensei Enoeda wins the all Japan kumite championships, 1963
So it was, that in 1965, Sensei Enoeda found himself in a place called Liverpool, where he was to spend some considerable time. He had a flat in Percy Street, in Liverpool City Centre, close to the Anglican Cathedral, and his transport was a bright orange Volkswagen Beetle.
He was instructing full-time at the Liverpool Red Triangle Dojo, and the quality of instruction and the spirit he engendered was soon to bring the club competition success. If you were there in those early days, you would have found it difficult not to be inspired by the intensity of his coaching.
No less inspirational was the intensity of his training – every morning at 7am in Sefton Park he would meet with a small group of students and train with them, showing by example that even All-Japan champions need to make training part of the daily lives. These students included Andy Sherry, Terry O’Neil, Bob Poynton, and Bill Christall, all of whom still make daily training a part of their lives, and who encourage others to do so.
Thus, Sensei’s ‘way’ has permeated through to KUGB club Instructors and to the current generation of Junior and Senior Squad members, and goes a long way to explaining the high standards of Karate within the KUGB.
When he went to Australia for the World JKA Championships in 1989, he would have the British Squad out training every morning at 7am. Sensei would talk about how his life had changed since he had left Japan to teach in England in 1966. He confessed that he had worried about the changes he would have to face – both in culture and climate – something he had not experienced so much when, for example, he was teaching in Hawaii. The climate there is similar to the Summer months of Japan, and there is a long established Japanese community.
At first he found English food strange – he could not believe we make a pudding from rice! – and the British weather! What did emerge from the conversation however was that he had grown to love the British people and their culture, and that he was so proud to be Chief Instructor to “The Best Karate Nation in the World” – his own words.
Addendum.
Sensei Enoeda passed away on March 29th 2003. He has left a huge hole in the British Karate community which will be impossible to fill. A memorial service was held in his honour at Crystal Palace on June 1st 2003, photos of which are on the Gallery page. It was announced at the Memorial Service for Sensei Enoeda that he had been posthumously awarded 9th Dan by the Japan Karate Association.