Gichin Funakoshi was born in 1868 on the island Okinawa. At the beginning of this century there was a weapon restriction on the island, that’s why martial arts had extra points. The 2 fight sports that formed the basics of the later karate were Okinawa-te and China-te. Gichin Funakoshi was the first practicing of the Martial Arts, which introduced the term empty hand and there fore laid the basics of the modern Karate. 1000 years beforehand, Karate developed through the Indian priest Bodhidharma (In Japan known as Darumadaishi).
Bodhidharma was a Buddhist monk and developed the Shao–Lin-SSU method. This method formed the basics for many later martial arts, karate but also the Chinese shaolin Kung Fu and the Japanese Shorinji. As the evolution of karate wasn’t written down it makes it impossible to describe the precise evolution.

Karate, a European combat sport?
In which country lays the cradle of Karate, India or china? This question’ll remain unanswered. All what we do know is there was a system with similarities to karate found in India which dates 3000 years ago. Archaeologists have found drawings and inscriptions who points into India’s direction.
Although other sources are pointing into the direction of an evolution in Europe (Greece), through India, China and Japan. Excavations in Greece showed a primitive martial art that resembles the karate, called the Pancration. Maybe both developments took place on their own, and originated in more places. At all times and in all parts of the world the martial art existed, it was a sport where you fought your opponent with bare fists. The resemblance between all these different kinds of martial arts was so big that the exact location where it originates from will never be known. One thing ‘s for sure: Karate doesn’t originate from Japan!!!

Gichin Funakoshi

  
  The man who’s now renown worldwide as the founder of the modern karate, build upon a tradition that wasn’t pure Japanese. Funakoshi came to Japan when he was 55 years old. He visited the country because he wanted to attend a seminar about the education of the body, this seminar was given by the famous founder of the Judo, Jigoro Kano. Kano knew that Funakoshi had given a kata demonstration on Okinawa in presence of the prince royal. After the seminar, Kano and Funakoshi decided to stay in touch then Funakoshi decided to remain in Japan. The development of his fight style is clearly inspired by Budo master Kano.
From that moment on, the accent lied on all the spiritual aspects and no longer purely on the physical ones. In the 20’s the martial arts became extremely popular in Japan. Jigoro Kano had changed the Jiu Jitsu to the modern judo in a very scientific way. Funakoshi liked this approach. He continued the development of his karate in a very similar way. Karate was a way (do), where a person’s character is formed.

Funakoshi described it as follows : “Like the smooth surface of a mirror reflects everything and a quiet valley reflects every sound, that’s how a Karateka should free himself from greed and selfishness so he can handle every situation that crosses his path.”.

The tombstone
In the year of Funakoshi’s death (1957), the ministry of education in Japan acknowledged the karate. ‘till this day a tombstone in Kamakura remembers the man from Okinawa. Since centuries, Kamakura is the centre of the Zen-buddhisme. Especially the Enkakuji temple and the bigger than real life statue of Buddha made the city Kamakura world-famous. In this Enkakuji temple lays the tombstone of Funakoshi. That is even with Japanese Karateka’s remotely unknown. The Enkakuji temple is founded in 1282 and a very famous place of pilgrimage for Buddhists, because there lays a relic of Buddha’s tooth. The relic lays in a port of the temple named Shariden, it stretches high above the temple complex.
In the bush you finally find a little building with the tombstone. Every heart of a true karate lover’ll beat faster as he approaches the stone. Funakoshi was 88 years old when he died.