Gichin Funakoshi (1868-1957)
For those that study any of the Japanese styles of karate, there is no individual of greater importance than Gichin Funakoshi. He is credited with bringing Okinawan Karate to Japan and it subsequent spread throughout the world.
Born in Okinawa in 1868, Funakoshi began to study karate at the age of 11. He was very weak, sick, and in generally poor health when his parents brought him to Yasutsune Itosu to begin his Karate training. From Itosu, he learned Naha-te and from Yatasune Azato he learned Shuri-te. It would be his combination of these two styles that would one day become Shotokan karate.
Between the herbal remedies prescribed by his doctor and the good instruction, Funakoshi soon recovered his health. He was fortunate in becoming a student of the two greatest masters of the time, Sokon Matsumura and Ankoh Itosu. With Arakaki and Sokon "Bushi" Matsumura as other teachers, he developed expertise and a highly disciplined mind. Master Funakoshi recounts this part in a different way, while living with his grandparents he started attending primary school where he was classmate of Azato's son and received his first Karate instruction from Yasutsune (Ankoh) Azato.
In 1922 Master Funakoshi begin his second life as harbinger of official recognition for karate on mainland Japan when he conducted a karate demonstration at the first National Athletic Exhibition in Tokyo. This led to the introduction of the ancient martial art to the rest of Japan. When he came to Japan from Okinawa, he stayed among his own people at the prefecture students' dormitory at Suidobata, Tokyo. He lived in a small room near the building entrance and would clean the dormitory when the students were in class and work odd jobs as a gardener. At night, he would teach the students karate.
After a time, he had earned enough to open his first school in Meishojuku. Soon after his Shotokan in Mejiro was opened and from there he trained many students, such as Takagi and Nakayama of Nippon Karate Kyokai, Yoshida of Takudai, Obata of Keio, Shigeru Egami from Waseda (who became his successor), Hironishi from Chuo, Noguchi of Waseda, and Hironori Ohtsuka. When he traveled in and around Japan giving demonstrations and lectures, Funakoshi was accompanied by his son, Yoshitaka, Takeshi Shimoda, Egami and Ohtsuka. His main instructors in the thirties and forties were T. Shimoda and Y. Funakoshi.
Shimoda was apparently an expert from the Nen-ryu Kendo School, he also studied Ninjutsu, but he unluckily fell sick and died very young in 1934, after one of the exhibition tours. He was replaced by Gigo (Yoshitaka) Funakoshi, a man of excellent character, highly qualified technically. Shigeru Egami felt that there was nobody better qualified for taking over the teaching. Due to his youth and the vigorous training methods used (sometimes classified as brutal) there were seniority conflicts with the older Ohtsuka Hironori. It has been mentioned that he may not have been able to take the hard training. Regardless, he left the school to establish his own style, Wado-ryu (the Harmonious Way). Yoshitaka's influence was very important for the future of Karate-do but his death in 1945 at age 39 from TB deprived future generations of his presence.
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