American Karate

American Karate is a generic term generally referring to an eclectic martial art system that employs cross-training with more traditional martial art styles identifying themselves as a form of Karate. As such, American Karate incorporates the various aspects of many forms that were most important to their founding practitioners. American Karate take what it perceives as the best of the art from traditional East Asian martial arts. American Karate by its own nature focuses primarily on the "sporting aspects" relying on and obtained through sparring. In practical terms, sparring is offered to assist the student by demonstrating the physical and mental relationship of their action to their opponent's response and again, back to their counter strike, or evasive maneuver. American Karate generally tends to employ a less formal, or traditional approach to the self-defense regimen. Forms, or Katas are usually also taught in most American Karate schools and Kata themselves are often used as a means of sports competition.

Karate (lit. "empty-hand") has its roots in ancient martial practice in India and China. There is a popular tale of an Indian monk by the name of Bodhidharma, who brought a system of exercise and fighting techniques to the Shaolin Monastery in China around 525 A.D. It is said that this was the beginning of a systematized martial practice that eventually spread to other Asian countries via traveling monks and traders.

Karate itself was born in Okinawa (actually a string of islands off the coast of Japan known as the Ryukyu Islands). It is said that in ancient times a style known simply as “te” (literally “hand”) emerged from the influence of the aforementioned Shaolin Kung Fu. In the 1920s a public school teacher named Gichin Funakoshi introduced what was, by then, called kara-te into mainland Japan.

There were already family styles of karate in Okinawa and soon several styles were also formed in Japan. There are several differences between the two traditional approaches but that can be researched elsewhere.

In 1946 Robert Trias, a returning U.S. Navy veteran, began teaching private lessons in Phoenix, Arizona. Other early teachers of karate in America were Ed Parker (a native Hawaiian and Coast Guard veteran who earned a black belt in 1953), George Mattson (who began studying while stationed in Okinawa in 1956) and Peter Urban (a Navy veteran who started training in 1953).

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