Louisville Shotokan Karate

It is very important to know, that behind the name of Karate is lot of hard work and very long path of history.   

We cannot forget that modern martial art is historicaly connected to these four places:   

Shuri, Naha, Tomari (cities of Okinawa) and China. 

However, cannot we forget to note Japan, which has also a big impact on karate today.   Long time ago nobody would be concerned about STYLES of karate as we are nowadays, it used to be the name of the teacher people asked for.   But today, even karate turned to be something about style. However, good karateka always knows names of his teachers and at least the names of the most important STYLES…  

To know names(even if we don’t want to practice them)is as important as to know the name of the style we practice.        

OKINAWAN STYLES AND THEIR FIRST TEACHERS      

Kobayashi Shorin-Ryu (Choshin Chibana)     

Matsubayashi Shorin-Ryu (Shoshin Nagamine)     

Goju-Ryu (Chojun Myiagi)     

Uechi-Ryu (Kanbun Uechi)        

JAPANESE STYLES AND THEIR FIRST TEACHERS    

Shotokan-Ryu (Gichin Funakoshi)     

Wado-Ryu (Hironori Otsuka)    

Shito-Ryu (Kenwa Mabuni)     

Goju-Ryu (Chogun Myiagi)         

Of course, there is more than four styles in Japan and Okinawa, but these are those with the biggest impact. As people started more traveling karate traveled with them.      

That is how we can practice here in Louisville, now, but we should not forget, that where our karate is from.