I just returned from a training trip to Naha Okinawa, the birthplace of Karate.   This was my third trip, and by far the best, but also the most challenging as I was testing for my Yondan in front of Komura Sensei, Sanguinetti Sensei and Kimiya Sensei. 

You have all forced me to continue to improve and grow.  I thank you all.

If Karate-do is an art, then kata is the martial artist’s portfolio. Like any good painting, kata can be enjoyed on the superficial level for the sheer beauty of its movements. But as the talent of the artist grows those same movements begin to display a hidden quality, much in the way the brush strokes of a fine painter add depth to the subject. This hidden quality is the bunkai, or application of, the kata.

"Because karate eventually takes on a deeply personal character, it may be said that every karate-ka has his own karate."  Gichin Funakoshi

The purpose of this paper is to look back into the history of Okinawa and decipher what it was about the island and its people that led up to Matayoshi Kobudo Kodokan...