1921 and 1922, Dempsey Funokoshi and Motobu (a Nerd post)

Recently, I was lucky enough to attend an online lecture given by Hanshi McCarthy, and he has a talent for painting a vivid verbal picture to the background of modern karate,  I am in no way going to attempt to make this an academic work, as the lecture was in itself littered with quotes and references I have no way of easily recording, but will attach a link to the lecture itself for anyone who wants to delve further.

The background to karate is the setting in which it developed, Japan being a country still grounded culturally in it's feudal past, where the Emperor was worshiped as god, but developing rapidly in technology and setting itself on a warlike footing   1921 was cited as a pivotal year in karate, firstly because of the country's sudden introduction to boxing.  In the first $1 million dollar purse fight in America, Jack Dempsey took on Georges Carpentier, winning by k.o. in the 4th round.

The fight was screened afterwards in Cinemas around the world, including Japan and took the Country by storm.  The mainland Japanese had seen nothing like it before, and whilst some of the Japanese Navy had come across it before, Karate was relatively unknown on the mainland.  None of the traditional martial arts contained empty handed striking, mainly consisting of weapons handling or grappling.

The Japanese government was then on the lookout for something of their own to slake the Japanese thirst for boxing.  Enter Karate, on his way to Europe  to study, Crown Prince Hirohito visited Okinawa and was treated to an exhibition of local arts, including of course, Karate, demonstrated by Funokoshi Gichin.  News on this got back to the mainland and the rest is history.

In 1922, Funokoshi Gichin was invited to Japan to teach Karate.  The Japanese were only interested in being taught the percussive side of karate (punches and kicks) and on this Funokoshi delivered comprehensively.  Grappling and other elements were neglected, as these were to be found in other arts, and thus was born Japanese karate.

In the same year, an open boxing challenge took place in Kyoto where a European boxer took on local Judodoka.  As it was open to all comers at one point, a slightly overweight 50 year old man got up tro challenge.  Apparently there was a lot of mirth at this, until the boxer was knocked out with an open handed palm strike,  The deliverer was none other than Motobu Choki, and the superiority of karate to boxing was confirmed to the Japanese people.

According to Jesse Enkamp, to whom much of this fleshed out narriative is attributed, also out of this the feud between Funokoshi Gichin and Motobu Choki developed.  When stories of the fight were printed, the illustrations depicted Funokoshi Gichin, rather than Motobu Choki gaining the victory, an early example of "Fake News".  Apparently this upset Motobu Choki so much that he returned to Japan to deliver a lesson in Karate to Funokoshi Gichin.

Hope you enjoyed reading. For further reference some of the cited material is given below.

Some of the cited material is given below.

Dempsey vs Carpentier 1921

Jesse Enkamp: How Boxing destroyed Karate

Hanshi McCarthy: On the Shoulders of Giants