In 1470 the Japanese invaded the island of Okinawa (about half way between China and Japan) which at that time belongeMartial Art: Karate
Translation: "Empty Hand"
d to China who had invaded previously. In order to keep the peace a law was passed saying that anyone found carrying a weapon was to be put to death. In order to protect themselves from the marauding bandits and their new masters, both of whom tended not to bother with any laws, the locals with the help of some friendly Zen Buddhist monks created a fighting system that turned the hands and feet of the practitioner into very effective weapons. This empty hand system was called te (hand) and then went on to become t'ang (China hand) because of the influence of Chinese martial arts that crept in. For a few centuries t'ang spread throughout Okinawa and also picked up the name Ograndfather of modern karate, took t'ang to mainland Japan where it has gone kinawa-te (Okinawa hand). In 1917 a Mr. Gichin Funakoshi, then went on to become one of the most popular martial arts Instructor in the world. Of course he decided to change the name to Karate first. For the purists out there he actually took Karate-Jutsu to Japan and then renamed it Karate-Do. After a while