Читать книгу Empty Hand. The Essence of Budo Karate онлайн

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Thanks to the recommendation of an acquaintance of the family my father was allowed to join the dōjō of the great master of the Shuri-te Itosu Ankō when he was 13 years old. Many of the famous karate personalities who contributed to the creation of modern karate came from the school of Master Itosu. He was said to have hit the makiwara (rice straw that is bound together in bundles and attached to a wooden post or board) every day several hundred times according to a schedule he had fixed in the morning in order to harden his fists which in the end looked like black stones. A lot of stories were told about the very muscular body of Master Itosu. His upper arm, when being hit with a thick wooden pole did not even quiver when the pole bounced. He could smash a big bamboo cane in his hand or move hand over hand along a ceiling beam across the room without any effort.

In those days karate was not as popular as today and the rooms for practice (dōjō) were rather simple. Quite often the own garden was used as a dōjō and practice was done in open air. As a child I often watched my father exercising in the garden in the light of a bare bulb hitting the makiwara and hardening his muscles with stone weights.