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Kempo (ch'uan-fa) was introduced to Japan under the name of karate (the Chinese fighting art) or kempo, the way of the fist, around 1627 or 1644 by Chen Yuan Ping (or Gen Pin Chin), a well educated Chinese who, besides karate, introduced also the sai, which adopted and slightly modified by the police became the jitte-sai with only one branch. Gen Pin Chin was also a poet and an artist who has left his name in ceramics (the famous Gen Pin pottery).

The beginning of the Meiji era (1868) marked the end of Edo, the feudal age. The samurai had to lay down their arms and cut their chon mage (the tress, symbol of their status). The kimono was abandoned for western-style clothing. Japan opened itself to the foreigners while the popularity of jujitsu and kendo declined. Master Jigoro Kano introduced a new art, judo, which eventually superseded jujitsu after its decisive victory in a competition held in 1886 at the Tokyo Police Department. In 1879 the Ryukyu Islands became Japanese provinces and Okinawan karate went to Japan. In 1886 Master Anko Asato toured Japan, defeating every other martial artist, including Sakujiro Yokoyama, the strongest judoka of the Kodokan at that time.