Читать книгу Zen Shaolin Karate. The complete Practice, Philosophy and History онлайн

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The three states that originally made up Okinawa were unified by King Sho Hashi in 1492. Soon after taking power, he banned the possession of all weapons. In 1609, Okinawa was invaded by the Satsuma clan from Kagoshima, which continued the weapons ban. After the initial Satsuma occupation, peace was soon restored and the garrison left behind was only a nominal one. Some popular legends claim that karate was devised in order to combat the Japanese warriors, either bare-handed or with primitive weapons, but the Satsuma samurai were well-equipped, well-trained, formidable soldiers, and it is highly unlikely that unarmed techniques could prevail against these armed warriors. These popular legends also fail to account for the Chinese names of kata and the Buddhist names of some of the postures that can still be found in Okinawan karate.

It is much more likely that the Okinawans initially learned the Shaolin empty-hand arts from traveling monks, traders, seafarers, and those fleeing in the wake of the Manchu conquest of China. By blending and synthesizing many styles and techniques, and adding their own ideas, the Okinawans came up with several unique empty-hand schools. These were characterized by three major recorded approaches: Shuri-te, Tomari-te, and Naha-te, each giving rise to their own distinctive ryu, a martial tradition.