What's The Karate ?
Karate is a Japanese word meaning "empty hands" indicating that karate is a martial art that does not require weapons other than the natural weapons of the body. The word �empty� also refers to the concept of the practitioner of karate being void of aggressive thought. Karate was a method of unarmed self-defense developed in the Ryukyu Islands, primarily on the island of Okinawa. Okinawa is roughly the same distance from the southern Japanese Island of Kyushu and the coastal Chinese province of Fujian. Due to this location, Okinawa was a major stopping point on the trade route between China and Japan. Travelers often brought back, mainly from China, fighting ideas and strategies and taught them to the locals on Okinawa. This interaction of Chinese and Japanese ideas, along with the local Okinawan art of �te�, formed the foundation of modern karate.
