Where does SHOTOKAN come from?
Gichin Funakoshi was a poet, when he singed his poems
he used the pen name, "shoto", which means "pine waves", and today is synonymous
with the tiger symbol and shotokan karate-do, but few people understand the
relationship of shoto to what is commonly called the "shotokan tiger".
When Gichin Funakoshi
was a young man, he enjoyed walking in solitude among the pine trees which
surrounded his home town of Shuri. He would often walk up Mt.Torao and meditate
among the pine trees under the stars and bright moon. Mt.Torao is a very
narrow, heavily wooded mountain which, when viewed from a distance, resembles
a tigers tail. The name "Torao" literally means "tigers tail". And it is
because of this that people think Funakoshi chose the tiger symbol. ( However
there is an other story that explains why the tiger was used. Apparently
Funakoshi was asked to write the 1st book about karate. The man who asked
him was an artist called Hoan Kosugi. It was decided if the book was written
Kosugi would design the cover. In Japanese, "tora no maki" is an official
document of an art. Funakoshi's book would be "tora no maki" of Karate. "Tora"
also means tiger.)
In later life, Funakoshi explained that the cool breezes which blew
among the pines on Mt.Torao made the trees whisper like waves breaking on
the shore, thus, since he gained his greatest poetic inspirations while
walking among the gently blowing pine trees, he chose the pen name of Shoto,
"pine waves".
The name SHOTOKAN was made up using Shoto, and the word Kan meaning
house or school. Thus Shotokan means the house or school of the waving
pines, but today is interpreted as the school or method of Funakoshi.
