The origin of Karate dates back more than a thousand years.
It is widely believed that karate stems from China where the Indian Buddhist monk Bodhidharma taught the monks of the Shao Lin monastery the 18 Lohan patterns.
These forms then came to Japan by way of the Ryukyu Islands where it had been blended with the indigenous fighting techniques of the islands. The lord of ancient Okinawa and later the feudal lord of Kagoshima banned the use of weapons giving rise to the open hand arts that gave rise to Karate. Karate reached a high level of development and was practiced in secret until the beginning of the 20th Centaury.
Karate was first introduced to the Japanese public in 1922, when Funakoshi Gichin who was the professor at the Okinawa Teaching College, was invited to lecture and demonstrate at an exhibition of traditional martial arts sponsored by the ministry of education. His demonstration so impressed the audience that he was flooded with requests to teach in Tokyo. The kanji for Karate was originally “Chinese hand” and later changed to “Empty hand” by Funakoshi when he bought it to Japan. Funakoshi chose the character for its Zen Buddhist philosophy: “Rendering oneself empty”.
The Karate taught within our school is primarily based on the schools of Shotokan and Goju Ryu karate with influences from Kyokushinkai karate. The style taught within Mountain Warriors is a hard style, by this we mean that you can not learn martial arts without being able to give and take attacks at semi and full contact.