History

To Know Where You're Going,
You Need To Know Where You've Come From
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The History of Shoto Budo
In the Shoto Budo Organisation, we practice lots of things that can be seen in other martial arts. Can you name any other martial arts?
The biggest influence on Shotobudo is Karate.

From the beginning of time, people have had to defend themselves against enemies. In order to protect themselves, lots of weapons have been developed. Do you know the names of any weapons that are used in martial arts?

However, it is not always possbile to carry weapons. Many kings, and emperors and governments in the olden days, as well as today, also did not allow ordinary people to carry or use weapons. So, a long time ago, people began finding ways to defend themselves using only their bodies. Do you know how to use different parts of your body to defend yourself?

One man, who went on to become very important to the history of karate, was an Indian monk called Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma travelled to a place in Tibet called Shao-lin to teach a religion called Zen. During his time there, he also taught the other monks self-defence in order to keep them fit and also to help them protect themselves from bandits if they ever left the monestary.

Bodhidharma's fighting system eventually reached an little island called Okinawa, which lay between China and Japan. The Island was being invaded by Japan at that time and so the people who lived there were banned from using weapons, especially against the Japanese soldiers.

Many people were very interested in learning how to defend themselves using only their bodies, and would practice at night when it was dark so the soldiers wouldn't see. They called this martial art "Okinawa - Te."

Okinawa eventually became part of Japan, and the ban on weapons was lifted. However, many people continued to practice "te" and news of this spread throughout Japan. A man called Funakoshi, amongst others, was invited over to Japan mainland to demonstrate his skill.

As many people throughout Japan began to want to practice "Okinawa- Te" the place-name was eventually dropped from the name and replaced by the word "Kara" which means empty. Karate gradually spread across the world and it is now practiced by many different people in many different countries.

Many many years later, in 1967, a young Scottish boy began training in martial arts. Through his local scout group he started to learn Judo and then became interested in karate. After a while this boy began training in one of Britain’s oldest traditional karate organisation under the instructor Sensei Mitsusuke Harada (who had trained under Funakoshi)

This boy was called William Haggerty.

William Haggerty went on to be one of few people to receive his fifth dan black belt from Harada Sensei (who was one of few martial artists to receive his fifth dan from Funakoshi). What makes William Haggerty extremely important in our history is that he went on to become the founder and technical director of the Shoto Budo Organisation.

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