List of Shotokan Organizations - Shotokai

Shotokai

The name "Shotokai" (see main article, Shōtōkai) is used as a synonym for the Shotokan ryu association Dai Nihon Karate-do Shotokai. It is the Shotokan Karate association established by Gichin Funakoshi originally in 1930. Shotokai association is the keeper of master Funakoshi's Karate-do heritage.

Sometimes "Shotokai" is considered to be the method of karate taught by Shigeru Egami (1912–1981). Egami was the chief instructor of Shotokan Dojo 1976-1981. Egami began training under Funakoshi in 1930, upon entering Waseda University, and helped to establish that university's karate club. Together with Funakoshi's son Gigo (Yoshitaka), Takeshi Shimoda, and Hironori Ohtsuka, Egami was among the group of Funakoshi's students who toured with him during his exhibitions of karate in Japan during the 1930s. After Gigo's death in 1945, Egami was considered Funakoshi's successor. During his early 40s, Egami began to radically rethink the effectiveness of some of his basic techniques. He writes:

During this questioning I understood one thing. Until that moment I had practiced karate with a fundamental illusion, I had confused hardness with strength and I made every effort to harden my body thinking that I would obtain more strength when hardening the body is equivalent to stopping the movement. This is a fundamental defect. I had then to start massaging and lightening the body I had struggled so many years to harden.

Egami began experimenting with a more relaxed technique.

Following the Master's death in 1957, a rift developed among Funakoshi's students (among other issues, over whether to introduce tournaments). Shotokai and JKA became separate factions. To this day, the Shotokai method of Shotokan Karate has kept loyal to master Funakoshi's teachings. The method is characterized by an emphasis on developing suppleness and relaxation, and a rejection of tournament competition.

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