Book Review: Karate-Do: My Way of Life by Gichin Funakoshi

Towards the end of my two and a half years of Isshin-ryu training, I was working towards my brown-belt exam. Basically, when one achieves the brown belt, he will spend the next twelve months perfecting everything he has learned in the 30 months he wore one of the six lower-ranking belts; the goal, of course, is the achievement of the black belt (which is where one truly BEGINS the study of true karate).

During this period, the student also has to study much philosophy and history of not just Isshin-ryu, but many other Asian martial arts. One of the prerequisites to earning Sho-Dan (black belt) at my dojo, Wheeler's School of Isshin-ryu Karate and Arnis, is to read the autobiography of Master Gichin Funakoshi entitled "Karate-Do: My Way of Life". This is the story of an incredible man who devoted almost all of the ninety years he lived on Earth to learning, teaching, and promoting the art he loved so much.

The Man

Master Funakoshi was born in the Okinawan capital of Shuri, in the district of Yamakawa-cho. The year was 1870, an era of great social upheaval in the Imperial Japanese Empire, and the Meiji government was doing away with traditional Japanese ways and adopting a more Western ideology. As the son of a samurai, he was born into the shizuko (privileged) class, which supported adherence to the old Imperial cultural mores.

As a child, Funakoshi was sickly and frail, and his parents feared he might not live too long. When he was but a boy, it was suggested that he practice the Art of Karate-Do in order to strengthen his body and mind. As he progressed, his hunger for mastery of the Art grew, and by the time he reached manhood, he was strong, vigorous, and outgoing.