Karate in the 1st Prefectural Middle School in Shuri.

 

In February 1905, the Ryūkyū Shinpō published an article about the introduction of Karate in the 1st Prefectural Middle School in Shuri.

 

After in 1904 the Shuri Middle School staff intended to take up karate, they immediately commenced preparations. At present the results are proper. It is sufficiently understood that the teachers simultaneously serve in two roles–i.e. as regular school teachers, and as karate teachers. However, one inadequacy is that the teachers do not have a methodical explanation of the subject. Therefore, after having accumulated a reasonable skill in karate, we hope that they create a program that largely matches our country’s current society and that they research and develop karate technically, mentally, and as a physical education. […] We are in the process of getting the ball rolling in jūjutsu, wherein the West still has to start working. The fact that karate originates in the prefectural middle school is a great delight.

 

Chūgakkō Shokuin no Karate–Kyōikukai (The Karate of the Middle School Staff Members. Education World). In: Ryūkyū Shinpō, February 05, 1905. Translated by A. Quast.

 

The above article shows that the staff of the 1st Prefectural Middle School prepared the implementation of karate into the regular curriculum since 1904. It is also apparent that this was considered the first and original approach, which means that a new framework was being devised. As shown in the reference to jūjutsu, karate’s new face was that of an Okinawan form of the conception of jūjutsu/jūdō. It should be noted that the West became strongly interested in jūjutsu following Japan’s military successes in the Russo-Japanese War 1904–05, hence the reference in the article. Karate was thus designed to become a regional bujutsu-style physical education of Okinawa Prefecture.

 

The article also calls for staff members to create a programm for karate. A few months later, in August 1905, the physical education instructor Hanashiro Chōmo of that school created the basic textbook called “Karate Kumite” (Kadekaru 2012: 178).