History and Tradition of
Karatedo Doshinkan

Overview

We cannot learn Karatedo from a book, but we can learn ABOUT it from books. We do not need to learn about Karatedo history in order to derive the many benefits of Karatedo Doshinkan training. It is best if we spend most of our Karatedo time just training! Assuming we are doing that, it is useful to know something about our Karatedo Doshinkan heritage, our teacher’s teachers, etc., in order to appreciate the wonderful Karatedo that our teacher, Hanshi 10 Dan N. Ichikawa is sharing with us.

Even a casual overview of Karatedo history will reveal that Karatedo Doshinkan has a unique and very important place in the development of Karatedo. Perhaps it will be useful for new members of Karatedo Doshinkan in the USA to know something of this historical development.

Karatedo has a long and rich tradition spanning at least a few thousand years and at least five countries before reaching the USA. Click on the links in the navigation bar to the left to read a brief overview of each country’s contribution to the development of Karatedo.