Gima Makoto

Gima Makoto ( Japanese 儀 間 真 謹 , alternative reading: Gima Shinkin ; born September 28, 1896 in Okinawa ; † 1989 ) was the grandmaster of karate (10th dan) and the first ever black belt in karate.

Life

In his homeland, Gima learned karate from 1912 under the masters Itosu Yasutsune and Yabu Kentsu . After graduating from school, he studied in Tokyo at Tokyo Shoka Daigaku, today's Hitotsubashi University .

In Tokyo in 1922 he also met his compatriot Funakoshi Gichin , an older karate master who came to Japan at the invitation of Kanō Jigorō , the founder of modern judo , to present karate there. Funakoshi made Gima his first assistant and, together with him, demonstrated the previously secret martial art of Okinawa for the first time on mainland Japan.

In March 1923 he received from Funakoshi - who had decided to establish the dan system that Kanō developed in judo, also in karate - as the first karateka ever to receive the first dan and black belt in karate.

He accompanied Funakoshi for a few years and then founded his own dojo . Master Gima was also instrumental in building up the JKA and Shotokai.

In 1956 he was awarded the 10th Dan by Master Kanken Toyama of Shidokan and was thus the highest graduated master of Shotokan karate until his death in 1989 . In the same year 1965 Gima founded the GIMA-HA SHOTO-RYU Karatedo Association in Japan.

Today his special style, which in addition to the early Funakoshi Karate also includes elements of his first teachers Itosu and Yabu, is being used by his master students as Gima-ha Shoto-Ryu

• Higuchi Ikuo (9th Dan IMAF Hanshi )
• Kobayashi Mitsunori (8th Dan)
• Narumi Hidetada (7th Dan)

taught worldwide.

The group is particularly active in Canada , but in Germany, too, Gima-Ha karate is regularly taught by Higuchi (who also directed Nakayama Masatoshi's JKA dojo) as part of the large budo courses of the IMAF .

In 2008 GIMA-HA Germany was founded with official permission from the Japanese chairman Kobayashi. GIMA-HA Germany maintains lively contact with Japan and Canada and maintains the international exchange of students and Dan bearers.

Web links

• resume
• GIMA-HA Germany
• IMAF Germany
• Article about Gima on www.fightingarts.com (English)

literature

• Werner Lind : The dictionary of martial arts. China, Japan, Okinawa, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, India, Mongolia, Philippines, Taiwan, etc. Sportverlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-328-00838-1 , ( Edition BSK ).

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Gima is the family name, Makoto the first name.