Itosu Anko

Itosu Ankō ( Japanese 糸 洲 安 恒 , occasionally also the Kun reading Itosu Yasutsune ; * 1831 in Okinawa , Kingdom of Ryūkyū (now Japan ); † 1915 ) was the grand master of karate and one of the most important karate masters of the past 100 years and teacher of most of the later style founders, such as B. Chibana Choshin ( Shorin-Ryū ), Mabuni Kenwa ( Shitō-Ryū ) or Funakoshi Gichin ( Shōtōkan -Ryū).

Itosu reformed Okinawa's karate and turned the former secret martial art into a system that could even be taught in schools for the purpose of physical training and spiritual education (in the sense of the Do ).

To this end, he developed many of today's standard katas , such as B. Pinan ( Heian ) 1 to 5 or revised the old forms and "defused" the techniques contained therein in order to make karate accessible to a broad mass. Only a few of the closest disciples ( Uchi-Deshi ) were - after many years of intensive and serious practice - betrayed the secrets contained in the original versions of the Katas.

Recent research shows that the person in the picture is not Itosu Anko.

literature

• Funakoshi Gichin : Karate Do, my way . ISBN 3-921508-17-7
• Thomas Heinze: The masters of karate and Kobudo. Part 1: Before 1900 . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 3-8391-1785-2 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Does the photo of Itosu Ankō show a different person? ( English ) ryukyu-bugei.com. March 2, 2019. Retrieved July 10, 2019.

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