Welcome to Our World

OUR LINEAGE — DRINKING FROM THE SAME SOURCE

The karate we practise in Shigakukan has a lineage that can be traced directly back through the generations.

In 1922, Gichin Funakoshi travelled from Okinawa to mainland Japan to demonstrate and teach the Okinawan fighting art then commonly known as tōde, or “Chinese hand.”

Over time, Funakoshi helped change not only how the art was taught, but also how its name was written. The characters meaning “Chinese hand” were replaced with characters meaning “empty hand,” and karate became karate-do — the way of the empty hand.

Funakoshi never named his own style. “Shoto” was the pen name he used when writing poetry, meaning “pine waves,” and “kan” means hall or house. His students placed the name Shotokan — the Hall of Shoto above the entrance to his dojo. In time, the karate he taught became known throughout the world as Shotokan.

One of Funakoshi’s most important students was Masatoshi Nakayama Shihan, who became Chief Instructor of the Japan Karate Association and played a major part in developing and spreading Shotokan karate around the world.

Among the exceptional young karateka taught by both Funakoshi Sensei and Nakayama Shihan was Hirokazu Kanazawa — the man who would later become the founder of the Shotokan Karate-do International Federation and be known throughout the karate world as Kanazawa Soke.

Kanazawa Soke was Libby’s and my teacher.

That gives our dojo a direct line:

Gichin Funakoshi → Masatoshi Nakayama → Hirokazu Kanazawa → Mark and Libby → the students of Shigakukan.

For us, lineage is not about dropping famous names or displaying grades. It means that what we teach has been passed directly from teacher to student, generation after generation.

We have been fortunate enough to learn from the very people who carried this karate across the world, and through our continuing relationship with SKIF Japan, that knowledge is not something belonging only to the past. It continues to grow and flow today.

Karate has spread into countless countries, organisations and variations, but we can trace our Shotokan lineage directly back to its source — and we are still fortunate enough to drink from that same source of knowledge.

Every time our students stand in the dojo and practise their kihon, kata or kumite, they become part of that continuing story.

That is our lineage.

That is what we have inherited.

And it is our responsibility to pass it on properly.