KARATE FOR MILITARY PURPOSES AND WARFIGHTING
By Sensei Bandioli WKKO Italia
Over the years a huge amount of books and articles have been written on Karate concerning its
historical origins, lineage, techniques as well as its various aspects as a martial art, as a fighting sport
or a self-defence discipline. But very little indeed, if not almost nothing, has been written about its
lethal nature, its military development and its employment on the battlefield. In this perspective, to
fully understand karate also from a military point of view, it is however useful to make a brief
historical hint to focus its remote origin defining the specific military evolution that has taken place
over time. Its birthplace on the island of Okinawa, in the context of a rural and peasant society, is
certainly the best known aspect but indeed it represents only a limited period, albeit very significant,
of the historical evolution of karate itself. The complete history is very complex, sometimes
undetermined, contradictory and it is often difficult to focus its evolution in a linear way, even by
numerous historians and scholars of the subject. Indeed circumstances, events, dates and places are
not always certain ... mainly due to the lack of official documents, precise references, reliable
testimonies, accurate translations and, perhaps, also due to the desire not to disclose information
outside a specific and restricted context. The island of Okinawa (Uchinaa, which in the native
language means “the rope in sight”, as seen from the sea it resembles a piece of rope floating on the
water surface) is the main island of the Ryukyu Islands archipelago, an archipelago located south-
west of Japan and consisting of more than a hundred islands. The history of the Ryukyu Kingdom
(kingdom in the Ryukyu Islands:1400-1800), whose capital was the city of Shuri (in Okinawa),
developed with alternate events, from a period of great opulence and warfighting power (Gosoku –
the period of the 300 castles) to a period of a partial decline when, at the beginning of 1600, the
Kingdom suffered the Japanese invasion as the result of which it essentially became, until 1800, a
partially independent fiefdom. Only in 1879 Okinawa, and its archipelago, officially became a
Japanese Prefecture (Prefecture of Okinawa). Anyway, for many years the aristocratic and refined
Ryukyu Kingdom was a centre of attention in the spotlight of wide and different interests for many
countries of the Far East, as it proved to be an excellent place for commercial intermediation and
cultural development. Therefore, for a long period of time, transited or settled there lots of
merchants, diplomats, men of culture, artists, writers, warriors, sailors and fishermen mainly coming
from Japan, China, Formosa (Taiwan), Korea, Siam (Thailand), Dai-Viet (Vietnam) and Indonesia.
Numerous experts from various combat disciplines, samurai and sailors included, passing by the
Ruykyu Islands provided a notable contribution to the development of those local, ancient and pre-
existing fighting systems, whose techniques were initially and secretly transmitted only within the
Ryukyu aristocracies and subsequently elaborated by those same nobles who decayed and then
became peasants. The prolonged contacts with Chinese people, including those Chinese who
permanently settled on the island of Okinawa, as well as the prohibitions on carrying any kind of
weapons, greatly influenced the further development of various styles and techniques of unarmed
combat. Chinese fighting influences came mainly from the monks’ school of Shaolin temple and
from the Wushu-Wutang school: two different schools that greatly influenced that martial art firstly
defined as Okinawa-te (“Hand of Okinawa”), then redefined as Tote (“Chinese Hand”) and finally
defined as Karate-Do (“Art of the Empty Hand”…or naked or disarmed hand). Although karate was
already known and practiced in Japan, in 1922, by invitation of Shihan Jigoro Kano (founder of
“modern” Judo), the Okinawan Shihan Gichin Funakoshi (founder of “modern” Karate) went to
Japan and performed a formidable karate demonstration at the Kodokan of Tokyo in front of
numerous Japanese dignitaries and notables, following which demo it was decided that karate should
have been taught and practiced at numerous Japanese universities. Finally, in 1939 the Dai Nippon
Butokukai of Tokyo (in this case in its particular role of “Military National Training Center”)
decreed the official inscription of the “Discipline of the Karate-do” in the list of the “Japanese
Martial Arts” and sanctioned also its teaching and practice at the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces…
thus giving, in point of fact, the origin of the “Japanese Karate”. However, even though Okinawa has
been Japanese for more than a century, the many differences between “Okinawan Karate” and
“Japanese Karate” still remain in almost every style, at least in the roots. How it is handed down, in
the early Okinawan period (but this is a very argued topic!), being already itself a synthesis of many
other forms of fighting, karate provided two main currents: the Shorin current (from which have
arisen those karate styles that privilege speed and agility, despite their fairly low guard stance with
the legs quite bent to ensure greater stability) and the Shorei current (from which have arisen those
karate styles that privilege physical strength and muscular power and using relatively high guard
stance to ensure greater body mobility and lunge in attack). The question is still debated since it
would appear that the words Shorin and Shorei could be both the historically incorrect reported
pronunciation of the word Shaolin (Shorinji in Japanese language…as it is in “Shorinji-Kenpo”). But
indeed all karate styles strongly pursue the development of speed, agility, power and strength!! That
being said, from the initial few historical karate styles, through different interpretations and technical
enrichments promoted by both famous karate grandmasters and less known karate instructors, there
are now worldwide more than a hundred styles, from the most famous and widespread ones to the
less known ones, but all of them extremely good and valuable. Strength of tradition, most of them are
still influenced by their different ancient Okinawan or Japanese roots (terminology, training,
development of power, types of breathing, Kihon, Kata, Kumite, fighting techniques and combat
tactics). Now, to understand properly karate “for military purposes” is appropriate to call attention
from Budo to Bugei concept: Budo represents the practice of martial arts to achieve a balanced
lifestyle through a rigid mental discipline, rigorous training methods and intense physical
conditioning whereas Bugei represents the practice of martial arts aimed at achieving offensive and
lethal capabilities in warfighting. In this perspective, each karate style and/or school can be
“converted” for the final purpose that is fighting at war. To better set the topic, a specific imi (“the
final purpose” for which a dedicated mental and physical conditioning are always required) is senjo
(“the battlefield”): so “Senjo Karate” is, generally speaking, any karate expression (independently
from styles or schools) whose objective is just a warfighting application. The starting points are
shugyo, the “rigorous and disciplined practice” and tanren, the “discipline aimed at the training of
the warrior”: body and mind must be “forged” like a sharp blade of a dagger….being always combat
ready. Body conditioning is aimed at strengthening and parts of the body must be accustumed, as far
as possible, to being hit (shimè) [not to be confused with shime-waza, the Judo strangulation
techniques] and parts of the body must be conditioned to impact on hard targets (using makiwara,
sunabukuro or other proper tools) in order to transform own bones in weapons. Of course
tameshiwari (“trial by the wood”, but not only!), as breaking performance, remains the top
expression for demonstrating that a part of the body, if properly conditioned, can become a weapon.
Furthermore, karate has a particular feature, common only among a few other Far-Eastern fighting
disciplines, that is the kimè (approximately the chinkuchi of the Okinawan schools), the well known
ability of a sudden contraction of all muscles and tendons of the body at the moment of impact on a
target, thus increasing the power and the devastating effect of a strike. The topic is very complex and
articulated but, in a nutshell, the kimè turns out to be also a sum of many factors including zanshin (a
state of mind of maximum concentration and permanent, continuous alertness), hakkei (the
generation of power), kiai (the expansion of internal energy compressed and forcefully conveyed by
abdominal contraction through forced breathing-ibuki), koshino-kaiten (the rotation and vibration of
the hips) and haragei (the control and orientation of the flow of energy generated from the center of
abdomen seika-tanden). The term haragei requests a further important clarification: haragei is not
only the capability to develop a coordinated strength of the entire body but also represents a
particular “state of mind” through which “is being developed the capacity to sense and/or perceive a
threat or a danger”. Before tackling other topics, as far as “lethality concept” is concerned, is
mandatory to deal with the study of Kyusho (or Kenketsu), that is to know “where” to convey the
destructive power of a strike (identifying both vital and deadly points of the human body), and the
study of the Atemi-waza (“the techniques of the strikes inflicted”- in Japanese) or of Dim-Mak (“the
touch of death”- in Chinese), that is to know “how” and “with what” to hit a target. Moreover, one of
the pillars of ancient karate but also of the current warfighting karate is: “Ichigeki hissatsu” (“single
strike, certain death”). But that doesn’t delete the great validity of the methodology of several, strong
and extremely fast and furious strikes inflicted in the shortest possible time for the immediate
breakdown/culling of an opponent (“Shunsoku no renraku”). Some of current common training
methods are directly derived from ancient military practices, as for example the Tegowai-geiko
(“tough training”), the Gasshuku (“staying together at a lodging house”) or the Uchi-deshi (“inside
student”, living and training full time in a Dojo). The maximum expression of a “full immersion
training” might take place usually twice in a year in particularly hostile climatic conditions (as it
happened commonly in the past) to strengthen both body and mind: the Kangeiko, 30 days of winter
training in the coldest month of the year in the coldest hours of the day, and the Shokugeiko, 30 days
of summer training in the hottest month of the year in the hottest hours of the day. In the military
world great importance is given to initial training because of a military unit in full tactical capability
and/or employed in operational activities has very limited amount of time to spend for all those
activities not specifically related to the assigned mission. Anyway, is mandatory to have always
guaranteed over time a high level of efficiency and a high level of lethality, despite any lack of time
for training. By the way, as far as military karate training is concerned, very famous karate
grandmasters (i.e. Masutatsu Oyama, despite his Korean origin, Seiken Shukumine, Taiji Kase,
Yoshitaka Funakoshi…), but unknown karate instructors also, made a huge contribution to the
practice of karate at Japanese Military Services and/or Secret Services (i.e. at Nakano Spy School -
Rikugun Nakano Gakko). The military training, indeed, is oriented to make a soldier well prepared
because of a wealth of effective techniques available (already verified on the battlefield or in
operational environment) to face different missions and different tactical situations. There was a time
in which, among western countries, spreaded the idea that the “modern long range technological
war” would have completely eradicated the hand to hand fighting: nothing more wrong! The new
types of threats and the new types of military intervention and military/constabulary operations
strongly require the “hand to hand combat capabilities” of troops (disarming techniques included).
Generally speaking, in most Armed Forces and Police Forces of western nations, karate still
represents a strong pillar of a wide number of military combat systems in which are generally
included also other forms of combat techniques got from other fighting disciplines (i.e. western
Boxe, Tae-Kwon-Do, Judo, Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, Muay Lert Rit, Mixed Martial Arts, Krav Maga, Kali
Escrimia): strange to say, but not always the choice depends from a standardization but just from the
combat drill instructor own professional experience and from the operational employment of the
military unit of belonging. Furthermore a so-called “hand to hand combat system” (CQC – Close
Quarter Combat), always involves the use of “cold weapons” (or “cold-arms”/“white arms”) as
bayonets, tactical daggers, fighting knives, tactical batons, axes, machete, tonfa, bladed
knucledusters. Indeed for centuries, before the advent of firearms (“fire-arms”), mastering the close
combat techniques meant to be able to strike, to wrestle and to handle one or more cold weapons.
Anyway karate remains a reference point and the solid platform on which to build the architecture of
an effective combat system. Techniques have to be adapted to tactical circumstances taking into
account that the “real world fighting environment” could be extremely demanding as for the bad
weather conditions (rain, wind, low visibility…), for the environment itself (dark night, snow, sand,
uneven terrain, mobile bearing surface, narrow or confined spaces…) and for the combat gear worn
(outfit and equipment, boots, harnesses, rucksack, helmet, weapons….) that could restrict the body
movements. These are the prerogatives of a military combat system, but we must not forget that all
depends on a mental attitude of maximum alertness and the correct perception of the surrounding
environment, the perception of movements, the correct distance estimation, the speed of action or
reaction and the perfect timing…all things that karate teaches. An old karate instructor of the
Imperial Japanese Navy used to say: “Soul made steel: it depends on you. You have to decide if you
are a sharp dagger or just a paperknife…. but you have to know that only daggers are being forged in
this place”.
By Sensei Bandioli WKKO Italia
Over the years a huge amount of books and articles have been written on Karate concerning its
historical origins, lineage, techniques as well as its various aspects as a martial art, as a fighting sport
or a self-defence discipline. But very little indeed, if not almost nothing, has been written about its
lethal nature, its military development and its employment on the battlefield. In this perspective, to
fully understand karate also from a military point of view, it is however useful to make a brief
historical hint to focus its remote origin defining the specific military evolution that has taken place
over time. Its birthplace on the island of Okinawa, in the context of a rural and peasant society, is
certainly the best known aspect but indeed it represents only a limited period, albeit very significant,
of the historical evolution of karate itself. The complete history is very complex, sometimes
undetermined, contradictory and it is often difficult to focus its evolution in a linear way, even by
numerous historians and scholars of the subject. Indeed circumstances, events, dates and places are
not always certain ... mainly due to the lack of official documents, precise references, reliable
testimonies, accurate translations and, perhaps, also due to the desire not to disclose information
outside a specific and restricted context. The island of Okinawa (Uchinaa, which in the native
language means “the rope in sight”, as seen from the sea it resembles a piece of rope floating on the
water surface) is the main island of the Ryukyu Islands archipelago, an archipelago located south-
west of Japan and consisting of more than a hundred islands. The history of the Ryukyu Kingdom
(kingdom in the Ryukyu Islands:1400-1800), whose capital was the city of Shuri (in Okinawa),
developed with alternate events, from a period of great opulence and warfighting power (Gosoku –
the period of the 300 castles) to a period of a partial decline when, at the beginning of 1600, the
Kingdom suffered the Japanese invasion as the result of which it essentially became, until 1800, a
partially independent fiefdom. Only in 1879 Okinawa, and its archipelago, officially became a
Japanese Prefecture (Prefecture of Okinawa). Anyway, for many years the aristocratic and refined
Ryukyu Kingdom was a centre of attention in the spotlight of wide and different interests for many
countries of the Far East, as it proved to be an excellent place for commercial intermediation and
cultural development. Therefore, for a long period of time, transited or settled there lots of
merchants, diplomats, men of culture, artists, writers, warriors, sailors and fishermen mainly coming
from Japan, China, Formosa (Taiwan), Korea, Siam (Thailand), Dai-Viet (Vietnam) and Indonesia.
Numerous experts from various combat disciplines, samurai and sailors included, passing by the
Ruykyu Islands provided a notable contribution to the development of those local, ancient and pre-
existing fighting systems, whose techniques were initially and secretly transmitted only within the
Ryukyu aristocracies and subsequently elaborated by those same nobles who decayed and then
became peasants. The prolonged contacts with Chinese people, including those Chinese who
permanently settled on the island of Okinawa, as well as the prohibitions on carrying any kind of
weapons, greatly influenced the further development of various styles and techniques of unarmed
combat. Chinese fighting influences came mainly from the monks’ school of Shaolin temple and
from the Wushu-Wutang school: two different schools that greatly influenced that martial art firstly
defined as Okinawa-te (“Hand of Okinawa”), then redefined as Tote (“Chinese Hand”) and finally
defined as Karate-Do (“Art of the Empty Hand”…or naked or disarmed hand). Although karate was
already known and practiced in Japan, in 1922, by invitation of Shihan Jigoro Kano (founder of
“modern” Judo), the Okinawan Shihan Gichin Funakoshi (founder of “modern” Karate) went to
Japan and performed a formidable karate demonstration at the Kodokan of Tokyo in front of
numerous Japanese dignitaries and notables, following which demo it was decided that karate should
have been taught and practiced at numerous Japanese universities. Finally, in 1939 the Dai Nippon
Butokukai of Tokyo (in this case in its particular role of “Military National Training Center”)
decreed the official inscription of the “Discipline of the Karate-do” in the list of the “Japanese
Martial Arts” and sanctioned also its teaching and practice at the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces…
thus giving, in point of fact, the origin of the “Japanese Karate”. However, even though Okinawa has
been Japanese for more than a century, the many differences between “Okinawan Karate” and
“Japanese Karate” still remain in almost every style, at least in the roots. How it is handed down, in
the early Okinawan period (but this is a very argued topic!), being already itself a synthesis of many
other forms of fighting, karate provided two main currents: the Shorin current (from which have
arisen those karate styles that privilege speed and agility, despite their fairly low guard stance with
the legs quite bent to ensure greater stability) and the Shorei current (from which have arisen those
karate styles that privilege physical strength and muscular power and using relatively high guard
stance to ensure greater body mobility and lunge in attack). The question is still debated since it
would appear that the words Shorin and Shorei could be both the historically incorrect reported
pronunciation of the word Shaolin (Shorinji in Japanese language…as it is in “Shorinji-Kenpo”). But
indeed all karate styles strongly pursue the development of speed, agility, power and strength!! That
being said, from the initial few historical karate styles, through different interpretations and technical
enrichments promoted by both famous karate grandmasters and less known karate instructors, there
are now worldwide more than a hundred styles, from the most famous and widespread ones to the
less known ones, but all of them extremely good and valuable. Strength of tradition, most of them are
still influenced by their different ancient Okinawan or Japanese roots (terminology, training,
development of power, types of breathing, Kihon, Kata, Kumite, fighting techniques and combat
tactics). Now, to understand properly karate “for military purposes” is appropriate to call attention
from Budo to Bugei concept: Budo represents the practice of martial arts to achieve a balanced
lifestyle through a rigid mental discipline, rigorous training methods and intense physical
conditioning whereas Bugei represents the practice of martial arts aimed at achieving offensive and
lethal capabilities in warfighting. In this perspective, each karate style and/or school can be
“converted” for the final purpose that is fighting at war. To better set the topic, a specific imi (“the
final purpose” for which a dedicated mental and physical conditioning are always required) is senjo
(“the battlefield”): so “Senjo Karate” is, generally speaking, any karate expression (independently
from styles or schools) whose objective is just a warfighting application. The starting points are
shugyo, the “rigorous and disciplined practice” and tanren, the “discipline aimed at the training of
the warrior”: body and mind must be “forged” like a sharp blade of a dagger….being always combat
ready. Body conditioning is aimed at strengthening and parts of the body must be accustumed, as far
as possible, to being hit (shimè) [not to be confused with shime-waza, the Judo strangulation
techniques] and parts of the body must be conditioned to impact on hard targets (using makiwara,
sunabukuro or other proper tools) in order to transform own bones in weapons. Of course
tameshiwari (“trial by the wood”, but not only!), as breaking performance, remains the top
expression for demonstrating that a part of the body, if properly conditioned, can become a weapon.
Furthermore, karate has a particular feature, common only among a few other Far-Eastern fighting
disciplines, that is the kimè (approximately the chinkuchi of the Okinawan schools), the well known
ability of a sudden contraction of all muscles and tendons of the body at the moment of impact on a
target, thus increasing the power and the devastating effect of a strike. The topic is very complex and
articulated but, in a nutshell, the kimè turns out to be also a sum of many factors including zanshin (a
state of mind of maximum concentration and permanent, continuous alertness), hakkei (the
generation of power), kiai (the expansion of internal energy compressed and forcefully conveyed by
abdominal contraction through forced breathing-ibuki), koshino-kaiten (the rotation and vibration of
the hips) and haragei (the control and orientation of the flow of energy generated from the center of
abdomen seika-tanden). The term haragei requests a further important clarification: haragei is not
only the capability to develop a coordinated strength of the entire body but also represents a
particular “state of mind” through which “is being developed the capacity to sense and/or perceive a
threat or a danger”. Before tackling other topics, as far as “lethality concept” is concerned, is
mandatory to deal with the study of Kyusho (or Kenketsu), that is to know “where” to convey the
destructive power of a strike (identifying both vital and deadly points of the human body), and the
study of the Atemi-waza (“the techniques of the strikes inflicted”- in Japanese) or of Dim-Mak (“the
touch of death”- in Chinese), that is to know “how” and “with what” to hit a target. Moreover, one of
the pillars of ancient karate but also of the current warfighting karate is: “Ichigeki hissatsu” (“single
strike, certain death”). But that doesn’t delete the great validity of the methodology of several, strong
and extremely fast and furious strikes inflicted in the shortest possible time for the immediate
breakdown/culling of an opponent (“Shunsoku no renraku”). Some of current common training
methods are directly derived from ancient military practices, as for example the Tegowai-geiko
(“tough training”), the Gasshuku (“staying together at a lodging house”) or the Uchi-deshi (“inside
student”, living and training full time in a Dojo). The maximum expression of a “full immersion
training” might take place usually twice in a year in particularly hostile climatic conditions (as it
happened commonly in the past) to strengthen both body and mind: the Kangeiko, 30 days of winter
training in the coldest month of the year in the coldest hours of the day, and the Shokugeiko, 30 days
of summer training in the hottest month of the year in the hottest hours of the day. In the military
world great importance is given to initial training because of a military unit in full tactical capability
and/or employed in operational activities has very limited amount of time to spend for all those
activities not specifically related to the assigned mission. Anyway, is mandatory to have always
guaranteed over time a high level of efficiency and a high level of lethality, despite any lack of time
for training. By the way, as far as military karate training is concerned, very famous karate
grandmasters (i.e. Masutatsu Oyama, despite his Korean origin, Seiken Shukumine, Taiji Kase,
Yoshitaka Funakoshi…), but unknown karate instructors also, made a huge contribution to the
practice of karate at Japanese Military Services and/or Secret Services (i.e. at Nakano Spy School -
Rikugun Nakano Gakko). The military training, indeed, is oriented to make a soldier well prepared
because of a wealth of effective techniques available (already verified on the battlefield or in
operational environment) to face different missions and different tactical situations. There was a time
in which, among western countries, spreaded the idea that the “modern long range technological
war” would have completely eradicated the hand to hand fighting: nothing more wrong! The new
types of threats and the new types of military intervention and military/constabulary operations
strongly require the “hand to hand combat capabilities” of troops (disarming techniques included).
Generally speaking, in most Armed Forces and Police Forces of western nations, karate still
represents a strong pillar of a wide number of military combat systems in which are generally
included also other forms of combat techniques got from other fighting disciplines (i.e. western
Boxe, Tae-Kwon-Do, Judo, Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, Muay Lert Rit, Mixed Martial Arts, Krav Maga, Kali
Escrimia): strange to say, but not always the choice depends from a standardization but just from the
combat drill instructor own professional experience and from the operational employment of the
military unit of belonging. Furthermore a so-called “hand to hand combat system” (CQC – Close
Quarter Combat), always involves the use of “cold weapons” (or “cold-arms”/“white arms”) as
bayonets, tactical daggers, fighting knives, tactical batons, axes, machete, tonfa, bladed
knucledusters. Indeed for centuries, before the advent of firearms (“fire-arms”), mastering the close
combat techniques meant to be able to strike, to wrestle and to handle one or more cold weapons.
Anyway karate remains a reference point and the solid platform on which to build the architecture of
an effective combat system. Techniques have to be adapted to tactical circumstances taking into
account that the “real world fighting environment” could be extremely demanding as for the bad
weather conditions (rain, wind, low visibility…), for the environment itself (dark night, snow, sand,
uneven terrain, mobile bearing surface, narrow or confined spaces…) and for the combat gear worn
(outfit and equipment, boots, harnesses, rucksack, helmet, weapons….) that could restrict the body
movements. These are the prerogatives of a military combat system, but we must not forget that all
depends on a mental attitude of maximum alertness and the correct perception of the surrounding
environment, the perception of movements, the correct distance estimation, the speed of action or
reaction and the perfect timing…all things that karate teaches. An old karate instructor of the
Imperial Japanese Navy used to say: “Soul made steel: it depends on you. You have to decide if you
are a sharp dagger or just a paperknife…. but you have to know that only daggers are being forged in
this place”.
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