Shotokan karate is both a new and an ancient martial art. It is ancient because its roots are deeply entrenched in the past and new because, as it is practiced now, it is an art that is less than one hundred years old. Shotokan is characterized by its long, low stances, its strong techniques and its dynamic forms. The “founding father” of shotokan, Gichin Funakoshi, was from Okinawa. He studied the most ancient of the Okinawan te (”hand”) systems as a young man and in the early twentieth cen

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