KARATEDO - Ayano Nakamura／Interview - IS JAPAN COOL? DOU（空手道 - 中村 綾乃）

IS JAPAN COOL? DOU Now approved as an official game of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, karatedo is a martial art that originated in Okinawa. According to some sources, it is rooted in an ancient Okinawan martial art called te (meaning “hand” and pronounced “tee” in Okinawan), influenced by kenpo martial art from China, and further developed as karate (written as “Tang hand” in kanji). From the late 1910s, a group of Okinawan karateka (karate practitioners) gathered around Gichin Funakoshi started a serious effort to introduce karate to mainland Japan, and sometime around 1930, karate began to be called karatedo (the way of karate). DOU is the way of life that comes close to reaching the essence of existence in pursuit of one’s own field.