SHŌRIN-RYŪ

Okinawan Karate ... the original Karate

FOOTHILLS KARATE YYC is Calgary's only full-time karate school offering instruction in Okinawan Karate. It was founded January 1 2000 by Sensei Ken Larkman, a black belt instructor with with more than 47 years of experience practicing and teaching classical martia arts.

Okinawans first developed a self-defence art called te, literally meaning "hands". Te predates karate. In 1609, the Satsuma clan of Japan subjugated the Ryukyu islands and banned all weapons and practice of martial arts. Despite this 300 year ban, te was practised in secrecy between midnight and dawn in the most remote places and so it was preserved and passed down from father to son in the samurai class. In 1904, when Anko Itosu introduced as a mandatory physical education requirement in public schools in Okinawa, karate ceased to be a hidden martial art.

Our karate school is a memmber of Karate Alberta, the provincial representative of the World Karate Federation (WKF). The WKF is recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the only body governing karate competition. Our karate club maintains a tournament team for those students who are interested in training as karate athletes.

"karate ni sente nashi"
"There is no first attack in karate"

“Karate is self-training in perfection...It is a training in efficiency. It is a training in self-reliance... for it enables a person to meet any situation with exactly the right expenditure of effort... and it gives him control of his otherwise wayward mind so that neither physical danger from without nor rampant passion from within can dislodge him.” - (Nagamine, 1998, p.14)

Effective immediately, the official texbook of our karate school is:

• The Essence of Okinawan Karate-do by Shoshin Nagamine

This book is available from most booksellers in paperback, hardback and electronic formats.