Martial Arts Karate is originated in Okinawa, a Japanese island. It is supposed to be a blend of three different fighting styles:

• Chinese White Crane Kungfu
• Chinese Southern Shaolin
• An okinawan form of pugilistic fighting and wrestling

It became famous as a method of fighting without weapons and is still trained today by the Japanese Secret Forces as their prime unarmed combat method, though they also train Aikido and Judo.

• Shotokan as practised by the Japanese Karate Associaton (JKA), including sports competition
• Shotokai, often described as orthodox Shotokan, and still the owners of the Shotokan Dojo. They do not practise any competition and this was the reason for the division with the JKA
• Police Shotokan - the Karate Practised by the Japanese Special Forces and shown above Wado-Ryu - created by Funkoshi's student Hinori Otsuka but also incorporating elements of Shindo Yoshin Ryu Jujutsu. The official site of Wado-Ryu: http://www.wado-ryu.jp/home1/home1.htm
• Kyoshinkai - founded by Funakoshi's Student Masutatsu Oyama, of Korean Origin, who also studied Gojo-Ryu Karate in depth, as well as Judo and Thai Boxing

• Gojo-Ryu which means Hard-Soft - in other words hit soft parts of the body with a hard force and use a soft force to divert hard attacks. This style trains Chinese Hard Qigong to make the hand, forearms, feet and shins harder to attack with and the body more resistant to attack.

• Shinto-Ryu which practises a lot of weapons.

These two styles and Kyokushinkai vary most notably from the other schools because they use a guard and fighting position similar to kick-boxers in sparring, as opposed to the specifically karate stance used by other styles.

Karate training is based on both sparring and katas, form training. Karate katas are relatively short compared to the form of Eagle Claw Kungfu. There are around twenty, and it is thought that each takes a year to master. Sparring vaires from school to school. Shotokan, shotokai, Wado-Ryu tend to be more controlled with a prior agreement on the type of attack, while Gojo-Ryu and Kyokushinkai are more free and bear a closer resemblance to Kick Boxing and Muay Thai. Karate schools used a grading system derived from Judo based on Kyu (coloured belts) and Dan (black belts). Advancing through the grades is conditional on both Kata and Sparring Performance.