Chapter 1: Discovery

It is hard to find any persons who have not heard of martial arts and karate. Imagine decades past when the Great War ended and occupation of the Asian Pacific opened up martial disciplines to the American Servicemen. It began when we occupied Japan and by extension the island of Okinawa. 

If we focus on the Marines who occupied the island of Karate, Okinawa, one of the main concerns was keeping the Marines engaged to avoid boredom and complacency and for some Okinawan's finding a way to care and protect families and villages while the economy started to return to some semblance of normalcy. You would find that for Marines, as with other services, curiosity and engagement were a more positive trait to have so many sought out things of interest to do on the island where Judo and Karate were soon discovered. 

Just picture how the open sky back yard type of space where deeply tanned people wearing only what appeared to be undergarments were moving in funny ways, lifting strange looking jars, breathing funny and hitting large wooden posts while occasionally yelling loud and sharp terse sounds. Just imagine Marines off duty exploring the island hearing the sounds and navigating toward it to discover this strange but exotic activity. No wonder, and when they observed the combat-like exchanges in the contests between apparent hand-to-hand combat that triggered instincts born from hard sweat and blood learning through training and combat. 

The Marines found gold in them there islands, gold in the form and discipline of, "Karate!" Marines had already discovered the Judo of Japan so seeing the uniqueness of karate spoke volumes to the Marines cause after all, Marines being a small special and unique military organization that already made history in the European theatre as well as the Asian connected to the art and discipline of karate-jutsu. 

The Marines, as did other services, discovered what would soon be a major discipline and activity for after work and through the, "Military Special Services," where some karate masters actually earned a solid living under contract to teach Marines. 

The Okinawan karate masters passed on to those who would follow their expertise and experiences to these larger than life Marines and Military folks, who would then take home the coveted black belt and open dojo on military installations and in commercial-like dojo in the communities, to expose the general social populace to the, "secrets of karate" not realizing that it would catch on and spread not just in the America's but to most other countries through out the world. All leading to the major Okinawan cultural influences that are from the study of karate.