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SHOTOKAN FOUNDER & TIGER
History of Shotokan
Tiger
Sensei Gichin
Funakoshi - The Father of Modern Karate - Do, Master Funakoshi's pen name is
Shoto literally means, "pine waves", and today is synonymous with the tiger
symbol and Shotokan Karate-do. But few people understand the relationship of
Shoto to what is commonly known as the Shotokan Tiger. When Master Funakoshi was
a young man, he enjoyed walking in solitude among the pine trees, which
surrounded his home of Shuri. After a hard day of teaching in the local school
and several more hours of strenuous karate practice, he would often walk up Mt.
Torao and meditate among the pine trees under the stars and bright moon. Mt.
Torao is a very narrow, heavily wooded mountain which, when viewed from a
distance, resembles a tiger's tail. The name Torao, in fact, literally means
"tiger's tail".
In later life,
Master Funakoshi explained that the cool breezes, which blew among the pines on
Mt. Torao, made the trees whisper like waves breaking on the shore. Thus, since
he gained his greatest poetic inspirations while walking among the gently
blowing pine trees, he chose the pen name of Shoto, "pine waves". The tiger,
which is commonly used as the symbol for Shotokan karate, is a traditional
Chinese design, which implies that "the tiger never sleeps". Symbolized in the
Shotokan tiger, therefore the keen alertness of the wakeful tiger and the
serenity of the peaceful mind, which Master Funakoshi experienced while
listening to the pine waves on Tiger's Tail Mountain.
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