Karate-do: what it means

Karate-do: what it means

Have you heard the term karate-do and don't know exactly what it refers to? Next, we will briefly explain the true meaning of this word.

Karate and karate-do

The term karate, from a Japanese word, can be translated as clean hand. That is, we find that it is divided into two Japanese lexical components. On the one hand, we have kata, which means clean, and on the other, te, which means hand. So when we add it, we get the word karate.

If we look in the OED, the Oxford English Dictionary, we see that karate is accepted in our language and is a very widespread martial art in English-speaking countries and around the world.

However, we have also been able to see somewhere the nomenclature of this martial art as karate-do. Is it the same? Basically yes. The difference is that the ending do is added to the term, which in Japanese is something like path. Therefore, we would translate it as the path of the clean or empty hand.

The fact that this martial art is referred to as the path of the empty or clean hand is due to the fact that its practice is based on the performance of dry blows, either with the feet, with the elbow or with the edge of the hand. Hence its name.

The person who practices karate is called a karateka and its origin dates back to the 16th century. Since then, it has become very popular. It was born as a technical combination of moves within the Ryukyu Islands and today it is a martial art that is practiced in all corners of the world.

In fact, karate or karate-do has evolved into various techniques, which now number dozens, although the most famous are shotokan, kyokushinkai, wado ryu, goju ryo or shito ryu.

Any karate discipline is interesting. Which one do you prefer?


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