The History of Ekim's

Ekim's originated in East Moline, IL and has since relocated to Silvis, IL.

The Dojo is fully equipped with a state of the art facility, and current operating techniques.

Proprietor Mike Smith has a passion for the art of "Shorei-Ryu Karate" and kickboxing.
His daughter Taylor Smith too has a love of the art.Taylor is a blue belt.
Mike has trained with
Joe Lewis
Bill Wallace
Pat Miletech
Dan "The Beast" Severenz
Master Obato
and
Benny "The Jet" Arquidez.

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About The Proprietors

Michael R. Smith: Has a 5th degree black belt that he received in 1988.
Mike has won several national championships starting in 1981.
He was the kickboxing champion in 1986 and the Q.C. Toughman champion in 1995.

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History
It is said that Chinese boxing was in existence as much as 5,000 years when the Kou Dynasty built a great civilization along the basin of the Yellow River. Around 500 C.E. Taishi Daruma (Bodhi Dharma or Dot Mor), a Chinese Indian Abbot traveled from India to the Hunan province in China. He spent nine years at Shao Lin Temple, where he taught different breathing techniques and physical exercises to the monks. It is known that there was an ancient martial art among the Chinese at this time and that the monks practiced this as part of their daily regimen in order to protect the temple. Bodhi Dharma also began to teach the monks how to develop their mental and spiritual strength in order to endure the demanding meditation exercises. The success of his program was so complete that in a few years the monks had earned the reputation of being the most formidable fighters in China. The Shorinji-Ryu system of defense became the foundation of Chinese Kempo, or Tode, which soon spread throughout China, undergoing various changes, and mutations, and then passed to Korea and Okinawa, and later to Japan and the rest of the world. Over time Shorinji Kempo developed into modern day Wushu, Hsing-I, Pa- Kua, Tai-Chi, and a host of different styles. Karate as we know it today, is largely the product of a sythesis that took place in the eighteenth century between the native Okinawan art of Te, Korean forms, the Chinese arts of Shaolin Temple Boxing, and other Southern Styles that were practiced at that time. Certain techniques in today’s Karate seem to have originated from that part of the world. Okinawa’s own style, however, is unique, and foreign influences have always been modified to conform with Okinawan fighting principle. Chief among them is the use of the had (Te), and especially the closed fist.

The Story of Okinawa
It is though that the earliest inhabitants of Okinawa came not only from China, but from the Northern Japanese islands and from South Asia. Archaeology has shown that cultural penetration of the island from Japan and China has continued since at least 300 b.c. The physical location of Okinawa plays an important role in the development of Karate. Okinawa is centrally located, being close to China, Japan and Korea. Okinawa is also relatively poor in resources. Because of this, trade rapidly developed between these counties. Consisting of a number of islands, Okinawa Prefecture is graced not only by its natural beauty but also by a unique history and distinctive culture. In the 12th. Century, regional lords called Aji emerged and exerted power from fortified manors. Okinawa was divided into three rival kingdoms by 1340, and a decade later the largest of the kingdoms entered into a formal, tributary relationship with China, which was confirmed by the Chinese Emperor in 1372 Under the terms of this relationship, the Okinawans, like almost all of China’s neighbors, except for Japan, sent annual delegatations to the mainland bearing tribute for the Emperor. A few nobles from these delegations were permitted to travel from the coast to the Imperial Court. Some younger princes even enrolled in the schools set up for foreigners in Peking, where they would study Chinese culture, arts and sciences for many years before returning home. In this way, many important Okinawans became familiar with the city and court life of China, as well as its traditions and learning. The Chinese sent a community of clerics, artisans and other professionals to settle in Okinawa in 1393. They introduced its people to Chinese traditions and skills in shipbuilding, navigation, administration, paper, ink and pen production, ceramics, and lacquer working.

By 1429, after some initial skirmishing, Okinawa was united under on king and the first (Sho) Dynasty was established. This set the stage for the golden era of Okinawan history. The people took to trading, and steadily established a network of trade links that stretched not only to Japan and China, but as far afield as Indo-China, Tailand, Malaysia, Borneo, Indonesia and the Philippines. Okinawan sailors and merchants visited not just China and Japan, but all the great ports of East Asia, a factor that the Okinawans of today consider highly important in the history of their martial arts.

The Banning of Weapons
Something else of crucial importance also took place around this time. Around 1470, the collapse of the Sho Dynasty gave rise to a period of political turbulence that was ended only by the establishment of a new (also Sho) dynasty in 1477. The new king, Sho Shin, had to deal with rebellious War Lords who were firmly entrenched in their castles throughout the island. One of his first moves was to ban the carrying of swords by anyone, noble or peasant. In 1609 Japan invaded Okinawa, consequently the Shogun continued a policy of a ban on weapons set up by Sho Shin 1477, however the Shogun extended the ban to all practice of martial arts. In Okinawa today, most Karate Masters believe that the banning of weapons by one of their first kings was an act of sublime wisdom, not one of oppression. One of the most important chapters in the history of Karate, and the direct link to present -day Karate, was its development in Okinawa.

The Divergence of the Okinawan Arts

The proud and spirited Okinawans, anxious to be rid of their various conquerors, as well as needing to protect themselves against the pirates and brigands who infested their waters and lands, began to develop secret ways of fighting that could not be detected by their rulers. Lacking swords and spears, they began practicing how to use their hands, feet and other parts of their bodies as weapons instead. They also began to practice ways to use farm and fishing tools as weapons, for these objects were always near at hand, but didn’t look like weapons to the unsuspecting conquerors. The Okinawans searched into their past for their native fighting ways, and at the same time began to look to China, which they knew had centuries of experience in the fighting arts. In the darkness of night they sent off the best of their village youths disguised as various travelers. The youth’s mission was to sail to China and seek out Kung Fu Masters who would teach them their art. Additional Chinese martial arts were introduced into the islands, they were called Tode this was combined with the native fighting art of Te which had been in existence since the introduction of Shorinji Kempo from the Fukien district in the 6th. And 7th. Centuries of the Sui Dynasty. Te is thought to be at least 1,000 years old. Tode may also be pronounced as Kara-Te, Tode was for the most part the standard method of describing the fist art on the Okinawan islands prior to 1900.

The Okinawans diligently and secretly practiced the Chinese methods and combined them with their own ideas about fighting. Over the next couple of centuries the arts became known among its followers as Okinawa-te. Okinawa-te lies somewhere between Kung Fu and modern Karate. The Chinese use the “soft” style, and the Karateka use the “hard” style. But, the Okinawa-te men fuse a “medium soft” style which is in between the Chinese and Karate styles. In its original concept Okinawa-te was not designed for self-defense, but for attacking. Two-thirds of the techniques are based on aggression, and only one-third on self-defense and countering techniques.

Sometimes the Okinawans also called their combat methods Karate. Kara was the character referring to the Tang Dynasty of China, and Kara-te essentially meant “Chinese hands,” reflecting the important influence of Chinese Kung Fu on their fighting ways. While many Okinawan Karate Masters continued to follow traditional Chinese training methods, the crisis situation on the island prompted many other masters to develop their own ways. The Okinawans began to travel extensively in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They were sure to have encountered many of the great fighting systems of South Asia and these would have influenced their indigenous art.

From at least the 14th. Century, maybe earlier, there existed a bar handed fighting art in Okinawa, and until the mid to late 1800’s there was no need for a name any more descriptive than the word Te. This was true because there were not many significantly different types of Te and it was not taught publicly, nor was it widespread. In the 1800’s however, Te began to develop into distinctly different types and need for more descriptive names arose.

Okinawa-te eventually spit into three main styles named after three cities: Shuri-te from the Ryukyuan capital of Shuri, Naha-te in the commercial seaport of Naha, and Tomari-te in the Tomari district that fell between the other two cities. Shuri-te is said to have been directly related to Shaolin Kung Fu, and was influenced greatly by the hard techniques of Zen Kung Fu and Wushu. Naha-te was influenced heavily by the softer techniques of the Taoist Pa-Kua, and apparently developed from the Wutang school in China, named after the Chinese mountain where it was practiced. Tomari-te was influenced by both Shuri-te and Naha-te because it was geographically in the middle between the two cities. It is important to note, however, that the towns of Shuri, Naha and Tomari are only a few miles apart, and that the differences between their arts were essentially ones of emphasis, not of kind. Beneath these surface differences, both the methods and aims of all Okinawan Karate are one, and the same.

The first recorded performance of Chinese Martial Arts in Okinawa took place in 1761. There are several personal histories of the master of Te of that time. Some of these master, including Chatan Yara, are known to have traveled to Fukien Province in China and studied there. One great Chinese Master, Kusanku, spent six years in Okinawa. During the nineteenth century the Okinawan art began to be known by the name of T’ ang-te or ‘Chinese Hand’.

Kung Fu: the forerunner of Karate was a part of the Chinese lifestyle in the labor camps and mining towns that grew up following the gold rush of 1848. With the importation of large numbers of Chinese laborers to work the Central Pacific Railroad, beginning in 1863, the swelling of Chinese communities isolated themselves within their own, and transplanted a new culture. Conflicts over control of gambling, prostitution and the like, arose; rival secret societies that fought each other in the notorious “Tong Wars” which lasted until the 1930’s. The troops in these internecine wars were “hatchetmen,” so called because they used meat cleavers and hatchets as weapons. They were skilled in Kung Fu, in the art of “pin-blowing” and in hurling lethal, razor edged coins. Hatchetmen in the U.S. handed down, from one generation to the next, the secret and sinister practice of Kung Fu, the forbearer of Karate.

In the mid-1800’s Shorei-Ryu Karate emerged to differentiate itself as one of the major styles that had come into existence. Shorei-Ryu was developed by Kanryo Higashionna. Higashionna studied some of the Naha-te techniques of Okinawa and then moved to China. There, in the Foochow Province, He studied for 20 years under Liu Liu Ko. But it was not until Higashionna came back to Okinawa that he began to develop the Shorei-Ryu system. The Shorei-Ryu system can be traced (though with some difficulty due to lack of records) to the Sho Dynasty in the 1400’s. the main method of tracing it is through some of the Shorei kata, which are indeed very, very old.

Following dissolution of the kingdom and the 1879 annexation of Okinawa as a prefecture by Japan, new institutions came into effect and Karate and Kobudo were incorporated into the Meiji public education system. There followed a movement to present these arts to the general public: during the Taisho Era demonstrations were staged throughout mainland Japan, and in the early Showa years demonstrations were give overseas. At the end of the 19th. Century Shuri-te and Tomari-te were subsumed under the name Shorin-Ryu which eventually developed into some other styles. Naha-te eventually evolved into modern Goju-Ryu. Each style had its distinguished masters who established the traditions preserved to the present day. The techniques of Karate and Kobudo were, by their very nature, to be kept from the uninitiated. Due to this fact, there are but few historical records and the arts were conveyed almost entirely through personal oral transmission from master to disciple. Due to the fear of civil authorities, it was necessary to teach the Okinawa systems with the utmost secrecy and they were not to come out into the open again until 1900. Such Okinawan system developed the present-day styles of Yoshi-kan (Shotokan), Shonen-Ryu, Isshin_Ryu, Wado-Ryu, Chito-Ryu, Shito-Ryu, Uechi-Ryu, Motobu-Ryu, Shuri-Ryu, Kyokoshin-ryu, Kushin-Ryu, Ryuei-Ryu, Itose-Ryu and Ishimine-Ryu.

In October of 1936, an Okinawan newspaper known as the RYUKYU SHIMPO SHA arranged a gathering of certain prominent Okinawan Masters to review the elements of various Okinawan martial arts. Such notable experts as Kentsu, Yabu - Kyan, Chotoku - Motobu, Choki - Miyagi, Chojun - Kyoda, Juhatsu - Chibana, Chosin - Shiroma, Shimpan - Hanashiro and Chomo met in the city of Naha, Okinawa and discussed topics that included the method to be used in the writing of KARATE. They decided on a single name for their art. They called it Karate, which means “empty-handed” or “weaponless” defense art. Some masters feel that the Japanese appendage of - do, “the way”, should be added to the name.

Okinawan Kata Origin (village) Founders

Fukyu gata ichi	Nagamine Shoshin
Fukyu gat ni	Miyagi, Chojun
Naha-de
Gekisai dai ichi	Miyagi, Chojun
Gekisai dai ni	Miyagi, Chojun
Tensho	Miyagi, Chojun
Pachu	Nakaima, Kenri
Heiku	Nakaima, Kenri
Niseishi	Sakiyama

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