The History of Kobudo

Introduction

It's the eve of testing for my 2nd Dan ranking. KJN Veronica DeSantos has assigned me the task of writing about the history of kobudo, with special emphasis on the Bo, Sai, and Kama. The tradition of the kobudo, or weapons arts, practiced at our dojo comes from the island of Okinawa. It would at least initially appear that the history of Okinawan kobudo is inherently tied to the history of the island itself and the styles of karate that developed there. The following histories are largely from the web site Virtual Okinawa. I will introduce the history of Okinawa and then the history of Okinawan Karate. There's some repetition here but my aim is to overlay the history of karate on the history of the islands. The next chapter will overlay the history of kobudo to complete the cycle. In particular, notice how historical names show up as parts of kata names later.