Masters
Portraits of founders and grandmasters — lifetimes of movement.
30 articles
Ryūkyū / Japan ·1831–1915
Ankō Itosu — the Man Who Put Karate into Schools
Itosu brought karate into Okinawa's schools in 1901 — and justified it to the ministries in 1908 by its usefulness for military service.
India / China ·c. 5th–6th century
Bodhidharma — The Legend at the Origin of All Martial Arts
Bodhidharma (5th/6th c.) brought Chan Buddhism to China — whether he also taught the Shaolin martial arts is legend. But his cultural legacy is real and immense.
USA / Hong Kong ·1940–1973
Bruce Lee — The Man Who Reinvented Martial Arts
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) broke all boundaries between martial arts — his Jeet Kune Do and philosophy inspired MMA and a generation of fighters.
Brazil ·1902–1994
Carlos Gracie — The Patriarch of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Carlos Gracie (1902–1994) learned Judo from Mitsuyo Maeda, founded the first Gracie Academy, and with his family created the world's most practiced ground fighting system.
Korea ·1918–2002
Choi Hong Hi — The Founder of Taekwondo
General Choi Hong Hi (1918–2002) created Taekwondo as Korea's national martial art — a life lived between military service, politics, and the dream of a global fighting system.
Japan / Okinawa ·1888–1953
Chojun Miyagi — Founder of Goju-ryu Karate
Chojun Miyagi (1888–1953) fused Okinawan hardness with Chinese softness into Goju-ryu — the karate school that inspired Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid.
Ryūkyū / Japan ·1870–1944
Chōki Motobu — the Fighter Whose Victory Was Printed with Another Man's Face
In 1922 Motobu knocked out a boxer at the age of 52. When King magazine illustrated the victory in 1925, the drawing showed Funakoshi.
England (London) ·1872–1971
Edith Garrud — a Martial Art as the Answer to a Law
In 1913 a law made suffragettes re-arrestable after a hunger strike. The answer was a thirty-strong bodyguard — trained by her.
Brasilien ·1914–1984
Euclydes Hatem — the founder whose second root nobody can document
The standard account names two roots for Luta Livre. One has teachers, places and dates. The other has had nobody for nearly a century.
Japan / Okinawa ·1868–1957
Gichin Funakoshi — Father of Modern Karate
Gichin Funakoshi (1868–1957) brought Karate from Okinawa to Japan and shaped it into a philosophical discipline — his legacy is Shotokan.
Brazil ·1913–2009
Helio Gracie — The Father of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Helio Gracie (1913–2009) was too weak for classical Judo — so he invented a system placing leverage over strength, enabling the smaller to overcome the larger.
China ·1893–1972
Ip Man — The Grandmaster of Wing Chun
Ip Man (1893–1972) saved Wing Chun from obscurity and taught Bruce Lee — the quiet grandmaster whose life has become more myth than biography.
Frankreich ·19. Jahrhundert
Jean Exbrayat — the rule is transmitted, its reason is not
A single rule generates the entire technique of Greco-Roman wrestling. Who made it is known. Why, no source says.
Japan ·1860–1938
Jigoro Kano — The Father of Judo
Jigoro Kano (1860–1938) transformed brutal Jiu-Jitsu into Judo — the first modern martial art with an educational mission and an Olympic legacy.
Ryūkyū / Japan ·1877–1948
Kanbun Uechi — the Founder Who Did Not Want to Be One
Uechi went to China to escape conscription and, once back, stopped teaching for seventeen years. The style's name was given to him by others.
Belgien ·1924–2007
Karl Gotch — the man who carried real technique inside a fake sport
The shoot wrestling article asks what is real. The answer runs through a man who spent his working life in worked wrestling.
Japan / USA ·1913–2013
Keiko Fukuda — the Same Woman, Three Institutions, Three Answers
Kanō's last student stood at 5th dan for nineteen years, because that was where the scale ended for women. The 10th dan never came from the Kōdōkan.
Ryūkyū / Japan ·1889–1952
Kenwa Mabuni — the Archivist of Karate
Mabuni studied under at least six masters and discarded nothing. His style carries the widest kata canon of any major school — and the names of his two teachers.
Korea / Japan ·1923–1994
Mas Oyama — The Strongest Karateka in History
Mas Oyama (1923–1994) knocked down bulls with bare hands and founded Kyokushin — the world's hardest karate with 15 million practitioners.
Ryūkyū ·1809–1899
Matsumura Sōkon — the Root of the Shuri Line, and Where the Evidence Thins
Nearly every Shuri line traces back to him. Even his dates are disputed — and what he brought to Okinawa was Japanese sword principle, not Chinese.
Brazil ·1899–1974
Mestre Bimba — Father of Modern Capoeira
Mestre Bimba (1899–1974) saved Capoeira from oblivion by transforming it into a structured martial art — and demonstrated it to a president.
Japan ·c. 1584–1645
Miyamoto Musashi — The Undefeated Swordsman
Miyamoto Musashi (c.1584–1645) won over 60 duels undefeated, then retreated to a cave to write the Book of Five Rings — a work on strategy, spirit, and the way of the warrior.
Japan ·1883–1969
Morihei Ueshiba — The Creator of Aikido
Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) transformed the art of war into a philosophy of reconciliation — Aikido, the way of harmonious energy.
Japan ·early 17th century
Musō Gonnosuke — the Founder Who Barely Exists
Almost nothing about his life can be verified. The defeat by Musashi is attested several times — the victory his school rests on stands in a single scroll.
Japan ·1162–1242
Ogasawara Nagakiyo — the founder who was given etiquette afterwards
Bow, horse and manners in one school — this encyclopedia calls that strange. The resolution is that they only came together later.
USA (New York) ·1935–2009
Rusty Kanokogi — the Change Did Not Come by Persuasion
In 1959 she had to hand a medal back; in 2009 she got it again. In between she forced women's judo into the Olympic Games.
Mexiko ·1897–1987
Salvador Lutteroth — the tax inspector who invented a national costume
The most Mexican of all masks is an American import of 1934, introduced as a gimmick — and measured by a shoemaker.
Japan ·1859–1943
Takeda Sōkaku — the Master Who Kept the Books
Takeda kept attendance and fee ledgers for his seminars. That is why his life is documented as few others are — and the lineage before him not at all.
Russland / Sowjetunion ·1893–1937
Vasili Oshchepkov — the founder who was deleted
This encyclopedia collects invented origins. Oshchepkov is the opposite case — a documented founder removed from the history of his own art.
China ·1799–1872
Yang Luchan — The Invincible and Father of Yang-Style Taijiquan
Yang Luchan (1799–1872) spent 18 years secretly learning from the Chen family — and became so superior he entered history as 'Yang the Invincible.'