11｜The Myth of Toshu-Kūken (徒手空拳, “Empty-Hand”) — Sai, Tonfa, Bo, and Karate

🥢Scope of this chapter. Karate is often described as a toshu-kūken (徒手空拳) martial art — a discipline practiced with empty hands and no weapons. The first character 空 (kara, “empty”) in 空手 (karate) has long been read as a literal statement: “the hand that holds no weapon.” Yet the martial culture of Okinawa has, in parallel, always included weapon arts — sai, tonfa, bō (staff), nunchaku, kama (sickle), eku (oar), and others. Today these are usually filed under a separate category called Okinawan kobudō (沖縄古武道) or Ryūkyū kobujutsu (琉球古武術), distinct from karate. But that separation is largely a product of modern reorganization and institutionalization. Just how tightly is karate actually bound to the definition of “empty-handed”?

1. Karate and Kobudō Walked Side by Side

The traditional martial culture of Okinawa included both empty-hand techniques — known by the Okinawan vernacular terms ti / te (手) and later tōdī (唐手, the Okinawan reading of what was eventually rewritten as 空手 / karate) — and techniques that used weapons. The representative weapons are listed below. A caution before reading the table: the origins of each weapon are a mixture of oral tradition, popular legend, and informed scholarly speculation. The simple narrative that “all of these were repurposed farm tools” cannot be sustained.

Weapon	Use	Origin / Character
Bō (棒, staff)	Long and short staffs	Several theories: carrying pole, walking staff, spear/staff techniques, Chinese martial arts influence
Sai (釵)	Three-pronged iron weapon	Linked to Chinese-style weapons, restraining tools, and concealed weapons (anki). The “farm-tool” origin story should be treated with caution
Tonfa (トンファー)	L-shaped wooden weapon	Often said to derive from a millstone handle, but firm evidence is limited; a Chinese-martial-arts derivation is also proposed
Nunchaku (ヌンチャク)	Two short sticks joined by cord or chain	Variously said to derive from a threshing tool, a horse bridle accessory, or a Chinese weapon
Kama (鎌, sickle)	Often paired (two-handed)	Origin as an agricultural tool is comparatively well established
Tinbe & Rōchin (ティンベー・ローチン)	Shield (often turtle-shell) plus a short spear-like blade	Distinctly military / self-defense in character
Eku (エーク)	Oar of a fishing boat	A weapon art derived from fishing implements

This is a representative — not exhaustive — list. Tekkō (鉄甲, an iron knuckle-like weapon) and surujin (スルジン, a weighted chain weapon) are also part of the traditional repertoire.

Today, these weapons and their associated techniques are usually labeled Okinawan kobudō (“old martial ways of Okinawa”) or Ryūkyū kobujutsu (“old martial techniques of the Ryūkyū”), and treated as a category separate from karate. But in Okinawan martial culture, empty-hand techniques and weapon techniques were studied by the same people in the same local communities. They were not as cleanly partitioned as the modern categories suggest.

2. Re-examining the “Weapons Ban” Myth

Before going further, one familiar legend needs to be examined. It runs roughly like this:

In the Ryūkyū Kingdom, the swords of the populace were seized — once by King Shō Shin’s edict, and again under the rule of the Satsuma domain after Japan’s invasion. With no weapons available, the people developed a fighting art that needed none. That is how karate was born.

This narrative is shaky once you go to the primary sources. It is documented that during the reign of King Shō Shin (尚真王, r. 1477–1527), weapons were gathered and stored centrally by the royal government, and that following the Satsuma invasion of 1609 the importation, carrying, and especially the use of firearms by Ryūkyūans was restricted. But there is little documentary evidence that all weapons disappeared from Ryūkyūan society, or that Satsuma confiscated everything. On the contrary, records show that Ryūkyūans in the 15th–16th centuries owned and traded swords, and that members of the shizoku (士族, warrior-administrator class) continued to practice martial arts even under Satsuma rule.

Similarly, calling sai and tonfa “weaponized farm tools” is an oversimplification. The weapons of Okinawan kobudō include items that genuinely derive from everyday implements, items with a clear lineage as weapons of war, and items born at the cultural crossroads of Chinese, Japanese, and Ryūkyūan martial traditions.

The story that “a weapons ban gave rise to empty-hand fighting” makes for a tidy explanation of karate’s distinctiveness and a touch of historical pathos. But contemporary scholarship treats the direct causal link as something to be approached with great caution (Bittmann 2014; Kadekaru 2017; Kinjō 2011).

📘Glossary — “Weapons-prohibition policy” (kinbu seisaku 禁武政策). This is a loose, blanket term for several different policies on weapons during the Ryūkyū Kingdom era, often misleadingly called the “weapons ban edict” (kinbu-rei 禁武令). In reality, the policies varied by period: King Shō Shin’s centralization of weapons in the royal storehouses, and Satsuma’s later restrictions on the importation, carrying, and possession of firearms after 1609. Current scholarship argues that these should be understood as registration, management, and carry restrictions — not an absolute prohibition on owning weapons.

3. The 20th-Century Split: How Karate and Kobudō Were Sorted Into Separate Boxes

If empty-hand techniques and weapon techniques coexisted in Okinawan martial culture, why are “karate” and “Okinawan kobudō” today widely treated as separate disciplines?

The split was largely a 20th-century development, driven by karate’s transplantation to mainland Japan and the modern wave of institutional organization. When Funakoshi Gichin (船越義珍 / 富名腰義珍, 1868–1957) introduced tōdī / karate to mainland Japan, the core of what he taught was the empty-hand kata and basic techniques. Weapon arts did not become part of the main curriculum. Several plausible reasons for this can be suggested:

The name karate (空手, “empty hand”) itself made it easier to emphasize an empty-handed image.
Empty-hand techniques fit more naturally into the format of school physical education and university clubs.
Weapon arts were harder to slot into the modernizing, gymnastic, sport-friendly mold of budō (武道, “the martial way”).
Around the same time, Yabiku Mōden (屋比久孟伝, 1878–1941) and his student Taira Shinken (平信賢, 1897–1970) were preserving and systematizing Ryūkyū kobujutsu as a separate lineage — distinct, organizationally, from karate.

The net result was that on the mainland, karate was institutionalized as a primarily empty-hand discipline, while weapon arts were grouped into the separate categories of Okinawan kobudō and Ryūkyū kobujutsu. In Okinawa itself, the divide is less rigid; many dojos still train both empty-hand and weapon arts together.

4. Karate Practitioners Who Worked With Weapons

Even within mainland karate, there have always been schools and teachers who maintained weapon arts.

The Shōtōkan-ryū lineage (in parts). Funakoshi Gichin’s mainland teaching was empty-hand-centric, but some later Shōtōkan and Shōtōkan-affiliated groups have incorporated bōjutsu (staff techniques) and related weapon practice.
Gōjū-ryū. Miyagi Chōjun (宮城長順, 1888–1953), the founder of Gōjū-ryū, articulated the principle of “not carrying so much as an inch of metal on one’s person,” while also acknowledging the situational use of objects at hand. Gōjū-ryū itself is empty-hand-centric, but Okinawan Gōjū-ryū dojos commonly train kobudō in parallel.
Shitō-ryū. Mabuni Kenwa (摩文仁賢和, 1889–1952), the founder of Shitō-ryū, is well known for the breadth of kata he collected and transmitted. He himself taught sai techniques to Taira Shinken — that is, the founder of a major mainland karate style was actively involved in transmitting weapon arts. Many Shitō-ryū dojos preserve kobudō practice today.
Dedicated kobudō associations. The Ryūkyū Kobujutsu Hozon Shinkō-kai (琉球古武術保存振興会), founded by Taira Shinken in 1940, has continued to preserve and organize weapon techniques as a discipline parallel to, but distinct from, karate.

The existence of these schools is itself a counter-example to the strict definition that “only empty-hand practice is karate.”

5. The Limits of the “Empty-Hand” Concept

Defining karate as “the empty-handed martial art” runs into several problems.

5.1 Historical inconsistency

Okinawan martial culture contained both empty-hand techniques and weapon arts. To define karate as “empty-hand only” using a 20th-century mainland image is to lose sight of the breadth of the older Okinawan tradition.

5.2 Practical inconsistency

Modern karate training routinely uses “equipment” — boxing gloves, protective gear, focus mitts, heavy bags. These are not weapons, but neither do they fit a pure “empty hand” definition. In real practice today, the line between “empty” and “not empty” is already blurred.

5.3 Conceptual inconsistency

The boundary between “empty-handed” and “weapon-using” is also less obvious than it sounds. A palm strike is empty-handed — but is a palm strike delivered with a metal object clenched in the fist still empty-handed? When karateka routinely train hand-gripping drills, is that conditioning for empty-hand fighting or preparation for weapon use?

The concept of toshu-kūken (“empty hand, empty fist”) gives no clear answer to such questions.

6. Modern Karate Is Reintegrating Weapons

In recent years there has been a clear movement to bring weapon arts back into the karate fold.

When Okinawan karate is presented internationally, it is now typically introduced together with weapon arts, as “Okinawan karate and kobudō“ or “Okinawan martial arts.”
Many overseas dojos run karate and kobudō classes side by side under one roof.
Through film and television, the popular image of weapons like the nunchaku and sai is very strong. (Note, however, that Bruce Lee‘s use of the nunchaku is best understood not as a direct expression of Okinawan kobudō but as a Hong Kong–action-cinema diffusion of the weapon into popular culture.)

This reintegration is precisely what is pushing back on the 20th-century “empty-hand-only” definition.

7. The Category Depends on Your Purpose

A tentative conclusion: the distinction between “karate” and “kobudō” is not absolute. It is a historically constructed division. Empty-hand techniques and weapon techniques that coexisted in Okinawan martial culture were sorted into separate categories during the 20th-century process of mainland transplantation, institutional consolidation, and the standardization of teaching materials.

So to the question “Are sai and tonfa karate?” — the only honest answer is something like the following:

By a strict 20th-century “empty-hand” definition, they are not karate proper; they are Okinawan kobudō / Ryūkyū kobujutsu.
Viewed within the broader Okinawan martial tradition, they have always walked alongside karate.
In modern dojos and outreach, they may be treated as a unified whole with karate, or as a separate discipline, depending on context.

Which definition one adopts depends on one’s purpose. This series does not claim that any single definition is “the correct one.”

8. The Double Meaning of Kara (空)

One final point: the character 空 (kara) in karate carries two layers of meaning.

Funakoshi Gichin himself read multiple meanings into 空: not carrying a weapon; emptying the mind; releasing the self from desire; the Buddhist concept of kū (emptiness, or śūnyatā). Of these, only the first — “weaponless” — is material; the rest are spiritual or philosophical.

If you take only the literal sense, then a karate that uses weapons is a contradiction in terms. But if you emphasize the spiritual sense of 空 — emptiness of mind, freedom from self — then it is entirely possible to practice with weapons while sharing the same bodily principles and inner discipline as karate.

This double meaning is what makes the debate over the definition of karate so complicated. Whether you treat “empty hand” or “the spirit of emptiness” as the essential meaning changes whether weapon arts are inside or outside the boundary.

9. Conclusion: “Empty-Hand” as a Myth

The phrase toshu-kūken has long circulated as the shorthand for karate’s essence. But much of that circulation is tied to the modern context — karate’s transformation into a budō, its mainland diffusion, its absorption into school physical education. Before all of that, Okinawan martial culture knew both empty-hand techniques and weapon arts in parallel.

Toshu-kūken is an important narrative that helped construct the identity of modernized mainland karate. There is no need to reject it. But anyone who talks seriously about karate should be aware that it is a narrative that highlights one face of a much larger history.

📝Supplementary note for newcomers. Compare the well-worn statement, “Japanese cuisine brings out the natural flavor of ingredients.” There is truth to it — but Japanese cuisine also makes heavy use of strong, assertive seasonings: soy sauce, miso, sake, mirin. “Bringing out the ingredient” captures one face of the cuisine; it does not describe everything. “Karate is toshu-kūken” works the same way. It captures one face of karate. Throughout karate’s history, weapon techniques have walked alongside it.

🌐Brief background for non-Japanese readers.

The Ryūkyū Kingdom (1429–1879) was an independent maritime state centered on what is now Okinawa Prefecture, with long-standing tributary ties to Ming and Qing China and extensive trade across East and Southeast Asia.
Satsuma (薩摩藩) was a powerful southern feudal domain in Kyūshū (Japan). It invaded Ryūkyū in 1609 and placed the kingdom under indirect rule, while letting it maintain a formal tributary relationship with China.
Funakoshi Gichin (1868–1957) is widely credited with introducing Okinawan karate to mainland Japan in the 1920s and is considered the father of modern Japanese karate; he is associated with the Shōtōkan style.
Miyagi Chōjun, Mabuni Kenwa, and Funakoshi are commonly counted among the founders of the major mainland karate styles (Gōjū-ryū, Shitō-ryū, Shōtōkan, with Wadō-ryū as the fourth).
Kobudō (古武道) literally means “old martial ways”; in this chapter the term refers specifically to Okinawan weapon arts. </aside>

Principal References

Kadekaru, Toru (嘉手苅徹). 2017. Okinawa karate no sōzō to tenkai: koshō no hensen wo tegakari ni shite (沖縄空手の創造と展開：呼称の変遷を手がかりにして) [The Creation and Development of Okinawan Karate: Through the Transitions in Its Naming]. Doctoral thesis, Waseda University.
Kinjō, Yutaka (金城裕). 2011. Tōdī kara karate e (唐手から空手へ) [From Tōdī to Karate]. Tokyo: Nihon Budōkan.
Takamiyagi, Shigeru, Shinzato, Katsuhiko & Nakamoto, Masahiro, eds. (高宮城繁・新里勝彦・仲本政博編著). 2008. Okinawa karate kobudō jiten (沖縄空手古武道事典) [Encyclopedia of Okinawan Karate and Kobudō]. Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō.
Funakoshi, Gichin (富名腰義珍, also written 船越義珍). 1922. Ryūkyū kenpō: Tōdī (琉球拳法唐手) [Ryūkyū Martial Art: Tōdī]. Tokyo: Bukyō-sha.
Miyagi, Chōjun (宮城長順). 1934. “Tōdī-dō gaisetsu” (唐手道概説 / Ryūkyū kenpō tōdī-dō enkaku gaiyō) [An Outline of Tōdī-dō]. Ryūkyū Tōdī-jutsu International Research Society.
Bittmann, Heiko (ビットマン・ハイコ). 2014. “Karatedō-shi to kinbu seisaku ni tsuite no ichi kōsatsu — Ryūkyū ōkoku Shō Shin ō ki to Satsuma-han no shihai-ka wo chūshin ni” (空手道史と禁武政策についての一考察——琉球王国尚真王期と薩摩藩の支配下を中心に) [A Study of Karate History and the Weapons-Prohibition Policy: With Reference to the Reign of King Shō Shin and the Period of Satsuma Domination]. Bulletin of the International Student Center, Kanazawa University 17.
Ryūkyū Kobujutsu Hozon Shinkō-kai. “Ryūkyū kobujutsu no rekishi to tōkai ni tsuite” [The History of Ryūkyū Kobujutsu and About Our Association]. https://www.ryukyukobujutsuhozonshinkokai.jp/011_history.html
Okinawa Dentō Karate-dō Shinkō-kai. “Okinawa dentō kobudō no shōkai” [Introduction to Okinawan Traditional Kobudō]. https://www.odks.jp/kobudo/model.html
Okinawa Prefecture. “Karate-dō no rekishi: tokusei・nerai” [History, Character, and Aims of Karate-dō]. PDF

“What Is Karate?” — A Multidimensional Inquiry Through Thought, History, and Sociology