We must analyze and interpret Kata with an understanding of its history and origins. The underlying concepts/principles of the Kata can be extracted if we understand the origins and the influences. One can equate this to Bunkai ( ); however, it goes much deeper than that. The concepts that we will attempt to seek are those of the classical Okinawan Karate (pre WWII era) where the focus was more on life preservation skills rather than on mental and physical discipline.

A brief history of the development of Okinawan Karate and specifically GoJu Ryu is presented here. This is not intended to be an all-encompassing historical text, but rather provide some key historical facts to preserve the history without alteration or bias.