The history of Chito-ryu karate begins with our founder, Tsuyoshi Chitose (1898-1984). He was born in the Kumochi area of Naha City on the island of Okinawa on October 18, 1898 . It was the 29th year of the Meiji era in Japan . Here on this small island, known as the cradle of karate-do, Tsuyoshi Chitose grew up and spent his early formative years.

His original birth name was Chinen (Gochoku) Masuo. His father Chinen (Masuo) Chiyoyu, married into his wife's last name, and was not a practitioner of karate. Chitose Sensei changed his name to Tsuyoshi Chitose for personal reasons after he moved to Tokyo in 1922 to attend medical college.

In tracing the history of Chito-ryu, we must also look into the historical influences that shaped Chitose Sensei's martial arts experiences and impacted our art of today. The old karate and martial arts teachers were responsible for influencing future generations of karate practitioners with the ideas they developed during their lifetimes. Some of these ideas were passed to Doctor Chitose and aided him in his creation of Chito-ryu.

Chitose Sensei's mother's grandfather was a very famous karate master. His name was Sokon (Bushi) Matsumura (1797-1889). Matsumura Sensei was considered one of the great karate (Tode) figures of the nineteenth century. Matsumura Sensei started his karate training when he was thirteen years old. His father, Sofuku Matsumura, took him to see a seventy eight year old karate teacher named Tode (Karate) Sakugawa. Sakugawa Sensei (1733-1815) was born in Akata Cho, a small section of the city of Shuri , Okinawa . When Sakugawa was a young man he had been a student of Takahara Peichin (1683 - 1760). He had also studied for six years (1756 to 1762) with a Chinese military envoy (Kusanku). It is from this part of our history that we get the kata - Seisan, Niseishi, Sochin, Sakugawa No Kon Sho, and Kusanku. Years later Bushi Matsumura had an opportunity to train with a Chinese trader named Chinto. When Chinto returned to China , Matsumura Sensei developed a kata from the many movements he had learned and named it Chinto in his teacher's honor. This kata is presently required for Sho-Dan (1st degree black belt) by the U. S. Chito-ryu Karate Federation.

In 1886 Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, established the kyu/dan belt system. In 1907 he designed the Judo uniform from which the karate uniform is taken, except that the karate jacket is much lighter in weight.

In 1895 the Japanese government created the DAI NIPPON BUTOKUKAI to oversee the martial arts, and provided two titles - HANSHI, the highest award, and KYOSHI. In 1934 the DAI NIPPON BUTOKUKAI created a third title, RENSHI, which was below that of Kyoshi. On April 12, 1924 Gichin Funakoshi became the first karate teacher to award black belts when he adopted Jigoro Kano's practice of awarding this rank to advanced students. Experiments in kumite training were initiated between 1924 and 1927 at Tokyo University . By 1927 these students were practicing tournament type sparring. All these elements played major roles in the development of Chito-ryu.

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