Japanese Text Karate Karate has offensive and defensive techniques. Offensive techniques include thrusts with the hand, fist and leg, as well as arm strikes and kicks. These are warded off with defensive techniques.
Competitions are either a series of kata forms displaying different techniques, or free sparring.
Some karate schools do not practice kata at all. Karate began as a style of Chinese boxing, and developed on Japanese soil in Okinawa. Karate has more than 3,000,000 followers in Japan and another 30 million throughout the world. A naginata has a long shaft with a curved blade at one end. Today, it is practiced mainly by women.