Funakoshi found himself standing alone in the center of his dojo, offering up prayers for his fallen students. Then, tragedy struck. In 1945, during an air raid, the Shotokan was decimated in a rain of bombs. Although Funakoshi remained unscathed, what had been built with promise and generosity was no more. Compound this with the fact that Gigo succumbed to tuberculosis in the spring of the same year and one can only imagine the extent of emotional turmoil experienced by Funakoshi during this fateful period. Still, Funakoshi persevered, teaching and writing, albeit with the assistance of his instructors, far into his 80s.
Certainly, other qualified masters were concurrently forging their brand of karate in Japan coupled with their unique kata. Chief among these was Kanken Toyama (1888–1956) of Shudokan fame who, while in Okinawa, studied alongside Funakoshi under Itosu for eighteen years. Although an elementary school teacher by profession, Toyama augmented his martial arts training with lessons in chuan fa while living with his family in Taiwan. His instruction exposed him to nampa, a southern-style Chinese martial art from which the spear hand strike (pyeon sonkeut chigi) is alleged to have evolved. Subsequently, upon his return to Tokyo in 1930, he opened his first dojo, teaching a mixture of Itosu’s Shorin ryu karate and chuan fa, although never laying claim to the development of a separate style. Later, in 1946, Toyama taught at Nihon University and founded the All Japan Karate-Do Federation with hopes of consolidating the varying styles of Okinawan and Japanese karate beneath a single umbrella.
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