Hoping to see karate included in the universal physical education taught in our public schools, I set about revising the kata so as to make them as simple as possible. Times change, the world changes, and obviously the martial arts must change too. The karate that high school students practice today is not the same karate that was practiced even as recently as ten years ago [this book was written in 1956], and it is a long way indeed from the karate I learned when I was a child in Okinawa.

The ultimate aim of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants.

It is important that karate can be practiced by the young and old, men and women alike.

A student well versed in even one technique will naturally see corresponding points in other techniques. A upper level punch, a lower punch, a front punch and a reverse punch are all essentially the same. Looking over thirty-odd kata, he should be able to see that they are essentially variations on just a handful.

Put Karate into your everyday living, that is how you will see true beauty.

True karate is this: that in daily life one's mind and body be trained and developed in a spirit of humility, and that in critical times, one be devoted utterly to the cause of justice.

One of the most striking features of karate is that it may be engaged in by anybody, young or old, strong or weak, male or female.