Karate is a fight practice whose beginnings are unknown, but which developed highly in Okinawa, an island of the Nipponic archipelago. In early times, karate used to be a secret practice. It became a public practice in the twentieth-century, by the practice of Gichin Funakoshi, who named it karate-do, or 'the way of empty hands". In doing so, he gave a doctrinal character to the art of karate, so that it could serve to develop a sense of personality and not just a way of fighting. In this study, we present a theoretical survey of the psychopedagogical ideas and spirituality of karate through the perspective of the cultural paradigms contained in Funakoshi's thought. The influence and complement of Confucian philosophy and Zen-Buddhism, in addition to the practice influenced by bushido, was made evident. This allows us to understand Funakoshi's thought regarding psychopedagogical ideas and spirituality.
Karate; psychological ideas; combat sports; spirituality