Headlines from this week lead us into Erika’s story about the Trooper Youth Week Program.  It’s an annual summer camp sponsored by the New Jersey State Police.  It gives kids a first hand glimpse of what it’s like to be a State Trooper.  Campers live in military barracks for 5 days, while learning the skills and discipline of recruit life.

For more information about the Trooper Youth Week program click HERE

After campaigns that allowed fans to appear in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and attend the movie's premiere, online charity platform Omaze and Lucasfilm have teamed for the biggest Star Wars: Force for Change project yet: one that celebrates the past, present and future of the franchise with three separate prizes to delight fans.

The new campaign, offers something for every generation of Star Wars fan: One winner and their guest will get to spend a night at Skywalker Ranch, all expenses paid, with a private screening of Star Wars: A New Hope and tour of the Star Wars archives thrown in for good measure; a second will get to attend the premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi with a guest, complete with red-carpet walk and access to the afterparty; a third will visit the set of the Han Solo movie, meet directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and have the chance to appear in the finished movie. (Additionally, one winner will get to experience all three past, present and future experiences.)

The latest Force for Change campaign is the third collaboration between Lucasfilm, the Walt Disney Company and Omaze, and follows two campaigns linked to The Force Awakens in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The first collaboration alone raised a total of $4.26 million for UNICEF Innovation Labs, a figure that remains the high watermark for an Omaze campaign to date.

"Our goal at Omaze is that we believe that any audience has an opportunity to create impact," Omaze co-founder Ryan Cummins tells Heat Vision, "To be able to partner with a property like Star Wars, there's no bigger audience. To be able to launch these type of experiences, it definitely makes giving fun and easy."

The California-based company's relationship with Lucasfilm and Disney dates back to 2014, when The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams and his wife Katie McGrath were in early discussions with the studios about the potential of Star Wars beyond movies. "While they were launching [The Force Awakens], they wanted to see whether they could do more than just launch the movie, but whether they could create something that could have a real impact," Cummins says.

He continues, "We were fortunate to be involved in those conversations early on, and it was really at the time that [Lucasfilm, Disney and Abrams' Bad Robot] were coming together. In some ways, Omaze was really fortunate to be sitting in the middle to offer them an opportunity to leverage that fan base toward good. We couldn't be more grateful that they were willing to take a chance on us, and we couldn't be happier with the result."

The result goes far beyond creating opportunities for fans to meet their idols or appear in their dream movies — and also beyond the funds raised for worthy organizations. (The latest Star Wars campaign will benefit UNICEF and Starlight Children's Foundation.) For Cummins and Omaze, the success of each campaign builds toward a much bigger ultimate goal.

"As big as this campaign is, I think we're only scratching the surface of what can be accomplished in the charity world," he says. "Individual giving, just here in the U.S., is a $330 billion market, and about 7 percent of that — just 7 percent — takes place online. Really, the whole philanthropic market is living in the past. We really see these types of campaigns as just the beginning for being able to run more and more and more of these, scaling up the number of campaigns and partnering with foundations so that they can amplify their influence, and then taking all this experience international. We really want to innovate philanthropic giving, and make it fun."

More information about the new Star Wars: Force for Change campaign can be found here.

Before the days of digital music players, compact discs, cassette tapes and even the phonograph, people were entertained by mechanical music makers in their own homes. And before television, many relied on automated toys for amusement. The nation’s largest collection of such machines – and one of the largest in the world – was assembled by brewing heir Murtogh Guinness, and it’s at the Morris Museum.

A clown that loses its head and gets it back. A ten-foot high mechanical one-man band. A fairground organ that booms out ragtime tunes. A box that teaches birds to sing. All these amazing, 19th century mechanical marvels and more are on view, many for the first time ever, at the Morris Museum in the permanent exhibition Musical Machines & Living Dolls!

The exhibition features over 150 pieces from its world-renowned Murtogh D. Guinness collection of mechanical musical instruments and automata. Largely dating to the 19th century, these ingenious objects once brought animated, musical entertainment to private settings and public places. Now, through video and audio technology, hands-on activities and live demonstrations of select instruments, visitors can see and hear these beautiful and intriguing historic objects and experience for themselves a largely lost chapter in entertainment history.

For more information, click here

New York lawmakers have approved a plan to make attending public colleges and universities free for students from middle-class families.

The plan, which New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced back in January, was approved Sunday by the state Senate, after receiving the OK from the state Assembly a day earlier. Under the plan, in-state students whose families earn $125,000 or less can participate. Altogether, the program is expected to cost New York $163 million and is expected to benefit roughly 940,000 families.

New York is the first state to offer free four-year tuition. Previously, Tennessee and Oregon created programs that made community college tuition-free — Tennessee’s initiative in particular inspired former President Obama’s free community college plan. A proposed program in Rhode Island that would make the first two years at one of the state’s public colleges tuition-free has met some resistance, even from Democrats.

The New York plan, nicknamed the Excelsior Scholarship, will be phased in over three years: Families earning up to $100,000 a year will qualify in 2017, families making up to $110,000 per year can participate in 2018 and families with income up to $125,000 can take part in the program in 2019.

Tuition at the State University of New York schools costs $6,470 for in-state students, while community colleges cost $4,350 for residents.

The New York program borrows heavily from the ideals put forward by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But while New York succeeded in passing a free tuition program, other states may not see the same degree of success. The Empire State was a bit of a special case, since it was already more generous than most in funding public higher education (though it’s spent less on higher education since the recession.)

And free college initiatives can cost states anywhere from $42.8 million (Delaware) to $4.96 billion (California) in revenue from tuition in just the first year, according to a report released last October by the Campaign for Free College Tuition. Plus, some critics have argued that these programs don’t address other factors that make attending college a difficult proposition for lower-income students, such as needing to work part-time to support their families. And these programs may not help to enrich the funding public colleges and universities receive, meaning ones that are under-resourced may stay that way.

BY Zack Friedman

There is a light at the end of the student loan repayment tunnel.

And it comes at an unlikely time each year: tax season.

Are you maximizing each and every tax benefit on your student loans for college and graduate school? If not, you're not alone. The tax laws can be complicated, and it can be daunting to differentiate between a tax credit and tax deduction.

So, let's make it easy for you.

If you are paying student loans for your (or your child's) education, here are four student loan tax credits and deductions that you potentially can take advantage of this tax season:

1. Student Loan Interest Deduction

With the Student Loan Interest Deduction, you can deduct up to $2,500 each year of student loan interest that you paid on a qualified student loan so long as you are enrolled at least half-time and are working toward a degree. A qualified loan means that you borrowed your student loan solely to pay for education expenses and did not borrow the student loan from a relative or through a qualified employer plan. Examples of qualified education expenses include tuition and fees, room and board, books, supplies, equipment and transportation, among other necessary expenses.

You can only the deduct the lesser of $2,500 and the actual amount of interest that you paid, including any additional, voluntary student loan payments. For example, if you paid $10,000 of student loan interest this tax year, then you only can deduct $2,500 from your taxable income. Since the student loan interest deduction is an "above the line," deduction, you do not need to itemize your deductions.

To qualify for this tax deduction, you must have a modified adjusted gross income of $80,000 or less ($160,000 if married filing jointly).

To find out how much student loan interest you paid over the past year, you should review your Form 1098-E from your student loan lender. As long as your paid more than $600 in student loan interest, you should receive Form 1098-E. If you paid less than $600 in student loan interest, you can still qualify for the student loan interest deduction.

2. The American Opportunity Credit

The American Opportunity Credit is a tax credit that allows you (or a person paying for your education) to claim up to $2,500 per year for the first four years of school as you work toward a degree with at least half-time enrollment. You can apply the tax credit to the costs of college, including tuition and related expenses that are required for enrollment (such as books, supplies and equipment).

This tax credits covers 100% of your qualified education expenses up to $2,000, and then 25% of the next $2,000 of qualified education expenses up to $2,500 total.

To qualify for this tax credit, you must have a modified adjusted gross income of $90,000 or less ($180,000 if married filing jointly). Up to 40% of the tax credit may be refundable.

3. The Lifetime Learning Credit

The Lifetime Learning Credit is a tax credit that allows you to claim up to $2,000 per year for any college tuition, fees, books, supplies and equipment that were required for your course. There is no limit on the number of years that you can claim the Lifetime Learning Credit. To qualify for this tax credit, you must have a modified adjusted gross income of $65,000 or less ($131,000 if married filing jointly). This tax credit is a non-refundable tax credit, which means that the tax credit is limited to the amount of your total income tax owed. Therefore, if the tax credit is more than your income tax owed, you will not receive the excess amount as a refund.

4. Tuition and Fees Deduction

The Tuition and Fees Deduction, which expired in 2016, enabled you to reduce the amount of your income that was subject to income tax by up to $4,000. The deduction could be utilized for you, your spouse or a dependent for your tuition and fees (but not your room and board). To qualify for this tax deduction, you had to have a modified adjusted gross income of $80,000 or less ($160,000 if married filing jointly).

What's the difference between a tax credit and a tax deduction?

A tax credit reduces the amount of income tax that you have to pay. A tax deduction reduces the amount of your income that is subject to income tax.

Does a tax credit or tax deduction save me more money?

A tax credit saves you more money than a tax deduction.

Why?

A tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction of the income taxes that you owe. For example, a $2,000 tax credit means that you save $2,000 in taxes.

A tax deduction saves you the amount of the deduction multiplied by your marginal tax rate. For example, if you are in the 30% tax bracket and qualify for a $1,000 tax deduction, your savings are $300 ($1,000 multiplied by 30%).

Can you claim both the American Opportunity Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit?

Unfortunately, even if you are eligible, you cannot claim both the American Opportunity Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit on your income tax return in the same tax year. You should claim the tax credit that maximizes your savings based on your specific, financial situation.

Can you claim an education tax credit if you also claim an education tax deduction in the same tax year?

Yes. If you claim an education tax credit, you can claim the Student Loan Interest Deduction.

Can you still qualify for the Student Loan Interest Deduction if you are on an Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan or Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) plan?

Yes. The IRS allows you to deduct student loan interest regardless of your student loan repayment plan.

Which IRS tax forms do you use to take advantage of these tax credits and tax deductions?

You can use IRS Form 8863 and Form 1040, and speak to a tax professional for more details.

Is it better to pay off your student loans faster or should you make sure to at least qualify for these tax deductions and tax credits?

You always should strive to pay off your student loans faster. That means making extra payments to reduce the principal amount of your student loans, which will save you money on interest costs. Tax deductions and tax credits are helpful, but you should never make a financial decision solely for tax reasons.

Except in A FEW RARE cases, we can’t directly see planets outside of our own solar system. Just about every time a new exoplanet is discovered, the announcement is accompanied by an artist’s rendering of the world.

The drawings are often impressive feats, managing the tricky task of being both beautiful and scientifically accurate, while depicting something that no one has ever seen before. But each time you see one, you might wonder how closely they represent reality and what part of them is pure fantasy?

“We’re in the job of telling a story with these pictures,” said visualization scientist Robert Hurt of Caltech, who works with NASA to make exoplanet renderings. “The science visualization process is always starting with one or two data points and trying to make an engaging illustration.”

Many new exoplanet discoveries have come from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, a space-based observatory that carefully watched the light of more than 150,000 stars to try and detect a tiny dimming of brightness (though sadly, it suffered a malfunction last year that has rendered it inoperable). This dip represents a planet passing in front of that star and eclipsing its light. Kepler can’t give astronomers much more than a few pieces of information about each exoplanet; its approximate size, the distance from its star, the length of its year, and an estimate of its surface temperature.

The Kepler science team takes this data to Hurt and his collaborator, animator Tim Pyle, and works with them to produce illustrations. Together, they decide what aspects of the exoplanet they want to highlight. Kepler-186f, a recently discovered Earth-sized planet that might have liquid water on its surface, has been designated “Earth’s cousin.” So the image from NASA’s visualization team needed to suggest the idea that this place was a like home, just not exactly.

NASA artists spent a good deal of time figuring out how to make the recently discovered Kepler-186f (a.k.a. "Earth's cousin") look simultaneously like Earth and totally alien.

Hurt and Pyle used a few tricks to do this. The illustration of Kepler-186f (seen in the first slide above) looks at first glance like Earth, with landmasses, an atmosphere, and clouds, but upon closer inspection starts to seem more and more alien. The ice caps, for instance, are larger than ours, and light from the star has a different quality than the white sunlight we receive.

Though Kepler’s data couldn’t say for certain if there’s water on the planet’s surface, it’s a reasonable idea given the distance at which Kepler-186f orbits around its parent star. Therefore, the planet in the drawing has oceans. But to make things less-Earth like, the team went with a 50/50 ratio of water to land, rather than our planet’s 70/30 split. They also discussed the possibility of plant life, talking with astrobiology experts about what color this vegetation might be. Because the star produces more light in the red range of the electromagnetic spectrum, plant life would likely not be the familiar green of Earth, but rather a shade of orange. But because it leaps quite far into speculation, the artists didn’t want to come out and say for certain that there would be plants on Kepler-186f, settling instead on a coppery tint for the landmasses.

“We wanted to be consistent with the idea that there was life or plants, without saying there’s plants there,” said Pyle.

Hurt said color is a powerful part of the artists’ storytelling toolkit, and the closer the overall palette matches Earth’s, the more Earth-like the world is implied to be. Painting an exoplanet’s oceans the same cobalt blue of our own world will make a viewer naturally feel that it’s more like home, while lighter or darker blue shades could imply exoticness. The artists went through several iterations for the Kepler-186f drawing, giving it tweaks to “de-Earth” it, until it represented exactly what they wanted.

This dramatic rendering shows Kepler-16b eclipsing in front of its two parent stars. Illustrator

“We know we’re going to have people running by a newspaper stand, and seeing a headline that reads ‘NASA finds another Earth’ with this graphic next to it,” said NASA’s public affairs officer Michele Johnson, who coordinates Kepler’s press releases. “So we wanted to be very smart about the little we do know, saying this is our best interpretation, with a healthy amount of imagination as well.”

There are of course deviations from what’s physically possible. Most of these artistic shots are positioned behind a planet, with the star’s light on the opposite side. In real life, this would make the planet’s surface pitch black, with only a small sliver of daylight, but the picture needs to give a good view for the reader, instead showing a brightly lit surface. In the case of the Kepler-186f image, four other exoplanets can be seen shining up close to the star (with one even transiting in front of it to remind viewers of Kepler’s method of detection). These planets are far brighter and larger than they would be to an observer at the exoplanet, but serve as embellishments for the sake of a good story.

Depictions of non-Earth-like worlds are where the artist’s imagination really gets to take over. Kepler has found a whole host of strange exoplanets: lava worlds tidally locked to their star, planets disintegrating like comets, and planets orbiting a binary system, like the fictional Tatooine in Star Wars. Because our solar system contains no such planets, Hurt and Pyle follow whatever scientific principles they can for these illustrations. They will use information about the star’s color, for instance, or the surface temperature of the planet to invent creative views that could still be within the realm of possibility and can present relevant information through visual means.

“Ideally what you’ve shown them in the picture gives them a leg up in understanding what they see in the text,” said Hurt.

Becoming a doctor is no easy task. Someone with the initials M.D. behind his or her name has endured college courses designed to weed out the weaklings, spent months studying for the MCAT, survived several years of medical school and completed rigorous internships and residencies. After such years of struggle, it's understandable that some doctors open plush offices and enjoy the benefits of what can be a financially lucrative career. Other doctors may work in notably less luxurious conditions for their entire lives, but only a small few sign up to work in the harshest conditions of all, like war zones and disaster sites.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, as it's known in North America) provides doctors the opportunity to do just that. MSF is an international medical humanitarian organization that provides aid in approximately 60 countries, including Sudan, Somalia and Palestinian territories. The organization's name is slightly misleading, as it's not just doctors in the field, but a vast array of medical professionals such as nurses, midwives, epidemiologists and laboratory technicians. Non-medical professionals, including logistics experts and sanitation specialists, are also essential to the organization's work.

MSF's work has put them in the midst of armed conflict, epidemics and natural disasters, but the organization can also be found in developing countries that don't garner headlines, places where children are severely malnourished and large segments of the population are denied any form of health care. MSF works independently and impartially, meaning that it doesn't kowtow to any governmental regime or discriminate in providing aid. At times, though, MSF has spoken out against injustices its workers have seen, particularly when governing parties have restricted access to victims of conflicts and catastrophes. For its efforts, MSF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

That ability to bear witness to crimes against humanity was one of the driving forces in MSF's creation. Today, 19 offices worldwide work under the MSF logo, but on the next page, we'll travel back to the 1970s and MSF's modest beginnings.

Doctors Without Borders History

The founding of MSF represented a partnership between a group of doctors and a group of journalists, both from France. The doctors had worked for the Red Cross in Biafra during its civil war, after the region's secession from Nigeria. The French doctors became frustrated by the Nigerian troops' treatment of aid workers as well as the administrative requirements that the Red Cross was required to meet to even work in the area. When they returned to France, some doctors broke their contracts with the Red Cross and spoke out about the atrocities they had seen the Nigerian army inflict on the Biafrans. They also began working on ways to provide humanitarian aid and intervention without the regulations imposed upon the Red Cross.

At the same time, a group of French journalists were trying to bring attention to victims of natural disasters in spots like Iran and Bangladesh. The journalists decried French doctors for not helping out with these catastrophes. The journalists and doctors joined forces to create MSF in 1971, but it wasn't until the end of the decade that the organization truly took off. MSF made a name for itself by providing medical aid in a highly publicized mission in Lebanon, as well as through work at numerous refugee camps around the world, most notably Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees in Thailand [source: Brauman, Tanguy].

The publicity helped MSF to grow at a quick pace; offices outside of France opened, and with larger coffers, MSF was able to offer its volunteer medical professionals a small salary. This allowed the organization to deploy more workers to more areas. Though MSF was founded because doctors wanted to tell the world about acts of violence they had seen in the world, that concept wasn't a formal part of the organization's charter until 1979. The idea of doctors bearing witness was put into practice most notably in 1985, when MSF spoke out about the Ethiopian government's forced relocation of famine victims. As a result, MSF was thrown out of Ethiopia.

Though MSF has continued to bear witness, speaking out, for example, about the Rwandan genocide and the Russians' treatment of the Chechen people, workers' first priority is providing medical aid to people in crisis. Find out what the job is like -- and if you're cut out for it -- on the next page.

Working for Doctors Without Borders

When a group of workers arrives to a field site, they are charged with providing medical care in the midst of some of the most stressful situations imaginable. They come armed with MSF's premade medical kits, which contain a vast array of supplies needed for a given situation; if workers are fighting epidemics, they may bring the vaccination kit, while workers with the surgical kit will have everything they need to operate. Having these kits ready-made allows MSF to respond to emergencies quickly.

Despite this logistical legwork, field staff face primitive and dangerous conditions. They may travel to see patients by canoe or by camel. Doctors have been victims of kidnappings and killings, though so far, MSF has only pulled out of North Korea and Afghanistan for reasons related to staff safety. Those selected to work in the field go through in-depth security briefings as part of the rigorous training process.

For a doctor, a day's work may include seeing patients, training local caregivers and arranging shipments of food to the malnourished. It's difficult to describe what the experience will be like; returning volunteers have described feeling "useless" in the face of such gigantic problems [source: Bortolotti]. It's easy to be frustrated by the things that can't be accomplished or by the people who can't be saved, but participants say that it's an eye-opening and vibrant program.

Working with MSF isn't the kind of thing a medical student could do to pad his or her resume; applicants must have two years experience in their position and meet profession-specific requirements. Knowledge of French is helpful, as is other relevant work experiences abroad. Applicants must also be willing to leave their lives behind for a minimum of nine to 12 months once they are assigned. Assignments are made based on field needs after a selective screening process. Only about 10 percent of a field mission's staff is composed of international professionals; the rest of the 27,000 workers providing services in the field are locals [source: MSF].

It's not a question of whether you are legally intoxicated, it's a question of whether or not it is safe to drive when you have consumed any amount of alcohol. Research shows that impairment begins long before a person reaches the blood alcohol concentration level necessary to be guilty of drunken driving.

The Legal Limit for Drunk Driving

In all 50 states, the legal limit for drunk driving is a blood alcohol concentration(BAC) level of .08.

A 120-pound woman can reach a .08 BAC level after only two drinks and an 180-pound man can be at .08 after only four drinks.

A "drink" is either one shot of liquor, a five-ounce glass of wine or one beer, all of which contain the same amount of alcohol.

At a .08 BAC level, drivers are so impaired that they are 11 times more likely to have a single-vehicle crash than drivers with no alcohol in their system. But 25 years of research has shown that some impairment begins for both males and females even after one drink.

At .02 BAC Level

At the .02 blood alcohol concentration level, experiments have demonstrated that people exhibit some loss of judgment, begin to relax and feel good. But tests have also shown that drivers at the .02 level experience a decline in visual functions, affecting their ability to track a moving object and experience a decline in the ability to perform two tasks at the same time.

These changes may be very subtle and barely noticeable to the person who has had only one drink, but in an emergency situation while behind the wheel of a vehicle, they could cause the driver to react (or not react) as they would without having had a drink.

At .05 BAC Level

At the .05 BAC level, people begin to exhibit exaggerated behavior, experience loss of small-muscle control -- such as being able to focus their eyes quickly -- have impaired judgment, lowered alertness and a release of inhibition.

If someone with a BAC level of .05 gets behind the wheel, they would be operating the vehicle with reduced coordination, a further diminished ability to track moving objects, more difficulty in steering and a markedly reduced response in emergency situations.

At .08 BAC Level

When someone drinking is approaching the borderline of legal intoxication, studies show that he or she has poor muscle coordination -- affecting their balance, speech, vision, reaction time and hearing -- find it more difficult to detect danger, and exhibit impaired judgment, self-control, reasoning ability and memory.

A driver with a BAC of .08 will find it more difficult to concentrate, judge the speed of the vehicle, experience reduced information processing capability and exhibit impaired perception.

Slower Reaction Time Can Be Dangerous

For the person who is drinking, the above impairments may be hardly noticeable at the time, but the slow reaction times that they can produce could prove fatal in an emergency driving situation. That's why it is not a good idea to drive no matter how much or how little that you have had to drink.

There is another consideration: Alcohol affects people differently. Some people have a higher response to drinking alcohol than others.

In other words, people with a high response to alcohol can experience signs of impairment at the .02 BAC level that others do not experience until the .05 level.

What Is a Safe BAC Limit?

For this reason, in some states, drivers can be arrested for driving while impaired even if their blood alcohol concentration is lower than the legal limit if the law enforcement officer believes he has probable cause based on the behavior and reactions of the driver.

It's simply not a wise choice to get behind the wheel no matter how much you have had to drink. The only safe driving limit is .00 percent.

It is a common belief that Karate is a Japanese martial art. In truth, however, there is a Japanese strand of Karate which has descended from the original version of martial arts, the Okinawan Karate. Japanese Karate can be differentiated by the length of stances while the development of competition Karate has resulted in more elaborate movements and is often more about showmanship than practicality.

The Okinawan Karate of today has developed over centuries and was not the result of a single founder, as many schools of martial arts have been. Many masters contributed to the art’s development – hence it is a combination of Chinese martial arts (quanfa in Chinese and kenpō in Japanese).

It was not called Karate at this time. It was referred to as ‘te’ or ‘bushi no te’ and ‘bushi nu tii’ in Hogen; the latter meant ‘the hands of the gentleman warrior’. In Okinawan, the term ‘bushi’ referred to a gentleman warrior, one who was an expert in ‘te’. In Japanese, ‘te’ referred to a samurai warrior. The main purpose of the Okinawan martial art is to be a gentleman first, and a warrior second.

The ‘bushi’ of Okinawa were not a military force of the Kingdom. In fact, due to the weapons ban imposed in 1507 after the states of the Ryūkyū Kingdom were united (which discouraged classical fighting), there was no proper military force, and so the term ‘empty hands’ was fostered. This was not when karate first began to be developed, however.

In 527 A.D, Bodhidharma (a Buddhist monk known by Daruma in Japanese) traveled from India to China’s Henan Province to impart the teachings of Buddhism to the monks of the Shaolin Temple. The Shaolin monks were too weak to endure the long hours of meditative practice, however, so Bodhidharma taught exercises that would strengthen their bodies and minds. These exercises formed the basis of the Shaolin boxing styles comprising of external and internal methods. These systems found their way to various parts of China, including the Fujian Province in the South.

The group of Shaolin performs at Shaolin Temple in Dengfeng of Henan Province, China © Sihasakprachum / Shutterstock

It was in Quanzhou in Fujian that a monastery is believed to have once existed, but was subsequently destroyed by the Qing Emperor Yong Zheng. The monastery has been in the process of rebuilding since 1992. It is plausible that the Quanzhou monastery did exist since Okinawan Karate is related to two schools known as Shōrin Ryū and Shōrei Ryū. The former refers to Master Matsumura’s Karate lineage as well as the Northern Temple of Shaolin. The latter refers to Southern Chinese martial arts which were largely brought back to Ryūkyū from Fuzhou in Fujian, as writings describe.

Monk performs Chinese martial arts called Shaolin Kung Fu (Shaolin Wushu) at Shaolin Temple Monastery ©  gnoparus / Shutterstock

Shōrin Ryū and Shōrei Ryū are also called Shaolin Liu and Shalian Liu, meaning Shaolin style and Shalian style, respectively. Shalian style refers to the Shalian Temple which strongly supports the belief that there was a Southern monastery in Quanzhou, much like the Shaolin Temple of the North. Even if quanfa was only brought to Okinawa from Fuzhou after the Shalian Temple was no more, the monastery is certainly related to the systems. Yet it is possible that before it was destroyed, envoys that traveled to Okinawa from China may have taken monks of the Shalian Monastery with them.

Since the Ryūkyū Kingdom became a key trading post because of its proximity to Japan, China and Taiwan, Okinawan culture was greatly influenced by its neighbors, particularly the Chinese. It was thus inevitable that Chinese martial arts would find their way to Ryūkyū. It is difficult to track a precise history of the martial art because Karate was shrouded in secrecy for centuries. There are consequently very few written records supporting the art’s development.

Karate was not developed by peasants and farmers as they would not have had the time to study such things. Moreover, they were of the appropriate station to meet the Chinese envoys, the sapposhi, who traveled to Okinawa and brought aspects of Chinese culture back with them. It is also unlikely that they traveled to China with the trade ships to study the martial arts. However, there were so-called ‘commoners’ who studied karate initially under Okinawan masters and elevated their position to serve various kings at Shuri Castle.

Shuri Castle in Okinawa, Japan © Sean Pavone / Shutterstock

There is a story of the second generation master Shigetaka of Jigen Ryū Kenjutsu, who was asked to teach farmers and peasants to be able to defend themselves with farming implements, a practice which is equivalent to kobujutsu―it is not known whether they are related. It may be that either Okinawan kobujutsu influenced the decision for Master Shigetaka to teach the Japanese farmers, or the actions in Japan influenced the Okinawans. It is believed, however, that kobujutsu was purely formed in Okinawa as a reaction to the 1507 legal changes, pre-dating Master Shigetaka. Japanese influences are most likely to emanate from much earlier and have a connection to the weapons practices prior to the changes of law in the Kingdom.

The Okinawans once practiced both unarmed and armed combat openly. This was in the time of conflict between the provinces of Ryūkyū, prior to 1429. Military capability had developed through tribal developments and from the Japanese of the Heian Period, travelling to Ryūkyū and returning with the knowledge of swordsmanship and archery.

© paul prescott / Shutterstock

In 1509, it was King Shō Shin who put an end to the feudalistic period of the Ryūkyū Kingdom through the Act of Eleven Distinctions, which prohibited the stockpiling and possession of weapons. As a result, unarmed combat began to be cultivated more vigorously.

It was before this in 1372 that the Chinese made contact with Ryūkyū for the second time in over 700 years, establishing the most powerful domain of the island, Chūzan, as a tributary colony. Consequently, in 1393 the Chinese mission known as the “Thirty-six Families” was established in Kuninda, Naha. It is plausible that the Chinese would have transmitted some of their knowledge of martial arts during this mission.

Another possibility is that exchange students in China (ryūgakusei) learnt Chinese martial arts and took these back to Okinawa. Additionally, within the class system of the Kingdom, the pechin were responsible for law enforcement. Thus, the chikusaji pechin (‘street cops’) were responsible for law enforcement while the hiki (‘garrison guard’) would guard the King and the castle, essentially acting as Okinawa’s military. The people holding these positions would have been at least partially responsible for cultivating Ryūkyūan martial arts.

© Kobby Dagan / Shutterstock

In 1609, the Satsuma clan of Kyūshū, Japan, invaded and seized control of Ryūkyū. The clan held power over the Ryūkyūan kings for 270 years. When the Satsuma took power, they prohibited the practice of all martial arts by the Okinawans. It is said that the Okinawans fought fiercely before the Satsuma samurai over-powered them.

Kobujutsu would probably have existed at the time, permitting effective defence against the samurai. The bushi also could have taken the weapons of the samurai to use against them. Nonetheless, they were not successful in defending their island from the Japanese, so Karate became shrouded in secrecy during the Satsuma occupation.

Shuri Castle Gate ©  jakavut patanapanlert / Shutterstock

Rather than ceasing practice, martial artists began to study at night in darkness to continue to preserve their fighting arts without easily allowing others to see them practising. Only Okinawans knew that the art was practised.

Although the dual concept of kenpō and te together as karate had not yet been developed, both were present by the time of the Satsuma occupation. ‘Karate’, in its embryonic form, evidently existed from the 15th or 16th century.