The first recorded advent of karate, or tode as it was then known, is generally agreed to have been in the latter part of the 18th or early 19th century, when a Chinese going by the name of Kusanku (also Ku Shanku or Koso Kun) displayed his Chineses boxing and grappling skills on the Okinawa to a delighted audience. Tode (also to-te or tuti, lit. Chinese hand) can be taken to mean Chinese boxing,
although it was antedated for several hundred years by a martial art known simply as ti (later this term was Japanised to 'te', meaning hands) which is still in existence and has affected the technical and fighting forms of some modern karate styles. Generally speaking, the introduction of tode (i.e. karate) to Okinawa was effected by either Okinawans who studied Chinese boxing in China or Chinese, like Kusanku, who taught it on Okinawa. Tode began to be called karate in the first half of the 20th century and although its introduction since its debut has been a continuous process, most of the karate which is taught today is, contrary to popular belief, based on the Chinese boxing (mostly from the Fuchou area) that was introduced to Okinawa between the years 1850-1950, reaching its peak of introduction towards the end of the 19th century. Grand Master Seikichi odo was one of the first Okinawan masters to incorporate a complete system of Okinawan Kobudo into a traditional karate system, adding the weapons officially to the system soon after his designation as Master. This resulted in the break with karate purists and the formation of the Okinawan Kenpo Karate Kobudo system in the mid -1970's. The "League" of which Seikichi Odo was President, was dissolved and Seikichi Odo, Seijiro Maehara, Kenko Chibana, and others formally incorporated the Karate of Kobudo into one system, forming the "Okinawa Kenpo Karate Kobudo Association." In 1998 Odo Sensei officially changed his style name to Ryukyu Hon Kenpo Kobujutsu.
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