NAHA, Okinawa -- Ever since Chaucer wrote his "Canterbury Tales," April has been connected with pilgrimages to sacred places.

This April, I made a pilgrimage to my holy land, Okinawa.

Ever since I began practicing karate decades ago, I longed to visit its birthplace, a peaceful island where weaponless people developed an ethical but effective empty-hand means of self-defense. That art has morphed -- or degenerated -- as it moved from there to the main islands of Japan and around the world. I wanted to experience the real thing.

The problem was that one usually needs an invitation or introduction to train with many traditional masters. But this winter, I learned about a weeklong seminar there organized by Classical Fighting Arts magazine and taught by the leading teachers. The classes would be small, with personal instruction from people I'd read about for years.

I was hooked.

To get in shape -- and avoid disgracing West Virginia -- I doubled up on training, even mimicking Okinawan methods of hojo undo, which involved things like swinging around sledgehammers and throwing and catching iron dumbbells a couple hundred times a day.

It kept me off the streets anyway.

Civilization

According to anthropology books, someone on a vision quest must undergo an ordeal involving suffering to purify the soul. This was no problem -- 24 hours of economy-class air travel and layovers more than fit the bill.

Okinawa today is a prefecture of Japan, although for centuries it was an independent kingdom. It's the largest of the Ryukyu Islands, more than 900 air miles south of Tokyo in the East China Sea. Naha is the largest city, with a population of more than 300,000. It's crowded, but also full of parks and shrines that serve as islands of calm.

The courtesy and kindness of the islanders has been legendary for centuries. I liked that people actually bow to each other, something martial artists do all the time. In the U.S., bowing carries the submissive connotation of "bow and scrape," but there it is a gesture of mutual recognition and respect. It was nice to be someplace where it even happens in convenience stores.

Another sure sign of civilization was the elegant budokan, or martial arts training facility, built and maintained at public expense, complete with pond, park and shrines where we would spend most of our days. It was a busy place.

One day after our training, some young schoolgirls came with weapons in hand for naginata practice. A naginata in the day was a staff with a blade at the end sometimes used by women to defend the home. Today, steel has given way to bamboo and wicker, but the art lives on as a budo (martial) way of developing body and spirit.

The girls giggled at us and greeted us in English. We giggled and greeted them in Japanese, then pointed at their naginatas and asked as best we could for a demonstration.

It didn't take a lot of pleading. They demonstrated several two-person routines, then giggled and bowed. We applauded, giggled and bowed ourselves before waving goodbye.

Just another day in Naha.

Shuri Castle

While the budokan was the anchor of our trip, we did get out a little. Three places stand out as central to the story of Okinawa as well as that of the major styles of karate that we studied.

First was Shuri Castle, the center of government of the old monarchy. Destroyed in World War II, it has been rebuilt to resemble the original. Shuri was originally a separate city but has been absorbed by Naha.

According to tradition, many masters of the Shorin-ryu karate style were associated with the court and some may have been bodyguards for the royal family. Shorin is Japanese for Shaolin, the name of the famous Chinese Buddhist temple celebrated in many martial arts films. Bodyguarding was a bit complex because most people were forbidden to carry arms -- which is where the karate came in. Things got even tougher in the 1600s when the Satsuma clan from Japan invaded. It was probably around that time karate became a clandestine activity, often practiced at night in secret locations.

Shorin-ryu is characterized by fast, whiplike movements that generate power from the body's center of gravity.

One teacher, Minoru Higa, was particularly demanding. Like most of our teachers, he was in or near his 70s but in amazing physical condition. During one of his sessions, someone estimated that we threw 2,700 punches and 200 kicks in not much more than half an hour.

Most people, Higa explained, stop when they become fatigued. But if one trains past the point of fatigue, wasted thoughts and motions fall away and correct technique emerges. I loved it and managed to train a couple of times at his private dojo learning the traditional version of old Naihanchi forms. These are symmetrical fighting movements performed in a horse stance without turning, as if one had one's back to a wall or cliff -- or if one were protecting a member of the royal family.

The Chinese connection

Naha is a port city and once had the reputation of being wild and woolly. Okinawa enjoyed wide trade and diplomatic contacts, thus lots of interesting people and rough characters passed through. Ties were especially close to southern China, which had a sizable Okinawan community. Those ties are celebrated at the Fukushuen Garden in central Naha.

The Naha styles of karate were heavily influenced by southern Chinese fighting systems. If the Shorin style was rapid and whipping, Goju and Uechi-ryu emphasize sheer physical toughness and emphasize close-range fighting, combining striking with grappling.

Goju emphasizes strength development, dynamic tension and special breathing. It develops the ability to absorb as well as dish out powerful techniques.

Uechi-ryu seemed downright savage, with unusual strikes using fingers, the thumb knuckle, and the knuckle of the index finger as well as kicks with toes. Uechi stylists practice a version Sanchin that is done faster and with open hands.

The arms and hands of Naha-te stylists literally have been turned into weapons and look like them, too. Most styles toughen the hands by hitting the striking board. Equally impressive -- or scary -- were their forearms, which sometimes appear to have been tattooed. Hours of arm-pounding exercises have turned them into the equivalent of baseball bats.

It's a good thing that the people who practice it are generally nice.

History's winners and losers

Okinawa has been dealt some tough cards by history. In the 1870s, Japan formally annexed it and attempted to wipe out the indigenous culture and "Japanize" the population. Okinawans were conscripted into the Japanese army and other imperial projects during that country's phase of militarism and imperialism. It is said that the founder of Uechi-ryu went to China in the late 1800s to avoid conscription and mastered his style while there.

During World War II, island residents suffered terribly during the "typhoon of steel," as the Battle of Okinawa is known locally. As many as 200,000 people died during the last major land engagement of the war. Many were victims of atrocities committed by the Japanese army, which engaged in massacres and used civilians as human shields, although many perished as collateral damage to U.S. bombardment or were killed in the crossfire.

Today, the Peace Memorial Park outside Itoman commemorates the worst of the fighting. Now a place of beautiful beaches, cliffs and shrines, it is hard to imagine the hell on Earth it once was.

Even though the war wasn't their idea, Okinawans bore the heaviest postwar burden of any Japanese territory. The U.S. directly administered it from 1945 to 1972 and built massive military bases, displacing local landowners. Crimes such as rapes committed against Okinawan civilians by some military personnel continue to be a sore spot.

Given all that, it's a wonder that Okinawans are so nice and among the longest-lived people. It's not unusual for people to live to 100 and sometimes beyond while leading active lives.

And that Okinawan age group has borne with grace all that history threw at them. I saw that spirit of resilience in our teachers. As one sensei put it, "In Okinawan karate, we do not train to win or to defeat others. We train so as not to be conquered."

Through all the storms of war and global politics, the Okinawan spirit remains unconquered to this day.

Rick Wilson is area director of American Friends Service Committee, West Virginia Economic Justice Project.