Shigeru Egami was born in 1912 in the prefecture of Fukuoka, he was one of the earliest students of Gichin Funakoshi but more than this, he was one of his most faithful and correct followers. Funakoshi left the Shotokai organization, in his capable hands.

Egami had known Funakoshi since he was 18 years of age, this was the average age at which to begin practicing Karate in the prestigious University of Waseda, there he helped to establish its Karate Do Club.  Prior to this he had practiced judo, kendo and aikido. He stayed with Funakoshi for several years along with Yoshitaka and Shimoda giving demonstrations to all of Japan to spread the new Japanese martial art.

In 1937 he was elected Member of the Evaluation Committee by Gichin Funakoshi, the youngest instructor to receive that honour. He taught Karate-Do at the Gakushuin, Toho and Chuo Universities.

After the death of Gichin Funakoshi in 1957, Shigeru Egami initiated the task of changing the reputation from the "deadly art"  to 'Karate', something that Funakoshi tried to do all his life. His idea was to clearly state that Karate-do is a fight against yourself, with self sacrifice, taking therefore the philosophical basis of the art to all other aspects of life. The essential concept was the one of self-realization and fulfilment, over the fighting abilities. As a direct consequence Egami eliminated many concepts on the victory in combat, looking for a physical harmony, a balance of the human being through the practice of Karate-do.

Master Egami varied the mechanics of some techniques, the zone of blow, the displacements, etc. His method became more fluid, more continuous. Much emphasis is in the relaxation and the development of perfect kime was put in, focusing all the energy in a single point.  In addition, Shigeru Egami eliminated all technique that were considered ineffective or doubtful, using the criteria that techniques had to be natural.

Shigeru Egami never compromised one essential aspect of Karate-do, and that was to avoid all sport oriented combat and Karate. He considered that when competing, too much was modified in the spirit and the training of Karate-do, saying that this would be clear once you understood that Karate is much more than winning fights.

Although it is clear that the technique showed an evolution during the life of Gichin and Yoshitaka Funakoshi, something that remained invariable was continued by Shigeru Egami and that was the spiritual and formative aspect in that he followed the way drawn up by Gichin Funakoshi but revitalized the 'Do' (way). One of the great legacies of Egami was exactly that, avoiding commercialization, to dilute and to destroy Karate-do through sport competition and to deepen the study of the internal and philosophical aspects of the art.

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