Unlike Matsumura, Itosu aimed to promote karate as a modality of physical and social development in the public school system of Okinawa, influenced by Hanashiro.

He voluntarily replaced the old ideogram of to/tang (唐), by that of kara (空), because of their phonetic similarity, to slightly modify the meaning of the term.

In the early quarter of the twentieth century, Hanashiro was recognized as a great expert in karate, still pioneering the teaching of martial art in the indigenous educational system in Okinawa.

[5][2] Another notable event in his life: while in Tokyo in 1936, with his fellow student and lifelong friend, Kentsu Yabu (1866–1937), he visited Shōshin Nagamine, then a student at the police school, to order him to respect the katas in their original form, unlike what he had seen in local dōjōs, where the taught katas were so altered that they had little in common.

His most eminent disciples were Shigeru Nakamura (1892–1969), Chitōse (1898–1984), (founder of Chitō-ryū, not to be confused with Kenwa Mabuni's Shitō-ryū), Nakama Chōzo (1899–1982), who later became a disciple of Choshin Chibana, Shimabukuro Zenryō (1904–1969), founder of the Shōrin-ryū Seibukan"Seibukan Shōrin-ryū school) and Kinjō Hiroshi (1919–2013).