Karate in Japan
The sport has declined in popularity and is more popular abroad. Karate at the 2020 Summer Olympics is going to be a debut event at the Summer Olympics.
Karate in Japan
Karate itself was born in Okinawa (actually a string of islands off the coast of Japan known as the Ryukyu Islands). It is said that in ancient times a style known simply as “te” (literally “hand”) emerged from the influence of the aforementioned Shaolin Kung Fu. In the 1920s a public school teacher named Gichin Funakoshi introduced what was, by then, called kara-te into mainland Japan.