Karate at the 2020 Summer Olympics
The karate competitions at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will feature eight events. It will be the debut appearance of karate in the Olympics. Karate is part of the 2020 programme as one of five sports added specifically for 2020 rather than as a permanent sport. Two disciplines karate will be featured. Kumite ("grappling hands") is the sparring discipline and will have three weight classes each for men and women. Kata (martial arts) is the form discipline and will have one event each for men and women. Every event will consist of 10 competitors.
Yun Mu Kwan
Yun Mu Kwan (연무관, the 'Hall or Institute for Martial Study') is the name of a now all but forgotten Korean karate (Kong Soo Do) style, one of the original five styles or "kwans" that arose in Korea after World War II in emulation of the karate systems practiced in Japan and Okinawa. It was begun by Korean karateka Chun Sang Sup, after his return from Japan, where it is generally thought that he studied Shotokan karate under the direct or indirect tutelage of that system's founder, Gichin Funakoshi, an Okinawan educator who first brought karate to Japan from the Ryukyu Islands (annexed by Japan in the nineteenth century). Chun taught at the Yun Mu Kwan for only a few years before disappearing during the dislocations of the Korean War which began in 1950. Many of his former students eventually began training again at a different location under different teachers and under a new name: Jidokwan (meaning the 'Hall or Institute for Wisdom's Way'). The Jidokwan was subsequently rolled up, along with most of the other Korean "kwans" into the newly systematized Korean national combat sport of "Taekwondo" (meaning "Foot Fist Way") in the mid 1950s. This new, unified Korean martial art emphasized different training and fighting methods than did the older Japanese karate styles from which it was derived, including stressing higher, fancier kicking and more acrobatic movements. Unlike the other kwans, however, the "Yun Mu Kwan" name disappeared very early in the history of Korean karate and so was never formally consolidated into the new Korean national sport of taekwondo—although some practitioners of Korean karate today still make use of the name. Most, but not all, have adopted the techniques, training methods and competitive rules which characterize modern taekwondo.