Unit 6 · Okinawa and Korea

The Ryukyu Islands are a long chain in the sea. They stretch south from Japan toward Taiwan. The biggest island is Okinawa. For centuries these islands had their own kings, their own court and their own languages.

The kings lived in a castle at Shuri, on Okinawa. Ryukyu sent ships to China with gifts for the Chinese emperor. Chinese ships and envoys came back. Ryukyu also traded with Japan, Korea and ports in Southeast Asia.

In 1609 soldiers from Satsuma, a domain in southern Japan, invaded Ryukyu. After that, Satsuma controlled much of the kingdom. In 1879 Japan ended the kingdom and made it Okinawa Prefecture. The last king was sent to Tokyo.

Okinawans had an old unarmed art often called te. Te simply means hand. We have few written records of how it was taught. Most lessons passed quietly from one teacher to a few students.

Ryukyu had close ties with Fuzhou, a port city in China’s Fujian province. Okinawan students, officials and traders spent time there. Some of them studied Chinese boxing arts. A village of Chinese families, called Kume, also lived near Naha on Okinawa.

Okinawans came to write the art with two Chinese characters. They meant Tang hand, or China hand. Tang was an old name for China. The characters could be read tōde or karate. The name itself showed where some of the ideas came from.

Karate on Okinawa was not one school. Teachers in Shuri, Naha and the village of Tomari each had their own lessons. Later writers called these Shuri-te, Naha-te and Tomari-te. The names mean the hand of each town.

Itosu Ankō taught in Shuri. He lived from 1831 to 1915. He worked for the royal government before the kingdom ended. Funakoshi Gichin was one of his students.

Higaonna Kanryō taught in Naha. He lived from 1853 to 1915. As a young man he went to Fuzhou and studied there for years. His student Miyagi Chōjun later founded a style called Gōjū-ryū.

After 1879 Okinawa followed Japan’s school system. Japan wanted strong, healthy students and future soldiers. In the early 1900s, Itosu Ankō helped bring karate into Okinawan schools as physical education. This meant school lessons for the body.

Teaching a whole class was new. Old teachers had taught one or two students at a time. Itosu made simpler lessons that many children could learn in rows. He named a set of beginner kata Pinan. A kata is a fixed pattern practiced alone, like a written piece of music.

In 1908 Itosu wrote a letter with ten points about karate. It was meant for school officials. It said karate was for health and for building character, not for hurting people. Historians still read this letter as an early plan for karate in schools.

Funakoshi Gichin was born in Shuri in 1868. He became a schoolteacher. He studied karate with Itosu Ankō and with another Shuri teacher, Azato Ankō. He also wrote poems under the pen name Shōtō.

In 1922 Funakoshi showed karate at a demonstration in Tokyo. A demonstration is a public showing, not a contest. Kanō Jigorō then invited him to show karate at the Kodokan, the judo school. That same year Funakoshi published a book about karate.

Funakoshi stayed in Tokyo. He was poor at first and lived in a dormitory for Okinawan students. He taught students from universities and wrote more books. He died in Tokyo in 1957.

In the 1930s, Japan and China were moving toward war. The name China hand now sounded wrong to many people in Japan. Teachers looked for a new way to write karate.

They kept the sound karate but changed one character. The new characters meant empty hand. Funakoshi used the new writing in his 1935 book Karate-dō Kyōhan. He explained empty as a hand without a weapon, and also as a mind free of bad thoughts.

In 1936 senior karate teachers met in Naha, on Okinawa. They agreed to use the empty hand writing. They also added dō, which means way. Karate became karate-dō, the way of the empty hand.

In 1924 Keio University in Tokyo started a karate club. It is often named as the first university karate club in Japan. Funakoshi taught there. Other universities soon started clubs too.

Karate took ideas from judo. Clubs began to use a white uniform and colored belts. They also used dan ranks, the black belt levels that Kanō had created for judo. This made karate look like other Japanese school arts.

Different teachers named their own styles. A style is one teacher’s line of lessons with its own name. Funakoshi’s became known as Shotokan, from his pen name Shōtō. Miyagi Chōjun’s was called Gōjū-ryū. Each style kept its own kata and its own ranks.

World War II ended in 1945. The Battle of Okinawa that spring killed a huge number of people, many of them Okinawan civilians. After the war the United States ruled Okinawa. It returned Okinawa to Japan only in 1972.

Large American military bases stood on Okinawa. Some service members trained with Okinawan and Japanese karate teachers. When they went home, a few opened karate schools in the United States. Karate schools spread across American towns in the 1950s and 1960s.

In American storefronts, names began to blur. A sign might say karate over a room that taught a Korean or Chinese art. Many Americans used karate as a word for any art from East Asia. The teachers behind the signs came from many different lines.

Karate grew into a world sport with its own federation. A federation is a group that sets rules and runs contests. The World Karate Federation runs the Olympic kind of karate. It chose shared rules so that many styles could meet.

Karate joined the Olympic program for the Tokyo 2020 Games. The Games were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and held in 2021. Karate had two kinds of events. In kata, judges scored a solo pattern. In kumite, two athletes faced each other under a points system.

The Olympic sport was chosen for Tokyo, not for every Games. Karate was not on the program for Paris 2024. Okinawa built the Okinawa Karate Kaikan, a center for karate history and training, which opened in 2017 in Tomigusuku.

Korea has very old games of strength. Wall paintings in tombs of the Goguryeo kingdom show two men wrestling. Goguryeo ruled northern Korea and part of Manchuria about 1,500 years ago.

Ssireum is Korean wrestling. Pairs meet in a sand circle, and village festivals held ssireum matches for centuries. In 2018 UNESCO listed ssireum as cultural heritage. North and South Korea asked for it together.

Taekkyeon is an older Korean art with flowing, dance-like movement. Paintings and writings from the Joseon era show it as a game and contest. In 2011 UNESCO listed taekkyeon as cultural heritage of Korea.

In 1910 Japan took over Korea and made it a colony. A colony is a land ruled by another country. Japan ruled Korea for 35 years. Korean schools had to teach in Japanese, and Korean customs were pushed aside.

Judo and kendo were taught in Korean schools and police training under Japanese rule. Some Korean young men went to Japan to study at universities. There, a few joined karate clubs and trained for years.

Japan’s rule ended in 1945, when Japan lost World War II. Koreans call that day liberation. The Korean men who had learned karate came home. They would soon open schools of their own.

After liberation, several new schools opened, mostly in Seoul. Each was called a kwan, a Korean word for a hall or school. Chung Do Kwan and Moo Duk Kwan were two of the best known.

Most kwan taught lessons based on the karate their founders had learned. They used Korean names for it. Some called it tang soo do, the Korean reading of China hand. Others called it kong soo do, the Korean reading of empty hand.

The Korean War began in 1950 and stopped in 1953. Fighting divided the country and destroyed much of Seoul. When the kwan reopened, many of their teachers had served in the South Korean army.

In 1955 a group of teachers and leaders met in Seoul to pick a new name. They chose taekwondo. General Choi Hong-hi, an army officer who ran a kwan, is often named as the one who proposed it.

The name has three parts. Tae means foot or to kick. Kwon means fist or hand. Do means way, the same word as the Japanese dō. Together it means roughly the way of foot and fist.

The new name sounded like taekkyeon, the older Korean art. That was on purpose, many historians say. Leaders wanted a name that pointed to Korea, not Japan. Not every kwan used the new name at first.

In the early 1960s, South Korea’s government pushed the kwan to unite. They formed one national association. It changed its name more than once. By 1965 it was called the Korea Taekwondo Association.

The association set shared ranks and tests. The South Korean army trained soldiers in taekwondo. Korean instructors went abroad too, including to Vietnam, where South Korean troops served in the 1960s.

Not everyone agreed about who should lead. In 1966 Choi Hong-hi founded the International Taekwon-Do Federation in Seoul. Later it moved its headquarters out of South Korea. Two taekwondo bodies, with different rules and forms, still exist today.

In 1972 Kukkiwon opened in Seoul. Its name means national hall. It is the headquarters of taekwondo in South Korea. Kukkiwon gives out dan certificates, the papers that record black belt ranks, to students around the world.

In 1973 the World Taekwondo Federation was founded in Seoul. It set rules for contests between countries. In 2017 it shortened its name to World Taekwondo. It runs world championships and the Olympic events.

Kukkiwon also set new forms in the early 1970s. They were named Taegeuk, after the red and blue circle on South Korea’s flag. They replaced older forms borrowed from karate. In 2018 South Korea passed a law naming taekwondo its national martial art.

Seoul hosted the Summer Olympics in 1988. Taekwondo appeared there as a demonstration sport. That meant it was shown at the Games, but its medals did not count. It was shown again in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992.

In 2000 the Olympics came to Sydney, Australia. Taekwondo became a full medal sport there. Men and women each had four weight classes. That made eight events, with the same number for women and men from the start.

Many countries won medals, not only Korea. This showed how far the sport had spread. Taekwondo has been on the Olympic program at every Summer Games since Sydney.

Early contests were scored by judges pressing buttons. Fans and coaches often argued about the scores. World Taekwondo brought in electronic scoring, with sensors in the body protectors. The London 2012 Olympics used this system.

Olympic contests use a set weight class, a round clock and a square or eight-sided mat. These rules let athletes from any country meet on fair terms. The rules also reward some scoring moves with more points than others.

Doors opened for more athletes. Para taekwondo, for athletes with impairments of the arms, joined the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. Those Games were held in 2021. Refugee athletes have also competed under a refugee team flag.

Some people call taekwondo Korean karate. There is a true part to this, because taekwondo has karate roots. The first kwan teachers had trained in Japanese karate. Their early forms and belts came from karate.

But taekwondo leaders changed much after 1955. They chose a Korean name and built national bodies. Kukkiwon wrote new Taegeuk forms. World Taekwondo wrote contest rules that are different from karate’s rules.

Leaders also made taekwondo a national symbol and tied taekwondo to older Korean arts such as taekkyeon. Historians still debate how close that tie is. Today taekwondo is taught in more than 200 countries, many of which belong to World Taekwondo.

Every martial arts school has a safety routine. Students warm up and check the floor before they move.

1. Have a grown-up nearby who knows you are practicing.

2. Clear a space. Stretch your arms out and lift one knee. If you touch nothing, the space is big enough.

3. Bare feet are best on a mat. On a smooth floor, wear sneakers, not socks, so you do not slip.

4. Warm up for three minutes: march, swing your arms in big circles, and lift your knees.

5. Watch each move in the Dojo first. Try it slowly, then a little faster.

What helps: practice each move a few times on one side, then the other. Short, regular practice works better than one long try.

Stay safe: strikes and kicks go into the air, never at a person. Keep kicks at knee or belly height. Falls happen only on a mat or soft grass, with a grown-up. Stop if something hurts.

Okinawan karate and Korean taekwondo both teach a long front stance. Karate calls it zenkutsu-dachi; taekwondo calls it ap kubi.

1. From a ready stance, step one foot forward, a long step.

2. Bend the front knee until it is over your toes.

3. Keep the back leg long and almost straight, with the back heel down.

4. Face your hips and chest forward. Hold, then switch legs.

What helps: keep your feet hip-width apart side to side, like standing on two train tracks, not a tightrope.

Stay safe: the front knee stays over the toes, never past them.

Karate and taekwondo both teach blocks that cross the body. In an inside block, the forearm sweeps from the outside toward your middle. Schools name blocks differently, so a teacher’s word may change.

1. Stand in a front stance with fists at your waist.

2. Raise one arm out to the side, elbow bent, fist at shoulder height.

3. Sweep the forearm across toward the middle of your chest. Stop in front of your body.

4. Pull the other fist back to your waist at the same time. Switch arms.

What helps: keep the elbow bent the whole time, about a right angle.

Stay safe: block the air in front of you. Never block a person’s arm in practice.

The front kick is one of the first kicks taught in karate (mae-geri) and taekwondo (ap chagi).

1. Stand with one foot forward, hands up in front of your chest.

2. Lift your back knee to belly height. This is the chamber.

3. Push the foot forward into the air at knee or belly height. Pull your toes back and use the ball of the foot.

4. Bring the foot back to the chamber, then put it down. Switch legs.

What helps: hold a wall with one hand at first. Lift, kick, back, down: four counts.

Stay safe: kick the air at knee or belly height. Never kick toward a person or a pet.