KARATE HISTORY - Karate (2F) (English /kə'ra:ti:/) is a martial art developed on the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It developed from the indigenous martial arts of Ryukyu Islands (called te (F)) under the influence of Chinese martial arts, particularly Fujian White Crane.

Karate (2F) (English /kə'ra:ti:/) is a martial art developed on the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It developed from the indigenous martial arts of Ryukyu Islands (called te (F)) under the influence of Chinese martial arts, particularly Fujian White Crane.

Karate is now predominantly a striking art using punching, kicking, knee strikes, elbow strikes and open hand techniques such as knife-hands, spear-hands, and palm-heel strikes. Historically and in some modern styles grappling, throws, joint locks, restraints, and vital point strikes are also taught.

A karate practitioner is called a karateka (2¹ 家).

Karate developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It was brought to the Japanese mainland in the early 20th century during a time of cultural exchanges between the Japanese and the Chinese. It was systematically taught in Japan after the Taisho era.

In 1922 the Japanese Ministry of Education invited Gichin Funakoshi to Tokyo to give a karate demonstration.

In 1924 Keio University established the first university karate club in mainland Japan and by 1932, major Japanese universities had karate clubs. In this era of escalating Japanese militarism, the name was changed from (Chinese hand or Tang hand) to 2 (empty hand) - both of which are pronounced karate - to indicate that the Japanese wished to develop the combat form in Japanese style.

After World War II, Okinawa became an important United States military site and karate became popular among servicemen stationed there.

The martial arts movies of the 1960s and 1970s served to greatly increase the popularity of martial arts around the world, and in English the word karate began to be used in a generic way to refer to all striking-based Oriental martial arts.Karate schools began appearing across the world, catering to those with casual interest as well as those seeking a deeper study of the art.

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After several decades of rapid worldwide growth, several competitions started to attract karate athletes from several countries during the 1960s.

The different styles of karate, diversity of the rules and lack of unified protocols that govern any type of competition indicated a need to create an international governing body comprising united National Karate Federations that could start to address these issues from a unified global perspective.

Ryoichi Sasakawa, President of the Japan Karate Federation (JKF) and Jacques Delcourt, President of the European Karate Union (EKU) jointly proposed a series of meetings that would produce not only the first amalgamated international rules for sport Karate, but also the establishment of the World Union of Karate Do Organizations (WUKO) on October 10, 1970.

Tokyo was the site where WUKO was inaugurated and where the first WUKO World Championships were held. Portland, Oregon hosted the first meeting of the fledgling WUKO Directing Committee, the objective of which was to lay the foundation for the future of unified sport Karate.National Karate Federations recognized by their National Olympic Committees and Highest Sport Authorities soon became members and thus WUKO became the most important world governing body for Karate.

The integration of several new organizations during the 1990s saw WUKO membership increase to 150 National Federations. Therefore, a new name that would more accurately reflect the size and scope of the organization was needed. The name of the first International organization representing sport Karate was thus changed to World Karate Federation (WKF) on December 20, 1992.