The Project Description of the 6th East Asian Games:Karate

　　Karate

　　Sports history and introduction

　　It is also known as empty-handed,which is a martial art that originated from the Ryukyu Kingdom (now in Ryukyu Islands). There are different opinions about the origins of karate.It was a statement that was mostly recognized by the academia saying that the predecessor of karate was martial arts"Ryukyu hand" or "hand" of ancient Ryukyu,which was mixed the martial arts originated from China, was known as "Tang hand" by the Ryukyuans; later it was also acceptted by the impact of the Nippon Budokan, becoming modern "Karate".

　　Sports venues and equipments

　　In the Ryukyu Kingdom’s era,historical materials had no records about Karate’s uniforms. The martial arts people were mostly naked practicing karate shown by the photos before the Pacific War. Kiyan Wu Zhaode mentioned that naked upper body was to strengthen the toughness of the skin in the book“Boxing summary” published in 1929. However, during Yuren Huang Prince's visit to Okinawa Shuri Castle in 1921, commanded by Yung Yi Ren in the main hall and performed, people were wearing white T-shirts and practicing martial arts. During Funakoshi Yi Zhen doing martial arts in Kodokan Yanwu in 1922,today’s Karate uniform was made out by hand according to the style of the Judo’s uniform which bought white kapok from Kanda habitat.

　　This was the first karate uniform written by the literature. Karate uniform’s advertising was published in “empty-handed research”in 1934 and began to sell in the early Showa period. Due to the differences between karate and Judo, karate uniforms are gradually improved and become what it is today.Shown from today's karate uniforms, traditional karate’s uniforms are slightly different from key-style karate’s uniforms.