Eind 2024 leverde Nobuaki Konno sensei al een mooie bijdrage over de weg van Karate naar de Olympische Spelen. Dhr Konno is fervent supporter en adviseur van de KBN en is vaak te vinden bij KBN evenementen, toernooien en KBN vergaderingen.

Karate schitterde op de Olympische Spelen van Tokyo 2021. Kort daarna werd karate weer afgevoerd als Olympische sport tot grote teleurstelling van de mondiale karate-wereld. Achter de schermen wordt er hard gewerkt om karate weer op de Olympische agenda te krijgen. Een Olympisch pad helpt om karate wereldwijd nadrukkelijker op de kaart te zetten. Dat is goed voor iedereen die Karate do beoefent. Dank Konno sensei voor deze tweede bijdrage oer dit onderwerp!

“Karate to Olympic again!” by N. Konno

“Tradition and sports are not opposites, but can enforce each other.”

Anton Geesink

The origin of Karate started from the 15th century in Okinawa. For many centuries there were no Dan and colour belts systems in Karate. Around 1900 we may say that Karate was formed as the modern Karate with various Karate styles.

As I mentioned in my previous column (https://www.kbn.nl/2024/08/27/towards-karate-to-olympics-again/), Sensei Gichin Funakoshi made his Karate demonstration in Tokyo in 1922. Sensei Hironori Otsuka could get Karate lessons from Sensei Gichin Funakoshi who was a founder of Shotokan and could communicate and exchange ideas with other martial arts like Jujutsu and Kenjutsu (now called Kendo). Then, around 1930 Sensei H. Otsuka created Wado-Ryu and followed by Shito-ryu (founder: Sensei Kenwa Mabuni) and Gouju-Ryu (founder: Sensei Chojun Miyagi) and also many other styles which were all influenced by Okinawa Karate.

The year of “Tokyo Olympic” in 1964, Japan Karate-Do Federation (JKF) was founded by gathering several styles and as time passed, Federations, Associations and Scholarships of Karate were inaugurated. In 1966 JKF could organize the 1st All Japan Karate-Do Championship at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. It was a milestone Championship because it was held by gathering several styles together under the one competition rule, not by one style only. WUKO (https://wuko.net/) was founded in Tokyo in 1970 and organized the 1st World Karate-Do Championship in Japan following the idea of JKF. At the same time, by several styles, many championships with different rules were also organized at a tremendous pace and each Championship was developed separately in and outside of Japan by using same protectors such as: Judge, time and several different competition rules with or sometimes without hitting/kicking.

Fortunately, in 2016 IOC decided to include Karate as one of the Olympic sports during “2020-TOKYO”. From that moment on Karate became not only more popular, but also moved more towards IOC’s ideas while also keeping the traditional values. And moreover, the Olympic Karate could give all athletes the chance to train and learn especially Katas from many different styles in order to fairly compete for Olympic medals. Therefore, we can say that the Olympic Games could bring all Karate athletes back to the original idea of before 1920, which allowed people to learn different ideas about Karate from each other.

The Future Olympic Karate needs to continue to evolve the competition rule towards “Clearer”, “Safer” and “Fairer” and surely it will continue to evolve techniques towards IOC’s ideas. The traditional Karate can continue to improve their techniques not only by trainings and demonstrations, but also by their own examinations. And it would be good if people of one Karate style could train other styles as well, like WKF did during the “TOKYO-2020” Olympic Games. In this way, tradition and sports can enforce each other. And as a result, different styles can stimulate and evolve each other positively and also can fascinate much more spectators towards “Karate to Olympic again!”.