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Yun Mu Kwan karate


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.

Yun Mu Kwan (or Yun Moo Kwan or, sometimes, Yeonmuguan), the "lost kwan" (because it disappeared so early in the history of Korean karate), is one of the original Korean karate styles, now known as Taekwondo, which were derived from Japanese karate in the mid-twentieth century by a number of Korean men who had studied, while their country was under Japanese occupation, at Japanese universities. Karate-do (or "Way of the Empty Hand") was a form of generally unarmed, hand-to-hand combat developed on Okinawa Island, part of the Ryukyu archipelago (annexed by Japan in 1872) which reflected the influences of the kung fu styles then practiced in southern China. Karate was first brought to Japan from Okinawa by the Okinawan educator Gichin Funakoshi, who had trained in the Shuri-te tradition of Okinawa te ("Okinawan hand"), or karate — a tradition that emphasized aggressiveness and direct lines of attack and defense. Other Okinawan karate masters followed him to Japan including Kanken Toyama, Chojun Miyagi, Kenwa Mabuni, and Uechi Kanbun, each with his own variation of what Funakoshi was then calling "kempo" (a Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese "ch'uan fa" which translates, roughly, as "law of the fist" and is sometimes used in China in lieu of the more familiar "kung fu" and "wushu"). Funakoshi adopted much of the systematic training format Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, had developed for his art, including white uniforms (the "gi") similar to those worn by judo players, the structured teaching format which begins with formal stretching and warm-ups, progresses to basic techniques and then to fixed routines (kata) and finally to practical applications on the mat. He also adopted judo's colored belt ranking system, culminating in the now universally recognized black belt.


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