Karate in the next Olympics

[Ros]

So, karate will be among the 5 new sports added to the 2020 Tokyo Games.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/36968070

Hmm, I can see this having potential good and bad effects; can't imagine it will have anything to do with knockdown though.

[meguro]

I agree, nothing to do with knockdown. I expect this will make my point fighting friends more unbearable.

[azam]

Posted this on sherdog - thought it might be applicable here too:

"Yeah that's not a surprise that Karate made it's way into the 2020 Olympics.

There was from the beginning an effort to have a federation of different karate styles/organisations coming together in a bid to get Karate into the olympics. Not to mention a huge drive to get public support behind them - which they were managing to do quite successfully with millions of signatures as a way to seek olympic approval especially within Japan for obvious reasons.

I don't think it will be a good or bad thing for Karate as a whole. I mean in all honesty the budo/martial arts aspects of Karate have been eroding for a long time now - to the point that I'd say a lot of them aren't even martial arts but sports with a tiny bit of budo thrown in - so it doesn't completely become a sport & retains some martial arts-ness. So I don't think Karate making it to the Olympics will make that much of a difference.

Roventu makes a good point as well - that Olympic status can get more potential people into martial arts which is always a good thing. Those that practice for several years will eventually come across the budo/martial arts aspects - so it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Also just to add further there is no guarantee that Karate will make it beyond the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. I think it depends on the popularity of it in the Olympics and whether this popularity can be maintained or sustained outside of Japan. It's no secret that Karate is significantly bigger in Japan than it is outside of Japan - by quite a large margin because after all it's native to the area.

I'm not to sure if we will see it as a regular Olympic sport after 2020 especially when it's not that much differentiated from TKD."

[Ros]

I agree, Azam - not sure if it will feature after the Tokyo games.

[GJEC]

Look what happened to TKD

A club in every village and the majority of them were crap.

They still pull in huge numbers though so the new breed of instructors will never go back to working for a living and doing MA for the sheer challenge of it.

Karate will go the same way within a generation.

Gary

[Tay]

Aug 11, 2016 14:24:16 GMT -5 GJEC said:

Look what happened to TKD

A club in every village and the majority of them were crap.

They still pull in huge numbers though so the new breed of instructors will never go back to working for a living and doing MA for the sheer challenge of it.

Karate will go the same way within a generation.

Gary

Exactly my thoughts.
This is what I posted on Sherdog about it:

"That's terrible news

This means the sport of karate will go even more mainstream, leaving behind the martial art / budo aspects of Karate as well as the full contact styles of karate.
This has many negative consequences such as:
-The perception of Karate by the general public will be this non-contact sport in which competitors bounce up and down and try to land the first strike before the fight is reset, instead of understanding what Karate really is. This only damages the reputation of Karate further.
-There will be a higher demand from parents and kids for dojos and lessons of that specific sport karate, leaving behind true Budo Karate and its respectable styles.
-As a consequence of the above point, this means we will potentially see the opening of even more McDojos.

You just have to see what happened to Tae Kwon Do and Judo since their inclusion in the Olympics..."