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Yun Mu Kwan (or Yun Moo Kwan or, sometimes, Yeonmuguan) is one of the original styles of Korean karate introduced into Korea in the mid-twentieth century and after by a number of Korean men who had studied, while their country was under Japanese occupation, at universities in Japan. Karate (or Empty Hand) was a form of generally unarmed, hand to hand combat developed on the island of Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands which became part of Japan some time in the 16th century. It's name originally meant Chinese Hand because the various fighting methods that made up the tradition were said to have derived from the fighting systems of southern China, including Southern White Crane. These systems (sometimes "ch'uan fa" or "fist law" and "kung fu wu shu" or "high achievement martial arts") were introduced into Okinawa by traveling Chinese merchants and seamen and, later, by members of Chinese communities that eventually established themselves in the Ryukyu kingdom (prior to its annexation by Japan). In time the systems practiced by the Okinawans took on a distinctly Okinawan flavor (some say because they merged with indigenous fighting systems), although the Okinawan-Chinese connection was maintained for centuries with Okinawan martial artists often traveling back and forth to the Chinese mainland to study with particular Chinese masters.

In the 1880's Japan was undergoing modernization after contact with American naval forces and much of their old martial traditions were in danger of being lost with the elimination of the old samurai or warrior class. Jigoro Kano, a Japanese educator, studied and systematized some of the old indigenous Japanese hand to hand fighting systems known as ju-jutsu to create a modernized variation based on using non-resistance, momentum and leverage (common principles in the various ju-jutsu systems of old Japan) which he called judo (the way of softness or non-resistance). Judo soon became a popular sport in a rapidly modernizing Japan, incorporating within itself many of the old samurai traditions -- which the Japanese called budo (way of the warrior). In the 1920's, with judo increasingly popular and a newly modern and increasingly miliant Japan on the rise along the Pacific rim of Asia (and Okinawa firmly a part of modern Japan), another educator, this time from Okinawa, traveled to the Japanese mainland with his own fighting system, based on strikes and kicks.

Yun Mu Kwan, which means the Hall (or Institute) of Martial Study, was one of the earliest Korean karate styles, established in 1946 by a young Korean named Chun Sang Sup. Chun began teaching at a place called the Chosun Yun Mu Kwan, the center at that time for judo training in Korea. He had been a student of Funakoshi so his basic style was the Shotokan which was then being taught by its Japanese founder (although it was less formalized than it is today). Chun disappeared during the Korean War in the early fifties and his place as the head karate teacher was eventually taken by ________ who had studied karate under ________ in Japan and who renamed the style Ji Do Kwan (Jidokwan) which means the Hall (or Institute) of Wisdom's Way. Eventually Jidokwan was absorbed with most of the other original Korean "kwans" into the new national art of taekwondo. However, some practitioners of all the original kwans, including Jidokwan, remained outside the new system (which was soon adopting new, Korean-specific standards and traditions to further differentiate itself from the older Japanese karate). Yun Mu Kwan practitioners can be found outside of Korea in many places today, especially in Latin America where the system took hold. For the most part it has remained very much a Korean style of karate, becoming increasingly like its taekwondo relatives by emphasizing limberness, athleticism and leg work, and competing in taekwondo tournaments. To a large extent, most forms of Yun Mu Kwan today are indistinguishable from the kind of high kicking Korean karate that taekwondo represents. However, one variant of the style developed in New York City where a Korean practitioner of the style brought it with him when he emigrated to the United States.

Locating his school, which he called (somewhat redundantly) the Yun Mu Kwan Karate Institute, close to New York City's Chinatown district, he soon became involved with a number of practitioners of various styles of kung fu and his methods of practice and teaching began to change by absorption of elements of these Chinese systems. Min Q. Pai came to the United States at the age of __________ where he worked __________ and studied mathematics at __________ before beginning to teach his Korean fighting art full time in the lower Manhattan area. His early students fought on the tournament circuit, many of whom became champions though many others found themselves on the losing end of matches for using Chinese techniques the tournament judges were then unfamiliar with. Disgusted with the closed mindedness of his fellow karate teachers at that time, Min Pai began to withdraw more and more from involvement in tournament activity, then (and still) a mainstay of American karate. By the late 1960's to the early 1970's, Min Pai's teaching methods had begun to change sharply. Initially introducing kung fu techniques into the classic Shotokan based kata (pre-set practice routines) he had inherited via Yun Mu Kwan, he dropped those kata by 1972 in favor of more kung fu based forms which he derived from Chinese systems as diverse as Hung Gar, Southern Praying Mantis, Choy Li Fut, and Wing Chun. Most importantly, by then he had become a student of fourth generation Yang style T'ai Chi Ch'uan master Cheng Man-Ching who had emigrated earlier to New York City from Taiwan. Cheng was a renowned student of Yang Cheng-Fu, the grandson of the founder of the Yang style of t'ai chi, Yang Lu-Chan. It was his training under Cheng that effected the most marked change in the style and methods of Min Pai. By 1973, his style, except for its general karate format, was no longer recognizable as the old Yun Mu Kwan for he had abandoned the old emphasis on high kicking and the hard, direct and aggressive methods of classic Shotokan in favor of principles of movement derived from t'ai chi (yielding to give way and redirect an opponent's force, sensitivity to force in order to facilitate the yielding and circular bodily movement on an imaginary central axis which provides the directional element in meeting an incoming attack). Despite the significant differences in methods he had adopted, Min Pai retained the name Yun Mu Kwan until ________ when he adopted the new name of "Nabi Su" (meaning "butterfly hand or way") after the name he had given a form he had devised in his later years to capture and crystallize the changes in combat methods he had embraced. A number of his former students, however, continue to practice the style he had once called Yun Mu Kwan under its older name.