"Jill" told me her 5 year old son Eric was taking Tae Kwon Do (Korean martial art) and asked if I could come up with an appropriate craft, so I put this one together.

Anne was very helpful to point out the origins of the different martial arts.  Karate is Japanese,  King Fu is Chinese, and Taekwondo is Korean.  Thank you.

Materials:

• toilet paper roll,
• scissors,
• glue,
• paper,
• a printer

Instructions:

• Print out the craft template of choice.
• Color (if using the black and white version of the craft) and cut out the template pieces.
• Glue the large rectangular piece on first to cover the tube.
• Glue on the belt, head, arms, and legs (you can glue them onto the front of the toilet paper roll or make it look like he's sitting down (flying through the air).  Or just cut off the shoes and glue them to the bottom of the tp roll.  Draw a black marker line down from the belt to make it look like legs.

Templates:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Karate Craft Template   (color)   or   (B&W)

Thanks to Sean for providing this summary!

Karate-do translated means way of empty hand.  It's origin is traced to the 6th century A.D., when a monk, Bodhidharma, traveled overland from India to China, across the Himalayan Mountains.  After settling in Hunan Province, China, he established a monastery and began teaching Zen Buddhism.  He developed a series of fighting techniques in which the monks trained to become both physically and mentally stronger.  Soon, they were formidable warriors.  

Over a period of many years, the monks became scattered throughout China.   Where they settled, they brought with them this knowledge, and began teaching others.   As merchant trade developed between China and the Ryukyu Islands, of which Okinawa is the largest, those fighting techniques were transmitted from the Chinese to the Okinawans.  The Okinawans merged their new found knowledge with the already existing combative techniques indigenous to Okinawa, known as Te.

These skills remained in Okinawa, passed on generation after generation.  In 1922, Karate reached Japan.  This introduction was through the Okinawan Master Gichin Funakoshi.  Karate flourished in Japan, and from there began to spread throughout the world. 

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