Vovinam adopted as the official color for Vovinam uniforms. A separate development of the "Việt Võ Đạo Federation" in 1973 until 1990 the uniforms' color was black. In the summer of 1990, Vovinam masters from around the world met at the International Vovinam-Viet Vo Dao Conference in California with the goal of creating a structured organization for Vovinam Việt Võ Đạo outside Vietnam (the International Vovinam-Viet Vo Dao Federation). One of the decisions was that the suit in Vovinam Việt Võ Đạo were now to be blue worldwide. The student begins with a cyan belt - the same color as his/her
Japanese martial arts in other schools it is practiced as a sport. literally means "empty hand". It is also sometimes called . Karate originated in and, is technically, Okinawan, formerly known as the Ryūkyū Kingdom, but now a part of present-day Japan. Karate is a fusion of pre-existing Okinawan martial arts, called ""te"", and Chinese martial arts. It is an art that has been adopted and developed by practitioners on the Japanese main island of Honshu. Karate's route to Honshu began with Gichin Funakoshi (船越 義珍 "Funakoshi Gichin", 1868–1957), who is called the father of karate, and is the founder of Shotokan karate.