Can my daughter take Karate and Taekwondo at the same time?

[drop bear]

Could your daughter take up soccer foot ball and tennis?

Could she learn 3 languages?

Could she learn salsa sambo and ballet?

Kids do this all the time without confusing them.

I am not sure why martial arts has this special category.

 

[skribs]

Soccer football and tennis would be a good analogy for taking Judo and Karate. Badmitton, tennis, and racquetball would be a better analogy for karate + TKD. They would be very similar, but with slight differences in trajectory and how you swing.

 

[Danny T]

I am a proponent of children, teen, and adults having the capacity to learn and excel in multiply things over the same time periods.
I so am certain of this that our youth programs include, Shotokan and Combat Submission Wrestling for our beginners, at 4 -6 months we advance them into our intermediate program which adds Muay Thai & Pekiti-Tirsia Kali to the curriculum. At about the 2 1/2 year level we start moving them into our youth Master Program and here they continue with Shotokan, CSW, Muay Thai, Kali, and we add Wing Chun to their training. Each is taught as a part of their training but is taught as a separate aspect of training. We do not combine or blend the instruction but the students do when it comes to sparring. They are allowed to use whatever works in whatever manner they can.
The thing is they are learning several different martial systems and methodologies. They have an understanding of how the different movements can be different applications and they can use them in a multitude of ways to solve the problems they face in sparring; whether it is standing and striking, standing and clinching or grappling, on the ground striking or on the ground grappling and with or without weapons. And, they learn all of it over the course of the same time period.

Biggest draw back. They don't do great in Forms Competition because nothing we do is flashy. They have never done well in Weapons Competitions because we don't throw our weapons, we hang on to them and use them properly. We do ok in the point competitions though we get a lot of points taken away and lots of D.Q.s for being overly aggressive. (Gotta love that.) We do very well in continuous sparring, boxing, muay thai, wrestling, no gi and mma competitions.

The thing is people can learn at lot in a relatively short time and can be quite good at it. If it is presented in a manner that allows that to happen. There are numerous schools, gyms, training centers that instruct multiply arts to their students at the same time. I'm certain you child has the capacity to learn multiple arts as well.

 

[skribs]

Biggest draw back. They don't do great in Forms Competition because nothing we do is flashy. They have never done well in Weapons Competitions because we don't throw our weapons, we hang on to them and use them properly. We do ok in the point competitions though we get a lot of points taken away and lots of D.Q.s for being overly aggressive.

If you're going to be competing in something, you should try to win, which includes properly preparing for the competition and learning the rules. Getting a lot of penalties is NOT a good sign. I'm not sure about your competitions, but the forms competitions I've done are based on pacing, stance, technique, etc...not on flash.

 

[drop bear]

Soccer football and tennis would be a good analogy for taking Judo and Karate. Badmitton, tennis, and racquetball would be a better analogy for karate + TKD. They would be very similar, but with slight differences in trajectory and how you swing.

Dance is the best. And dancers often multi discipline. Salsa samba tango all very similar but also very precise in their differences.

 

[drop bear]

If you're going to be competing in something, you should try to win, which includes properly preparing for the competition and learning the rules. Getting a lot of penalties is NOT a good sign. I'm not sure about your competitions, but the forms competitions I've done are based on pacing, stance, technique, etc...not on flash.

Our guys do the occasional bjj comp for giggles. Nobody bothers to specifically train for them.

 

[skribs]

Our guys do the occasional bjj comp for giggles. Nobody bothers to specifically train for them.

Still, if you have a lot of penalties, such that you lose a lot of points and are sometimes DQ'ed, that reflects badly on you. If I was going to a competition that I wasn't specifically trained for, I would at least read the rules and try not to break them.

 

[Mark Lynn]

I created an account to ask this question. My daughter is 7 and wants to take both Karate and Tae Kwon Do. Me and my wife are thinking she coukd do Karate and Mondays and TKD on Fridays. But, I heard from some people that Tae Kwon Do and Karate are very similar, so would she get confused if she did both at the same time? Or are they different enough?Can she do both at the same time, or should she dedicate to one till she is a black belt and try the other one later?

In reading the posts on this discussion there is a lot of good advice on your problem.

From my perspective as an instructor who teaches kids your daughters age, FWIW here is my opinion.

All of the posters who expressed views about the instructor and the class hit the nail on the head, this is the most important thing. Does your daughter enjoy the class and the instructor, and is the curriculum sound (as in age appropriate). I don't see the need in studying multiple arts at this age as in TKD/Karate, but it would be wise to have her try out different classes at different schools and watch them. Then base your decision on both her input (which classes she likes) and your observation of the class and the teacher and the schools requirements (as in attendance, costs, schedules, sign up fees, contracts etc. etc. etc.) and go from there.

Yes the TKD and the Karate can be similar but they can be at other ends of the spectrum as well, but similar enough to cause confusion in a young mind. Say school A teaches more on a self defense mode on the karate base, and the other school B teaches a more tournament style based on the TKD. At the beginning levels it might seem the same but fast forward a year or so and things start to widen apart, as she gets into advanced intermediate stage of her training even more so, and in advanced levels (under BB) what might be good in one school is anathema in the other school. For instance in the SD focused school you would never throw your sword in the air and catch it for a kata, but in the tournament school she might be required to do that over and over and over again to get the timing of the move down for her to compete with.

Or let's say the TKD school is based on Olympic style TKD (continuous sparring, emphasizing kicks) and the Karate school does semi contact point sparring, similar techniques but different strategies, different games to play etc. etc. Or how about the one school possibly counting in Japanese or using the Japanese names for techniques and the other using Korean.

In regards to the students learning more than one art at a time from the same instructor, I've done that in my classes as I teach Modern Arnis and the TKD (which is a blended or bastardized version itself). I use to let my advanced TKD students cross train over into the Modern Arnis when they reach 13, yeah they had a good time but eventually their training suffered by them having to choose one or the other. Trying to make both classes they weren't able to focus on the one. Now that I teach a complete Junior Modern Arnis program I'm making the students choose one or the other I also lowered the age that would teach Modern Arnis to) I . I still have two that I let cross train between programs; the younger one is an exceptional student at 10, the older one (who's 13/14) has a more difficult time with it, both are learning the two programs earning rank in both of them. I also have two younger ones at 10 who are transitioning over to the JMA class, but they are struggling in doing both, so they will be forced to decide which program they will learn.

I'm a firm believer in the whole cross training thing, and I felt the Modern Arnis (The Art within you Art) would be a nice bridge, in fact for the advanced belts in my TKD program most of the self defense related material is based on the Modern Arnis. It works well, but for students trying to learn another complete art; new terms, different concepts, different ranges, different drills, different forms (kata, Anyos), locking etc. etc. it can be very over whelming especially to the younger students.

As adults we have the life experiences to base our understanding on, we can think conceptually, we can place things in the proper boxes. I think that is a bit much for the young kids.

As to your last question should she stick with one till she is a BB then go to another, again that depends. Especially having been grounded in one art such as the TKD (or the karate); if you moved, or the class fell out of favor etc. etc. then she could without to much of a transition go to the other style and pick it up. This can be done at any level below BB or above.

 

[PhotonGuy]

I would have to agree with some of the people here that doing both arts at the same time would be too confusing especially for a beginner and especially for somebody who is 7 years old. I would recommend starting with Karate as usually in Karate they don't go crazy in trying to get you to learn a hundred different techniques within your first few weeks. Instead, in Karate they focus on only a few techniques but they are effective. From my experience with TKD they often try to teach you too much too soon.

 

[cqbspartan]

Correct,both are similar...except one is Japanese and one is Korean...but after that are similar in the grand scheme of things...she could do both because there are minor differences but not necessary to do so...you said it is she who wants to do both...that is a 7 year old asking to train both...I say don't spend your money on both arts that are so similar...if you want to do more than one, try Judo or Aikido, Jeet Kune Do, or something entirely different...or wait til she gets older to do a second art...maybe now you could get her into gymnastics, softball, volleyball, soccer or some other sport for the cross training to develop more of her athletic skills