Tae Kwon Do v. Karate?

[HighKick]

20 years in what direction? If earlier:

If later (2005) then you're saying TKD still much resembled Shotokan in 1985 and had not yet come into its own as a unique system. I'll leave it to the TKD experts here to debate this point.

As I said, the main point was not the timeline, but the line of significant divergence from its ancestor. Again, this is subjective. I am aware that TKD has been changing in recent decades as it searches for its own identity and will say it's no longer just a variant of Shotokan but its own unique style, as separate from Japanese karate as that is from Okinawan karate.

All of your comments are at least 20-years late. Closer to 40-years.

 

[Galahad25]

TKD was previously Tang Soo Do which was Korean branded Shotokan in the 1940s. TKD was developed as to bring together all of Korean schools under one heirarchy in 1950s but some stayed with Tang Soo Do and they deviated from there. Different grandmasters had different approaches to executing most movements but can run from trivial to what I'd consider slightly different due to focus on particular approaches to fighting. I've started in Shito-Ryu now but Tang Soo Do it is closer to Shito-Ryu than Tae Kwon Do is. Some TKD organizations use very different forms but sparring scoring is very different.