What are some differences between Karate and Taekwondo?

[Dirty Dog]

Choi Hong Hi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

General Choi was not the founder of TKD. He was the founder of the Oh Do Kwan and the ITF. Not Taekwondo.

 

[MAfreak]

german wiki says he gave the name taekwondo. and people should stop believing that arts like karate or taekwondo are thousands of years old. their ancestors, mostly chinese martial arts, surely are.

whatever to get the point if the OP takes a look on the biggest federations and their free fighting style, itf and wtf (or whatever they are called now) taekwondo and wkf karate, he will see more similarities than differences.
whyle itf closer to wkf than the "olympic style" wtf.

wtf

itf

wkf

except of the fact tkd does full contact.
the general training like forms will be even more similar.
i think the karate styles have more differences to each other than tkd has to shotokan.

 

[IcemanSK]

The date on the Chung Do Kwan piece bellow is incorrect. Chung Do Kwan was opened in 1944, not 1945. Gen. Choi was a student of Grandmaster Won Kuk LEE. This makes it appear as if they were contemporaries. That was not their relationship. They were master & student.

It's funny that people keep saying this.

• Shotokon - Won Kuk Lee, Byung Jick Ro, Choi Hong Hi
• Shūdōkan - Byung In Yoon
  
• Shitō-ryū - Kwe Byung Yoon

Even if you ignore the influence of Chinese martial arts, there's at least three different styles of karate alone that were represented in early taekwondo.

 

[dancingalone]

german wiki says he gave the name taekwondo. and people should stop believing that arts like karate or taekwondo are thousands of years old. their ancestors, mostly chinese martial arts, surely are.

The farthest any karate-ka can claim a fully direct inheritance towards old training methods received through their lineage is probably somewhere in the last half of the 1800s. Most in fact probably use training drills and conventions born immediately before and after WWII.

The same can be said for the Chinese styles. Somewhere in the 1800s at best. Beyond that we're talking legends (not necessarily a bad thing).

whatever to get the point if the OP takes a look on the biggest federations and their free fighting style, itf and wtf (or whatever they are called now) taekwondo and wkf karate, he will see more similarities than differences.
whyle itf closer to wkf than the "olympic style" wtf.

You really need to stop referring to karate and taekwondo as monolithic entities if you want to be absolutely accurate. The drills used in traditional Okinawan Goju-ryu karate bear a closer resemblance to practices in Feeding Crane gong-fu than they do to those in KKW taekwondo. Now if you want to compare WKF karate competition to WTF Olympic competition, sure that's another discussion too.

 

[Tez3]

and people should stop believing that arts like karate or taekwondo are thousands of years old. their ancestors, mostly chinese martial arts, surely are.

I don't think many people do think these arts are thousands of years old lol. The founder of Wado Ryu only died in the 1980 for example and the founder of Shotokan died in the 1950s. We aren't fooling ourselves you know!

 

[MAfreak]

i referred to shotokan here. wkf kumite is based on that.
i know the difference to goju. thats why i said, differences between karate styles are bigger than tkd to shotokan.

 

[Tez3]

i referred to shotokan here. wkf kumite is based on that.
i know the difference to goju. thats why i said, differences between karate styles are bigger than tkd to shotokan.

When I first saw TKD and dabbled in it, it didn't strike me as being like Shotokan or even generic karate, it had it's own flavour. However when I trained TSD that is very much like Shotokan.

 

[Buka]

I like to focus on the similarities, at least those I've experienced in both TKD and Karate training.

If you drop your hands in either - you're getting smacked upside the head.

 

[Dirty Dog]

german wiki says he gave the name taekwondo.

They can say that Elvis is alive and well, and helping aliens abduct bored housewives in Ohio for anal probing on the mothership. That won't make it true.
The name "taekwondo" was supported by a majority of the people working towards unification. The records do not show who actually suggested the name (or even if it was suggested by a single person).
And even if this unproven claim were true, being the person to suggest a name which is eventually selected by a committee is a long way from being "the founder."

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Neither do we. This is primarily a trait seen in sport-oriented schools.

This is primarily the interface I have had with TKD practitioners. I hope I did make it clear that this is only based on my direct experiences.

One out of three "differences" is real.

I don't doubt that. I have to be careful to restrict my observations to what I have seen and directly experienced, and to make it clear that I am in no way an authority on what TKD is or is not. My experience is simply that when I have gone to open tournaments, the TKD guys bounce around, don't use their hands unless their bouncing and kicking happens to bring them in close to their opponents, and they tend to be headhunters. That's all.

Hey, I get it. Many people have told me that Isshin Ryu is all about things that it is not; they are basing their suppositions on what they have either seen or heard about. I get more misconceptions from Isshin Ryu students who quit at green belt than anything else; they think we fight with our hands at our waists because that's as far as they got.

 

[WaterGal]

All kicks, by the way, are done off both legs and also in both rear and forward stance.

I'll give a list and you can tick off what you know/do lol.
Maegeri Front kick
Mawashigeri round kick
Yokogeri side
Ushirogeri back
Kingeri groin
Fumikomi stamping kick
Hizageri knee kick
ushiro Kingei backward groin kick
Soto Mawashigeri outward groin kick
Mikazukigeri crescent kick
Soto Mikazukigeri outward crescent kick
Ushiro Mawashigeri back round kick
Otoshigeri dropping kick

We also do an inverse crescent kick which is like a figure four, I can't describe it very well though, I find showing much easier.

Tobigeri are jumping kicks, all of the above can be done jumping, some can also be done in jumping scissors style too. sidekick can be done jumping or 'flying. Kicks are often combined with hand/arm strikes.

I had to youtube the list since I don't know the Japanese names, and the only ones that I've not seen in (KKW/WTF) TKD is the backward groin kick and the outward groin kick. However, we do have a hook kick, an outside variant of the ax/dropping kick, scissor kick, split kick, and a body-level version of the turning heel/back hook/back round kick.

Definitely a lot of similarities.

 

[Tez3]

Choi Hong Hi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and that it wasn't the only source is exactly what i said.

Wikipedia can be edited very easily so it's not the best source to cite.
The OP is only asking for the differences between TKD and karate, he doesn't want either a history lesson or an argument over which style is best. I think like many people, he's curious about other styles and just wants to explore the differences which are very interesting...when not accompanied by the politics.
We can only do so many moves with our bodies, that different styles can do very different things with those movements is fascinating. So...rather than discuss politics can we discuss what those differences are...perhaps.

 

[dancingalone]

I had to youtube the list, and the only ones that I've not seen in (KKW/WTF) TKD is the backward groin kick and the outward groin kick. However, we do have a hook kick, an outside variant of the ax/dropping kick, scissor kick, split kick, and a body-level version of the turning heel/back hook/back round kick.

Don't you also do hapkido? Some lineages of hapkido have an outsized catalog of kicks... literally numbering in the hundreds with all the front/back leg, jumping, and spinning variations.

Don't think any style can compete with that in terms of pure volume outside of the odd northern Chinese style.

 

[Tez3]

I had to youtube the list since I don't know the Japanese names, and the only ones that I've not seen in (KKW/WTF) TKD is the backward groin kick and the outward groin kick. However, we do have a hook kick, an outside variant of the ax/dropping kick, scissor kick, split kick, and a body-level version of the turning heel/back hook/back round kick.

Definitely a lot of similarities.

I think the difference may be in the execution of them, sometimes too though the names may confuse. We have two types of front kick, a 'push' kick and a 'snap' kick. The 'axe' kick is a straight up and down kick ( the knee is up, bent, goes up then down, a clumsy description sorry) whereas I believe TKD does it as a crescent kick type? the front kick for example too can be done as a straight kick either off the back or front leg, a straight up and down jump kick and as a scissors jump kick either on the spot or travelling. Most kicks can be spinning kicks too.
Do you have stamping kick because I haven't seen them in TKD though that doesn't mean a lot or the straight groin kick, instep kick to the testicles? ( no surprise you probably don't see that a lot lol)

 

[TrueJim]

The date on the Chung Do Kwan piece bellow is incorrect. Chung Do Kwan was opened in 1944, not 1945.

To be honest, I'm never sure how to handle starting-dates properly. From what I've read, Won-Kuk Lee returned to Korea in 1944 and was given permission to teach Shotokan karate but only to Japanese nationals. So should we start the Chung Do Kwan date from there? Is it fair to call it a Korean kwan when all the students must be Japanese?

Then later Lee was allowed to teach to Korean nationals at Yungshin School gymnasium in Seol, but only to select Koreans. So should we start the Chung Do Kwan date from when Lee was allowed to teach his martial art to Koreans?

Or should we start it after the end of World War II, when Lee was finally allowed to teach to whomever he liked?

There's similar dilemmas with other schools too. When Byung Rick Jo originally started teaching in Kaesong his school failed. So he relocated to Seoul and tried again, this time successfully. So which of these events counts as the start of his kwan?

Of course all kwan want to push their start dates as far into the past as possible, but the reality is a lot of the schools beginnings had "fuzzy" start dates. Like, "Oh, I'm just teaching my friends after work" to "Oh look, more people want my instruction! I guess we can call this a school now." When does a kwan become a kwan?

Gen. Choi was a student of Grandmaster Won Kuk LEE. This makes it appear as if they were contemporaries. That was not their relationship. They were master & student.

That's a fair point. While still fitting everything relevant to the early kwan on a single page (and keeping it legible), how would you re-diagram that?

 

[Dirty Dog]

I think the difference may be in the execution of them, sometimes too though the names may confuse. We have two types of front kick, a 'push' kick and a 'snap' kick.

We teach both, as well.

The 'axe' kick is a straight up and down kick ( the knee is up, bent, goes up then down, a clumsy description sorry) whereas I believe TKD does it as a crescent kick type?

We teach all three versions. All have their place...

the front kick for example too can be done as a straight kick either off the back or front leg, a straight up and down jump kick and as a scissors jump kick either on the spot or travelling. Most kicks can be spinning kicks too.

Yup. Same as us.

Do you have stamping kick because I haven't seen them in TKD though that doesn't mean a lot or the straight groin kick, instep kick to the testicles? ( no surprise you probably don't see that a lot lol)

Yes, we do. You don't see them used in competition, for obvious reasons, but they are certainly taught.

 

[dancingalone]

So far I know Chon-ji, Dan-Gun, Do-San, And Won-Hyo.

By the way, it's interesting that your school identifies itself as Chung Do Kwan but practices the Blue Cottage hyung. That's rare from my personal experience. Most CDK people have been folded in the KKW and their individual lineages seldom come up. The other set of CDK stragglers still stick to the karate forms (Pyung Ahn, Palsek, Chul Gi).

 

[Tez3]

We teach both, as well.


We teach all three versions. All have their place...


Yup. Same as us.


Yes, we do. You don't see them used in competition, for obvious reasons, but they are certainly taught.

As I said I think the execution is the difference, I'm not saying by the way, in case people are thinking I am, that we do them better or have more, just looking, as the OP asked, at the differences.

 

[IcemanSK]

To be honest, I'm never sure how to handle starting-dates properly. From what I've read, Won-Kuk Lee returned to Korea in 1944 and was given permission to teach Shotokan karate but only to Japanese nationals. So should we start the Chung Do Kwan date from there? Is it fair to call it a Korean kwan when all the students must be Japanese?

Then later Lee was allowed to teach to Korean nationals at Yungshin School gymnasium in Seol, but only to select Koreans. So should we start the Chung Do Kwan date from when Lee was allowed to teach his martial art to Koreans?

Or should we start it after the end of World War II, when Lee was finally allowed to teach to whomever he liked?

There's similar dilemmas with other schools too. When Byung Rick Jo originally started teaching in Kaesong his school failed. So he relocated to Seoul and tried again, this time successfully. So which of these events counts as the start of his kwan?

Of course all kwan want to push their start dates as far into the past as possible, but the reality is a lot of the schools beginnings had "fuzzy" start dates. Like, "Oh, I'm just teaching my friends after work" to "Oh look, more people want my instruction! I guess we can call this a school now." When does a kwan become a kwan?



That's a fair point. While still fitting everything relevant to the early kwan on a single page (and keeping it legible), how would you re-diagram that?

Diagramming isn't easy when you have a lot of detail. I guess I'd do it from the Kwan founders. Therefore, General CHOI's Oh Do Kwan would be an offshoot of Chung Do Kwan. The Chung Do Kwan has an official founding date of September 15, 1944. My thought is that if a Kwan officially says, "our founding date is 'X' I'll post that date. I wasn't there. I've got other things I think are more important issues (like who the great leaders of each Kwan are/were that get little acknowledgement). My 2 cents.

 

[Earl Weiss]

So far I know Chon-ji, Dan-Gun, Do-San, And Won-Hyo.

Well, opinions vary, but typicality the systems is defined by the pattern syllabus. Based upon the syllabus you learn you are not doing CDK , you are practicint the Chang Hon System. I am familiar with others who have said similar things because their roots go back to the CDK and you can see a CDK flavor in their performance. Many TKD noteables had CDK roots including Jhoon Rhee, He Il Cho, The ATA founder HU Lee and others.