What is the difference between Tae Kown Do and Karate?

Answer 1

Beyond nationality, it all boils down to symantics. The reason TKD focuses more on kicks is because we try to stay away from our opponent, when Karate would rather get right up on you. Think of it like this:

TKD - Best offense is a good defense
Karate - Best defense is a good offense

Beyond that, here's a website that has a great description of the legit history of modern TKD.... I include it because, as you will see, TKD comes (in part) from Shotokan Karate...
http://www.uscdka.com/articles/tkdhistory.aspx

Enjoy...

Answer 2

Well in Tae Kwon Do there are much more kicks involved compared to Karate. And Karate has more punches. Dats jus a general statement though. It really depends on the styles.

Answer 3

History lesson:
Karate had nothing to do with Tae Kwon Do.

Tae Kwon Do was born in Korea. It requires really high and powerful kicks from the players. It doesn't really focus on punches, mostly kicks. It also doesn't require a proper form or punches or kicks - mostly power and flexibility is needed to be able to be a good player of Tae Kwon Do. Scoring points in tournaments require FULL BODY CONTACT and usually involves kicks.

Karate was born in Okinawa, Japan. When the island was conquered and all their weapons were confiscated, the people decided to create a way of self-defense that doesn't involve weapons: "empty hand" . Karate has a balanced focus on kicks and punches. It also involves blocks and strikes. Unlike Tae Kwon Do, Karate has the Kata - which develops a player's FORM as he/she goes up in rank. Power is not a requirement, but AGILITY and CONTROL is. Scoring in tournaments are dependent on the PROPER FORM. If you punch or kick out of form, you don't get a point - even if you hit your opponent squarely on the head (thus you will get a warning of disqualification if you hurt your opponent too much).

I mean no offense. I am simply comparing from my training and my friends who train Tae Kwon Do.

Answer 4

the typical answers are... karate is 50%hand and 50% feet, tkd is 80% feet and 20% hand... the movements and techniques are very similar... even shotokan, karate, and chung do kwon, tae kwon do share the same forms (although they are executed differently), but karate movement are shorter and faster, while tkd movements and more elaborate, slower and more powerful.... both are excellent arts to learn, but both are difficult to find good schools.... by good school, i mean instructors that will push you to become better (while that may push some paying customers out the door).... They are very similar at first glance, but experience practioners from each art, are better at different things... hope that helps... may be confusing .... but find a school you like in any art and have fun with it... good luck
EDIT: TKD was not based on a SPORT... but unfortunatly it is what it has become....

Answer 5

TKD was developed from Japanese karate and chinese kung fu. The idea for useing mostly kicks was taken from an forgoten Korean martial game called taekkyeon, to make the art unique and to get away from the Japanese martial arts systems (as you might know, Korea Japan and China are not the best of friends)

Ever since TKD was made an Olympic sport many schools start to teach oly pic TKD with techniques that are designed to score points and not really to knock anyone out, but the original TKD is probably very much like karate apart from the greater focus on the legs, it still had alot of punching, unlike Olympic style since punches dont really score well so are not trained as much as they should be

Answer 6

karate is a balance in the body movements (upper body, and lower body) however Tae Kwon Doe is a good 70% lower body (kicks) and 30% arms, and in Tae Kwon Doe, it is taught to use your arms to block (most of the time) and use your legs as an offensive weapon, karate has a balance between blocks and offensive movements spread over the entire body. secondly, for most karate classes you dont kick higher than the kidneys, wereas tae kwon doe you do a lot of kicks higher than kidney.

Answer 7

Karate is from Okinawa. From there it went to Japan. When Japan occupied Korea, the Koreans saw karate and made up a SPORT based on the martial art they witnessed.

Karate is older and it is actually a martial art while TKD is a sport based on Karate from the 1940's.

Korea does have actual martial arts but they have not become as popular as TKD. Their actual martial arts are:
Soo Bak-Gi
Taekkyeon

Answer 8

Bigfoot there has a very good answer and besides what he has already said I would only add that Karate also emphasizes the use and extension of the hip for blocking, punching and kicking so that these techniques tend to be more powerful. The kicks tend to be thrust type kicks and this relieves some of the stress and shock on the knee when you miss or are not making contact. For punching and blocking it tends to make them more powerful since you are not just using your arm to generate power but also your hips and lower back.

Answer 9

most of these people here need to study martial arts...the correct history of Taekwondo and Karate. Karate came from Taekwondo. The rest of the info is told by the 2nd person who answered your question.

Answer 10

the typical answers are... karate is 50%hand and 50% feet, tkd is 80% feet and 20% hand...