Karate Vs TKD

i've recently started karate and my friend just started TKD. I was just wondering which style of the two have a more upper hand? Or could someone tell me at least the advantages and disadvantages of both arts?

 

It really depends on what discipline of karate your doing and what discipline of TKD your friend is doing.

Assuming that both are self-defense arts I would have to say that neither have the “upper hand”, as martial artists train to avoid combat / conflict.

Mutual respect, sharing of knowledge and friendship is what we offer, not an angry fist.

Assuming that both are sports orientated arts, again neither have the “upper hand” as they play by different rules.

Respectfully

 

Neither has the upper hand as both have their pros and cons and it depends on what the person doing it likes in each style.

So it depends on what style you prefer not which one is "better".

Christian

 

If it's Chang Hon (ITF or TAGB) style TKD and Shotokn Karate then the difference may well be described as close to non-existant anyway.

 

At a novice level I would tend to agree with you, however if you have read any of Iain Abernethy’s works you would have to say that Shotokan has a foot in the door.

This isn’t to say that TKD doesn’t have the same techniques; it’s just that they are spread throughout the patterns.

Respectfully,

 

TKD tends to kick higher than Karate... but if two people from TKD and Karate fights you probably can't notice much difference...

 

Whoever does the most sparring, will have the upper hand. That's assuming you do at least medium to hard contact sparring, not just tip-tap light contact.

The styles are similar and share a lot of techiques. WTF TKD does full contact sparring, but their rules suck and people generally refuse to punch becusae they don't get points for it in competitions.

If it's kyokushin karate, then I would put my money on the kyokushin becuase they tend to do a lot of hard contact sparring.

It all depends on the sparring.

 

Hmmm, interesting question. The head guy tells us all the time about when he was doing tae kwon do. He was a 3rd dan I think, and he sparred a green belt in the style I'm doing now ( isshinryu ) and he got his butt handed to him. One of the senseis I have said he was a black belt in TKD too, and he said he got beat by a white belt in the style I'm doing now too : P, thus the reason they now do Isshinryu.

Now, I'm not trying to give props to my style lol, but I do think TKD teaches a lot of impractical things, and telegraph a lot. I had a TKD guy spar with me goofing off in school and he went into horse stance and started hopping up and down . . . . can anyone say sweep? But really, I think anyone who studies seriously in an art will notice the good things and the bad things about it, and will be able to realize what will and will not work, or if the style is just plain bogus.

All in all I think somebody who trains in Karate seriously will have more of the upper hand, but of coarse my opinion is biased.

 

it's the fighter and not the style.

 

It all depends on the practitioner. If you are talented in TKD you can whoop butt, if you are talented in Karate, you can whoop butt. It just depends on how hard you train and what way you choose to fight. If you put the average TKD up against the average karate fighter, however, I think that karate would win. I only say this because I believe that a karate fighter is more rounded in the standup game because they can fight in close or far away, while TKD is usually best for ranged attacks. But again, it all depends on the practitioner.

 

Not always so IMO.

Some styles are just better for your aims no matter how good they both are. If you want to focus on low defensive kicks rather than high kicks for example, TKD will be rubbish, even if its one of the best TKD schools.

Also some clubs are just better than other, so the person could end up being not very good simply because their poorly taught or have restricted training. Either case, the old "student not style" argument is irrelevant.

So in some cases the style and/or the school could possibly be more important than the student.

 

Extreme example

So you mean I can't be good in Sumo at 160 lbs? Dang!

Anyways, I bet on the giant squid.

 

But in this case, I don't see any big difference... TKD surely tend to teach higher kicks, but consider this, when you are good at kicking high, you'll be really good at kicking low.

The school is the most important in this case; a good TKD/Karate school will get you to kick high for reflexibility and kick low to hurt someone quickily.

 

It all depends on the dojo you are training in, but as a general idea Karate provides a more rounded training than TKD. The latter has far less emphasis on punches, and too much emphasis on flashy (and impractical) kicks.

In my experience, however, ceteris paribus, neither have the upper hand against several other styles (MT for example), if thats what you are interested in.

In my humble opinion, of course

 

an important thing to remember is that even with a poor dojang you can happiy train alone at home in the way you want.

while I am lucky and train at a TKD school where the emphasis is upon self defence and artform rather than competition one of ym friends who trains there with me would much rather compete, so he got the rules packs from as many tonaments as he could find, got some pointers from the instructor and trains at home in a competition style, using the classes as a work out and flexibility bit.

he's done quite well coming silver in sparring and patterns for the last 3 tourneys he attended.

so yes school does matter but if you're willing to go that extra step further you can overcome shortfalls in your school.

 

The training and instruction is the important thing - what style of Tae Kwon-Do and what style of Karate is it?

 

I disagree with that... in my Dojang we do alot of punching and we DO NOT emphasis on flashy kicks... we do them but it is surely not what we emphasis on. It is all about distance, use your leg for long range and punch and elbow for close in.

In my opinion the emphasis of TKD is probably power, as in how to generate maximum damage in one strike, and the strongest muscle we have are our legs.

The only thing I think both arts lacks of are probably grapple and ground... I am not saying they don't do them at all, maybe just not enough.

 

I wouldn't assume that. Just because you can kick high, doesn’t mean you could effectively kick low. You need to train low kick.

I think first you need to look at your aims, then find styles that are in someway associated with those aims then look at schools. That said, a school of a seemingly inappropriate style might actually be worth while should they differ from the norm of the style and offer what you want. The point being how matter how good the school/fighter is, if you want full contact fighting for example, and the place your at is light contact (no matter how good they are at it) it’s ineffective.

 

Adding to my post above, this would be an example of school that is diffrent from the norm. I'm sure a lot of TKD school (probably most) focus/emphasise kicking not that punches.

 

As i said, it depends on the school. Your Dojang is clearly different from the norm if what you say is true.