Facinating topic, Daniel.

My very naive beginners view is that it is very different to karate. When we were growing up, my sister was a black belt and national champion of wado-ryu so I've had my fair share of watching both.

It has similarities - many of the kicks are very similar if not the same, but there is more of an emphasis on self-defence, presure points and takedowns in karate than TKD (at least where I've practiced).

From a competition perspective, my mum thinks there is more contact in TKD (ITF) but that could be the difference between my sister being a teenager when she competed and me being an adult.

From a personal point of view, I made a very deliberate choice to follow TKD rather than karate - mainly, admittedly to be different from my little sister - but now I look at it, they are closer than I gave them credit for.

I know a lot of people cross from one to the other so I'd love to hear what they think... Jx

Thank you for responding. 

I just realized that I need to make a clarification of my OP: I do not address sport only schools in this topic.  I am specifically speaking of the martial art, which may or may not encompass a sport aspect.

Daniel

No; At least from My ITF POV. Choi Hong-Hi was a shotokan practitioner, and so it may have had an influence, but the basic principles are quite different.

Karate seems to use power going forwards and upwards, in order to 'drive through' an opponents stance; effectively overrunning them, the emphasis is on raw power and strength through rigidity, at least in the couple of styles I've ran into. as opposed to downwards and forwards in tkd, with a lot of the emphasis on power through speed. There is also less emphasis on throws and locks.

I think that often Karate is used as a lure to get people through the door; people are more aware of its existance due to the media.

I think that it is more worrying when it is used to cover a poor instructor. In my opinion some of these 'Korean karate' Dojangs/ Dojos, are used simply because they do not come under any of the main organisations, and separating themselves in this way allows them to award belts themselves. Ie a McDojang.

Of course there is another possibility; Dojangs & dojos can be very specific and expensive to run, and the best solution is often to share it with another organisation.

School does NOT have KARATE on the door. 

That being said, when I first started, I was amazed at how closely our first couple of Poomse followed what I learned in Tang So Do and Shotokan.  I could definitly see a link there.  I believe that there are huge differences as well.  Enough difference that I believe TKD to be a seperate art from Karate.  An art w/ a basis in Japanese Martial Arts but having been made Korean. 

We hold class at the base gym so the answer would be no it doesn't even say TKD.  I don't think confusing the 2 in Korea is going to be an issue.  Knowing how the Koreans feel about the Japanese (occupation, enslavement of the people, ravaging the country, tried to destroy everything related to their culture, etc, etc) it's not safe to even suggest that TKD might have been influenced by Karate.  When we lived in Okinawa (another Japanese occupied nation that the US gave back to Japan to be able to keep 75,000 troops there) my wife would be completely outraged when she was mistaken for being Japanese, as much as I loved it there, it stressed her to no end.  Unless you've been here I don't think anyone can appreciate how intense and deep this hatred goes.  Sorry I guess that you got more than you bargained for, again the answer is...NO. 

Our school does not use the word "karate" on our door.

I believe that many schools do use the word because of the general acceptance and knowledge of the word ....purely used in this case as a generic term to consolidate all martial arts.

Tae Kwon do is also sometimes referred to as ‘Korean Karate’

You will never find a Karate School using Tae Kwon Do sinage - only Tae Kwon Do schools using Karate sinage.

I corrected a mom one day at our school when she was was explaining her day's schedule - "and then I had to drop Joey off for his karate class and then ..." 

"You mean Tae Kwon Do" ... I said

"well, yes Karate is easier to say then Tae Kwon Do" she says

My thanks for your response.:)

Just to claify: no, it doesn't say karate on the door or no, taekwondo is not a subset of karate?

I am aware of the resentment of Japan, and there is no way for me to fully appreciate it, though I can empathize to an extent being aware of how Ireland was treated by the English and being of Irish heritage.  Though to be fair, I have no personal resentment of the English.

But my question is regarding similarity or dissimilarity in technique, poomse, boon hae, and kyorugi in relation to karate's waza, kata, bunkai, and kumite.  And I mean taekwondo in general, not just KKW or ITF or some other organization or federation.

Daniel

Thanks for responding! 

Signage aside, though, do you consider Taekwondo, with regards to technique, forms, application and sparring, to be a subset of karate, in the same way that Shotokan, Kyokushin, Gogu Ryu and Ishin Ryu are all karate while being different from eachother?

Daniel

Karate is not on my school's door.  We are a small community and there is a kenpo school nearby and everyone get's both mixed up all the time. 

When my Grandmaster first opened his school 35 years ago, he orignally didn't hat karate either but added it after several people thought it was a new chinese resturant, he has a picture on his website and in his books that show what the school looked like.

I think that with today's world and the internet, people can look up what they don't understand, you type in Tae Kwon Do on google and you millions of hits.  I think that it was used a long time ago because Karate a common term and people had an idea of what it was about.