What's the difference between karate, tae kwon do, and kung fu?

Karate is the general term for all these martial arts. Tae kwon do and Kung fu are just different kinds of karate.|||There%26#039;s a difference between Karate and Okinawa Karate.


Okinawa Karate is actually had no influence at all from any country. It was first known as Ryukyuan style. It existed way before Japan had encountered any foreign countries. When each area of Japan had their own rulers, and they fought for territories inside Japan. The people in Okinawa had all of their weapons taken away. The only thing left was their fist. So they practiced and conditioned their fists and hands. Being able to stab through somebody%26#039;s armor, and into their bodies. That%26#039;s where the concept of one hit kill came from in Karate. They trained themselves like crazy and enabled themselves to kill anybody with one strike.





Karate on the other hand, unlike Okinawa Karate, it was first influenced from Chinese martial arts. Not the ones like Kung Fu, but more of Chinese Kenpo, like the Shaolin for example, which teaches powerful strikes and etc. Afterwards, it was brought over to Japan as Karate(Chinese hand), then later, becoming mixed together with Okinawa Karate and becoming Karate(Empty Hand). Most Karate are influenced more from Okinawa Karate instead of Chinese martial arts.





Teaching Okinawa style to the Karate(Chinese hand) practitioner, at the same time, the Okinawa Karate practitioner learned a thing or two about the Chinese hand. But still sticked with their own style. Remember, Karate and Okinawa Karate are completely different. Chinese martial arts was influenced by martial arts in India where most martial arts originated from. And Karate was influenced by Chinese martial arts. Okinawa Karate on the other hand, does not have any influence whatsoever.|||karate - ryukyu(now part of japan called okinawa... i still consider it ryukyuan and not japanese), focus on hands secondly kicks, linear many diffrent but similar kinds pressure point -kyuso jitsu


grappling -tuite jutsu





tae kwon do - korea, focused on kicks i think its koreanized karate mized with older karean styles... im not sure though i hear schools are pretty varied... some focus more on hand strikes and grappling and pressure points and this and that more than others... but generally its more for sport nowadays... there are other korean arts l ike it that arnt sport focused





kung fu- china, kind of an over all term for martial arts (like japan and budo) kung fu means like skill acquired through hard work ... usually circular with a focus on internal (qigong) northern -long range strikes and high or fancy kicks.... southern short range low sweeping kicks... focused on grappling(chin na) before strikes some tpes have pressure points (dim mak)|||Karate is Japanese and combines fixed form punches and kicks, relying heavily on power.





Tae Kwon Do is Korean and is roughly 70% legwork i.e. kicks. Not very practical in a bar fight.





Kung Fu has various styles and forms e.g. Tiger, Dragon, Freestyle, Wing Chun. It is more fluid than the others but requires great agility, except for Wing Chun which relies mostly on hand techniques and low kicks to areas like the knee and groin.





I tried a little Karate and then settled on Wing Chun. I found it most useful in bars and clubs where you have little space. Due to the hand techniques involved and its directness it is effective for taking out an opponent relatively quickly and I have to say brutally. That is the problem with it. For it to be effective you have to be prepared to use it to its advantage i.e. breaking knees, feet, and elbows and striking to throat, neck, and other joints.|||just different styles of martial arts|||Karate is from Japan. It encompasses many punches, kicks, and blocks with the forearms amongst other things.


Tae Kwon Do is from Korea. It is very similar to Karate, but with more of an emphasis on higher flying kicks.


Kung Fu is from China. It%26#039;s more of a circular fluid striking system that uses trapping limbs in tight quarters rather than blocking or parrying attacks.|||to most people nothing....people who dont know anything about martial arts think its all the same thing. some people think karate=all martial arts or kung fu=all martial arts





anyways karate is japanese actually okinawan to be exact which is a blend of the native okinawan fighting system with influences from kung fu. there are many types of karate such as kyokushinkai, goju ryu, isshin ryu, shotokan etc...its primarily a striking arts but some place add grappling and joint locks to it. striking is taught pretty evenly: 50%kicks 50%punches.





taekwondo is a korean art its an olympic sport and its teaches mainly strikes....once again some places may teach grappling. the strikes(at least in the olympic sport) arent devided evenly its focuses more on kicks and flashy kicks at that. not sure exactly but in point sparring you get like 1 point for punches 2 for kicks to the head 3 for a jumping kick and 100pts for a chuck norris 1080 death roundhouse tornado kick. needless to say the olympic sport makes people in general frown on tkd, though i think if trained PROPERLY it could be a good art for self defense.





kung fu is a very general term is pretty much means martial arts from china. it covers many types of martial arts, theres performance style with alot of flips and fancy kicks like monkey kung fu, drunken boxing etc...theres soft and more spiritual arts like tai chi, theres sparring arts like sanshou(chinese kickboxing), and self defense oriented arts like wing chun. theres like hundreds of kung fus|||Kung Fu is often used in relation to boxing martial arts of China, but Wu Shu is the proper term. Kung Fu signifies Great Achievement and can be applied to any field technically. An emperor%26#039;s chef achieved it in cooking. Karate is the general term for Japanese striking styles as distinguished from grappling styles: jiu jitsu, judo and aikido. It copies Chinese styles. Tae kwan do is a Korean style,much like karate. I studied both, and there are few essential differences. Chinese styles are much broader than Korean or Japanese styles.|||They are just different forms of martial arts. tae kwon do uses more legs, Kung fu has both %26quot;hard and soft%26quot; styles and often %26quot;mimic%26quot; some type of animal...|||Karate is Japanese - Kung Fu (gung fu) is chinese, and TaeKwonDo is from some weird country haha.





Karate like the other guy said focuses on punching and kicking and fights out of boxing range. Tae Kwon Do is just the most stupid art you could ever learn. Kicks, kicks, and more kicks. Just pointless....





Gung Fu is the most street realistic art. We fight out of trapping range, which means we have a lot of cohesions between eachother when fighting. So, we use our sensitivity to pressure to decide what we do in the %26quot;traps%26quot;. Wing Chun Gung Fu is what bruce lee based his Jeet Kune Do concepts off of. I would never take Karate again or TaeKwonDo.|||Kung Fu first came about in the Shaolin Temple in Hunan China when the Bodhidharma was looking for exercises to keep the monks in shape.


At a few different points in Chinese history, th eShaolin Temple was banned, and the monks dispersed to other areas. One of these areas was Naha Okinawa, then a part of China. (an outlying province) Monks taught Okinawans who amalgamated the lessons with their indigenous punching system (called Te) creating Kara-Te (Kara meant %26quot;Chinese%26quot;, but also means %26quot;Empty%26quot; like Week means not strong and Weak means 7 days)


After the Meiji Restoration, Okinawa officially became a part of Japan where Karate became popular in the military and in Tokyo colleges. (Mostly because of Okinawan Karate pioneers like Gichin Funakoshi) The military Karate-ka taught karate to some of their other areas, which before WWII included Korea. Korean Karate was originally called Tang-Soo (Chinese Hand) or Tangsoodo. (do means %26quot;way%26quot; and implies Buddhist principles) After WWII anything Japanese in Korea was looked down upon, so many Tang Soo Do masters renamed their style Taekwondo. (The Taekwon are literary and historical warriors in ancient Korea that used some form of Kung Fu, they were renowned for their kicking abilities) Many of the Kata in Taekwondo are still the same used in Japanese and Okinawan Karate, and some even have the same ancestors in Southern Kung Fu styles. (Like in the Fujian Province)|||Gung Fu was the first martial art. It uses circular fluid movements to strike (except Wing Chun) and is also a trapping system.





Then came Karate, which is a rather basic form of fighting with straight forward punches and kicks.





Tae Kwon Do is a heavily emphasizes kick in all ranges. Air, Head, Chest, and low.