How many Karates are there?

[mean fighter]

Hi Karate guys I do TKD and I was just wondering how many different styles of karate is there? every time I come to this forum I keep hearing things like, shotokan karate, white tiger style, dragon style etc. so can someone just set it straight for me.

[orion82698]

https://www.tkdtutor.com

Look at the karate-do styles tab to the left. All styles are explained in there

[octopic]

https://www.tkdtutor.com

Look at the karate-do styles tab to the left. All styles are explained in there

That's a pretty good site, but it doesn't come close to listing all of the styles of Karate. The short answer is that there are a lot of styles of Karate. I doubt that there is anyone out there that can name them all. Obviously there are several that are the most common, but there are plenty of flavors that are taught at only a few schools.

[ivette_green]

When you're just talking about one type of karate dozens of factions can be mentioned. I know that with kyokushin karate there are at least a dozen off-shoots. I'm sure that the same can be said of most distict types of karate. There would be hundreds of types of karate. Some probably just being one Sensei and his/her dojo. I'm sure that there are lots of obscure types of karate that could keep this thread going for years trying to list them all.

[Skeptic 2004]

If you define a style as a ryu, good luck trying to track them all down. Especially with guys who get promoted to a certain rank, break away, and start their own "ryu."

Instead of tracking down how many different kinds of ryu there are, it might be best to sort out the core methods of karate, and then try and trace a style of interest to a particular core. This is simple because there are three cores:

Naha-te

Shuri-te

Tomari-te

All karate with Okinawa/Japan roots can be traced to either one or more of these cores. For example, I know a guy who practices a style called "Kishabajuku" which from what I can tell is a pretty small and remote style. The guy who founded Kishabajuku was heavily influenced by and trained under Shoshin Nagamine who founded Matsubayashi Ryu. Matsubayashi is a Tomari-te method.

It's like the six degrees of separation game, except with styles rather than geneaologies of instructors.

You might run into stuff like AKS (American Karate System) where the founder (Edward Lieb) practiced Tang Soo Do for a number of years and modified the stances and techiques to suit the "American" physiology. Or other styles with the name "karate" in the name somewhere, while yet having no connection to Japan/Okinawa karate. You'll more than likely encounter stuff that people just made up. These, of course, won't be traceable.

[Shorinryu Sensei]

Well,m you have your Okinawan styles, then the Japanbese systems that branched off from those, then Korean that branced off of those, then American that branced off of all of those...and let's not forget the systems from India, Phillipines, and every other little island in the Pacific. Oh yeah, I heard of one that was supposed to be from the Native American Indians, Russian, yadda yadda yadda.

Basically, as someone else already said...there are lots! You can say shorin ryu for example, one of the oldest systems of karate, but there are offshoots and sub-systems within that, plus Sensei Joe Blow out there that took a few TKD, judo, BJJ or Aikido classes somewhere and added them to the class...thereby changing that system once again and basically forming another version of the system.

I wouldn't even want to try to guess how many systems of karate are out there...a thousand maybe?

[feels]

The International Karate Organization is the single largest karate organization in the world. Most of its members belong to Kyokushinkaikan.

[Tengu22]

Techincally, when you say "Karate" only systems from Japan/Okinawa can truely be considered. True Kara-te has nothing to do with TKD, BJJ, Muay Thai, Kung Fu, ect. In my opinion even "American Karate" systems are not Karate at all, and it kind of pains me when I see signs at TKD schools or "freestyle" schools calling themselves Karate... but that's just me. The term Karate is being used to broadly nowadays.

[Sensei Rick]

How many street lights are in your city. So many styles and so many convulusions. Yet, I teach nothing like my sensei, so i too have changed (progressed) the style. I have a bb in TKD and Taka hashi ryu. I really stick to the core of my humble beginings. since i teach for a youth safety organization, I teach a japanese systems of kata. The patterns are easier to undrstand. Yet I teach all of the TKD kicking combos i can get my hands on. And i have a demo teams that does all wushu forms. The student should become the teacher. I now give my students a larger foundation than i recieved, and now i hope they grow and become better than I. Go read karate do my way of life. Funakoshi warns of teams such a sempai, or any terms that may mean someone is below another. but i digress, and now am off topic, how strange is that. You should hear me in class. Sure styles change from when Funakoshi taught, but hey, we have home computers now too.

[gojupralgo]

As long as there are Americans ready to make money and INVENT their own style, more and more will keep appearing.