Karate = Tae kwon Do??

[bushido_man96]

they should be reffered to separately, but they should also accept the fact that they both have a common ground.

hell, just look at the similarities of the ITF patterns and shotokan kata.

calling them the same is like saying that burger king and maccas is the same. they are both different but they are still both crappy hamburgers.

Hey, I like Big Macs, and are you saying that ITF patterns and Shotokan kata are different but both crappy?

I am pretty sure he isn't saying that. After all, he is a TKD guy!

[Rick_72]

The only thing silly about using Karate on the front of a TKD school is that isn't Karate a Japanese word for "Empty Hand"? Or Karate Do "the way of the empty hand"? So basically all it is is a Korean martial art being described by a Japanese word.

Of course none of that means anything until you learn those meanings. Its just funny is all.

It is kind of funny that you mention this, because kara-te used to mean China Hand, until the Japanese changed the idiogram(??) to make it mean empty hand, to try to break its ties to China, and make it Japan's own, which is kind of what TKD has done with Shotokan!

Wow, the soap opera of the martial arts! We took that one full circle, didn't we?

Actually didn't "Tode" mean China hand? Seriously, I'm drawing a blank right now.

[bushido_man96]

I am pretty sure it was karate, just a different idiogram.

[OldSkoulKarateKa]

I was driving around the other day and couldn't help but notice how some schools advertise themselves. Where I live there are lots of "martial arts schools" in the area. I was looking to see what japanese/okinawan style schools (shotokan, gojo ryu, etc.) were in my area. So, I stopped by some of the schools that had "Karate" as their sign. To my dissappointment most of the schools were either tae kwon do, tang soo do or some other korean influenced art! So I started to think is it appropiate for tae kwon do schools to advertise themselves as "Karate" schools??? Your thoughts......

Well Adam,When TKD first started popping in the states,no one really knew what tae kwon do was.However they had an idea of what Karate was,because alot of Gi's had brought Karate back with them from Japan and Okinawa,So karate had somewhat good PR in the mid 50's 5 out of every 7 Americans knew that karate was an asian fighting art such as Judo and Jujitsu.

With this in mind alot of Korean TKD schools started putting Karate on their signs to pull in business. Even today they still advertise Karate,even though the two arts are very different. answer your question?

[ps1]

It's mostly a marketing technique when you see a sign for a "karate" school and they teach something else.

I think a school that markets their art as something else isn't worth going to no mater the quality of instruction. If you've lied to me about the name of the art to simply get me in the door, what else are you going to lie about?

I understand where you're coming from here. But to the layman...if you see a sign for daito ryu or goju it might seem a bit confusing. I'm not sticking up for those people...just trying to look at it from their perspective. Karate, as the layperson incorrectly views it, is synonymous for martial arts.