What are all the styles of Karate?

[legkicker]

if you are talking about all martial arts in general there are 4,362 different stlyes

Umm, how did you come up with this number, if I may inquire?

i made it up.

fair enough...I just wanted to make sure you weren't being serious. On any other forum I would have known you were joking but I've seen some weird stuff said here lately that isn't a joke.

[Fairfax_Uechi]

Actually Shotokan having not actually being a name of a style but Funakoshi's pen name Shoto and Kan being school the style was named by Funakoshi's students from what my research has shown me. The karate that Funaskoshi taught in Japan was Okinawan since Funakoshi was from Okinawa and had always studied Okinawan Tode as Karate was not adopted in until the laste 20's or early 30's sometime. Sorry drawing a blank on the actual year.

However Shotokan evolved into a japanese system as it got older and varied more and more from Okinawan Karate-Do.

Thanks for the clearification. I've read a little about Funakoshi, and you're right about the pen name. I didn't realize that he was from Okinawa. But I think you'd agree, that the roots of the arts can sometimes get very confusing at times. For instance, of the 4 major Okaniwan styles, Uechi-Ryu is more like "Kung Fu" than "Karate" as Kanbun Uechi studied an art called Paginoon, which derives from the southern China arts that we typically call "Kung Fu". But this gets a little more grey, as when he left China, he went to mainland Japan, then eventually Okaniwa. So strange as it may be, Uechi-Ryu was taught in Japan before Okaniwa, but since the folks he taught it to were Okaniwan and not Japaneese, the art "remained" Okaniwan. [note: Okaniwan's consider themselves Okaniwan first and now Japaneese, and at one point in time were independent, and at other times were invaded by Japan, China, etc] And if we want things to get even more confusing, much of the informaiton was passed orally with little written history. And then to make it worse, much of the little written documentaiton was destroyed during WWII. So sometimes information gets mangled together, and points changed depending on whose version you get. In any case, I find all of it interesting, and always worth the time to hear a different version!!

[Brandon Fisher]

Yes I do agree with you. The history is so twisted around sometimes its hard to find things, but still very interesting. I have been researching the history of karate for the past 12 years and still feel like I am a elementary student on the subject. A book I purchased recently is really good and seems to be very accurate as it is based on information from very creditable sources. Its call Unante By John Sells. You can pick it up at https://www.martialsource.com just a early fyi its kinda pricey.

[juey palancu]

Guys, you forgot the most excellent school of karate featured in the movie Napoleon Dynamite.

[bushido_man96]

Guys, you forgot the most excellent school of karate featured in the movie Napoleon Dynamite.

Rex-kwon-do. Awesome!

[juey palancu]

Rex-Kwon-do! That was it! Hilarious!!

[KamasandSais]

yea! :lol:

[koryu]

There are too many styles to mention, karate is traditionally japanese and okinawan, while there are several other martial arts that originated elsewhere. Belt colors will be different in every school you go to. don't get too caught up in what color of belt you have. Typically, in karate, there are 10 kyu (below black belt) ranks and 10 dan ranks (black belt). Most dojos in the US use a different color belt for each kyu rank. In japan, they typically only have white, green, brown, and black belts from what I've seen. Traditionally, when students first started wearing belts or sashes, they were always white and they never changed belts. Training was typically done outside and over the years and changes of seasons, the belt would go from white to green (from the grass in the summer) to a brown color and finally to black after being so stained over the years.

Just thought I'd throw in a little history lesson in there.