Differnces among various martial arts

[guird]

The main difference between TKD and Karate is that TKD focuses more on kicks. There is also a difference in the way the techniques are executed, though there is also a lot of difference from style to style and ruleset to ruleset.

Kung-fu is VERY broad. Generally, the forms are smoother and more graceful than in karate or TKD, but other than that there's too much variety to make any meaningful statements.

[kensei]

Not to throw this conversation a curve ball, but even with in Karate styles their are massive differences. Take a style like Goju and put it next to Kyokushin or shotokan and you will see not so subtle differences too.

[bushido_man96]

Doctrine.

The difference between any martial arts is always in their doctrine. Almost all martial arts have the same techniques, more or less. But the differences come in the way they choose to use those techniques.

For example, most karate systems believe in very strong punches with low to mid level kicking. Their training is designed to reinforce that use. Most other weapons, such as throws and high kicks, are used sparingly.

Tae Kwon Do, on the other hand tends to focus on shorter fast hand strikes to set up powerful low, medium, and high kicks. The drills and other training they do is designed to reinforce those habits.

This is a VERY general and VERY unfair description of each art. There are many different systems within karate and tae kwon do respectively. The only way to really learn all those differences in a way you can understand is to start training and learn them first hand. It can take years to truly understand a system.

This sums it up wonderfully. Each style has a different focus and methodology in training. And even within styles, different instructors will have different methodologies. It is very hard to peg a style as this or that, because so many people do them, even in the same art.

I recommend googling the history of each art as a good place to start.

This is great advise. It will be able to provide you more specific histories of the styles, and the generalities of each style. Its a good place to start, and you will probably get ideas of where to look to find more specific information from there.