Why does everyone use the name "karate"

[TJS]

I see TKD schools all the time that say "KARATE" on the front of the building or in their name.

[AndrewGreen]

TKD is Korean karate.

 

Old TKD is almost identical to Shotokan.

 

Also karate is more marketable in some places, TKD doesn't have the best rep right now

[karatekid1975]

Karate is used for a "generic" name for almost all martial arts. The puplic don't know the differance if they never took MA. If they don't know nothing about it, the first thing they look for is the word "karate," no matter what art it is.

[granmasterchen]

karate is a generic term that everyone is used too, if you had no understanding of martial arts you would still know that karate was a MA, yet would you know kaju kenbo, habkido, aikido, tang soo do, kuk sool wan, etc,.,,, alot of these terms have little or no meaning to non practitioners so we all stick with the easy word association so that everyone can relate and know what we are talking about.

[Kirves]

Karate was used as a generic term for many asian kick/punch arts in the 50s to 70s in the USA and many still cling to that usage. This generalization is not seen in Europe, I only know of it in the US. Maybe it has happened elsewhere too. In Europe, I have never heard of "Korean Karate" or any similar generalizations, here they have used "TKD" and other names from the start.

[mikS]

Karate is used for a "generic" name for almost all martial arts. The puplic don't know the differance if they never took MA. If they don't know nothing about it, the first thing they look for is the word "karate," no matter what art it is.

 

YEs, its true. Someone once asked me what MA i did, and i said Karate. THey said what kind, tae kwon do or what? I was just like um....karate!

[kle1n]

in europe no dojo calls the martial art they offer never karate. they always give it the name of the art it does.

[monkeygirl]

I think that's why classifying actual styles of karate has become more prominent. If you're an actual karateka, you won't just say "I do karate." You'll mention something like Kenpo, Goju-Ryu, or something else to specify your exact style.

 

It could also have something to do with the fact that MA movies are so darned inaccurate. Like Karate Kid. His style was more like Kung Fu, if I remember correctly.

[Kirves]

Karate Kid's fight choreographer was the renowned Pat Johnsson. Mr. Miyagi's fight double actor was Fumio Demura, the respected SHlTO-Ryu karate master. The famous "crane" technique doesn't exist, it was invented by another stunt fighter in the film, Darryl Vidal, after Pat Johnsson said that he wanted something special, something interesting. Personally, I thought the stuff (besides the crane) looked pretty much like the softer Okinawan styles. People often forget that Okinawan karate was not as rigid and linear as the modern Japanese karate. On Okinawa, the term kara-te actually meant "Chinese boxing" (kara=Chinese, te=hand - just to be accurate) and as such, all old karate looks a bit like kungfu. Most of the old kata are ripped straigth from kungfu styles (Hakutsuru from White Crane and so on). An interesting side note: The famous karate bible, Bubishi, is a Chinese book, brought to Okinawa by a Chinese crane stylist - or something like that, I am speaking from my memory only, some facts may be a bit off.

[ninjanurse]

A nice bit of history Kirves. I thought the "crane" thing was to illustrate that you can never under-estimate your opponent (even when he/she does something that looks so silly!) and if you do you might get slammed! A excellant way to show just how arrogant the other student was, and also to show that sometimes doing something "outside" the box or that other people may laugh at can have value if we believe in it. Or maybe I am reading way too much into it...not like that ever happened before