kanik

I used to do Rhee Teakwon do, a couple years back, i did it for about 3½ years, then i had to quit due to lack of money.. so the story of my life goes so far =D but i have also done shotokan karate when i was five and a different style more recently. I have also had a very lil bit of experiance in chaw gar tong long southern mantis gung fu. Though Currently i am gonna cross train between my boxing and hapkido. Its gonna be cool, i join hapkido tommorrow. I reckon its awesome though because of my previous training in MAs I allready know most the things i need to in order to be a higher belt... i wonder if therer is anyway i can grade according to my level of skill... i guess i'll ask.

dodgeduckdodge

1944 to 1965: Karate and Taekwondo (Kwans) were basically the same.

1966 to Present: Taekwondo developed beyond Karate. The kicks today are very different.

Taekwondo was not developed from "Korean foot fighting" There was no direct Taekkyon influence on Taekwondo. The Korea Taekkyon Association dismisses the claim made by Choi Hong Hi that he learned Taekkyon from a North Korean named Han Ill Dong.

#1. Taekkyon painstakingly documented it's lineage
#2. Taekkyon was only around Seoul, not North Korea
#3. the mysterious Han Ill Dong was a caligrapher, far from the world of
roughians that did Taekkyon.
#4. Practice Taekkyon and you will see that Taekkyon is radically different, and opposed to Taekwondo. No relation.

Taekwondo is completely rooted from the following:

Shotokan
ShudoKan
Shito-Ryu
Chinese (Manchurian) martial arts

Alcohol

Huntley

That last post was great. A good look at the history and development of modern Taekwondo, thanks.

But to answer the original question, the kicks are a bit different. You can see it in the hip rotation, foot pivot and foot movement. The various forms of Karate out there tend to "push" a bit more than TKD or TSD - I think this is due to the sport style of sparring that has become so popular in TKD, because you can still see a bit of the push style kicks in TSD.

Now within TKD you can see different power levels in kicks. ITF Taekwon-Do is more traditional and you can see that in the popular side kicks, though they do practice round kicks they are not as deadly as you can find in the WTF. The WTF style of Tae Kwon Do may not have the "tradition" on their side, but they have developed a type of sparring that just screams "quickness" (as you can see in the Olympics) and the choice for quick kicks would be snapping kicks like the round or ax kicks...though you will see a good competitor though in a front kick or a front push kick to set up another technique.

Karate and the Korean arts have similar backgrounds but over the last 50 or so years a bunch has changed.

__________________
Master Adam D. Huntley
Snohomish Taekwondo
www.SnoTKD.com
Hwa-Rang Taekwondo
www.HTFtaekwondo.com
Member BHMA - Brotherhood of Martial Artists
www.brotherhoodofmartialartists.com

Earl Weiss

That is like saying the Chinese have the best rockets because the invented them. We all know who out the first object and man in space - Russia, and the first man on the moon. USA.

Or for that matter since the Chinese systems were developed before the Okinawan and Japanese systems that they are "Better" because they have had more time to refine them.

Repeating the same experience for 100 years does not equal 100 years of experience.

Virtualy every physical activity ahs become beter in modern times for any number of reasons.