Whats the 'best' karate style?

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Really? Kara in Japanese usually means 'empty' as in Kara te or Kara oke...in Chinese the kara character is pronounced as kong and is usually associated with 'free of' something.

Toudi in Japanese means tang shan in Chinese (literally Tang dynasty mountain), which is no mystery why the Japanese refer to China as Tang - Japanese imported Tang dynasty culture.

Kara isn't Toudi, it is Tou, Te is Di or Ti in Okinawan so Karate is Toudi in Okinawan ( hence my nick) Old spelling that is, these days you really have to look for a school that will use the old spelling/character

It was changed because of anti chinese sentiments in Japan at that time

BTW in China there is Táng shou tao which is old spelling Karatedo (same characters that is)

BTW Ti or Di was the native Okinawan MA which was mixed with the chinese gong fa

[brokenelbow]

Always heard them referred to as the chon ji set never Ch'ang Hon, thanks for the information.

Heard Choi mentioned a few times, read his encyclopedia and I'm not too high on the fellow. The applications of the hyungs in it are laughable, but the self defense section is much better at giving a clue to what Nam was thinking when he created the hyungs. My Oh Do Kwan master learned back in the day when they still had the mix of Shotokan and the newer Ch'ang Hon kata. He never went with the sine wave silliness and and stayed with the Shotokan method of power, just without the deep stances. He also got to train some with the Korean commandos (tiger brigade?) that were sent to Vietnam. According to him they were excellent at CQC and it's sad that part of ODK is pretty much dead.

[Spookey]

Oh Do Kwan ALIVE!

He also got to train some with the Korean commandos (tiger brigade?) that were sent to Vietnam. According to him they were excellent at CQC and it's sad that part of ODK is pretty much dead.[/QUOTE]

My Instructor (and father) is a hard line Oh Do Kwan Instructor (the Vietnam era REEL Oh Do Kwan)...he is not an Oh Do Kwan "style" instructor...he was promoted to Korea Taekwon-Do Oh Do Kwan Instructor by Hyun Jong Myong!
His direct instruction came from SGT Major Kim Bo Kyum and SGT Major Kang Chung Man (both ROK Special Forces Instructors Group Instructors) !
In my home Oh Do Kwan is very much ALIVE!

God Bless,
Spookey
TAEKWON!

[brokenelbow]

Spooky that's great the old style is still alive. Don't know the names of who trained my master but he would let some things slip that I've never seen another TKD master do. He's only taught all of what he knows to one senior student and he's not allowed to teach it to others.

[brokenelbow]

LOL! Everyone should have a Mr Miyagi.