Karate or taekwondo, which one is better?

Question

I'm a 15 year old girl and I want to do either karate or taekwondo. What's the difference and which one would you recommend? Oh and do you have to make noises, because I don't really want to do all the screaming and grunting.

Answer 1

in my oppinion shotokan karate

Answer 2

I trained in TKD personally, so I'm biased. TKD emphasizes discipline, physical fitness, and respect. As far as self defense, I'm not very confident in TKD's flashy kicks. It depends on what you're looking to gain from the art.

By the way, you do have to Kiai (yell) occasionally.

Answer 3

You should just do muay thai. There is no fancy bull c**p thrown in.

I would suggest checking out different schools before signing up with any though.

How good you get mainly depends on your instructor,  not the style they teach.

Answer 4

This question comes up frequently on here, and once again a bunch of people are giving uneducated answers. As one person said "my friend took both and he likes TKD better."

Ok so you have somebody that really has no idea about either one giving you advice. Just seems wrong in my book.

As for your question, a big part of it is what do you want out of it? One thing to understand is that there are many styles of karate. They can generally be grouped under 3 main headings:

1) Okinawin- Karate originated in Okinawa, and true Okinawin karate is more then blocking, punching, and kicking. It contains numerous Locks, throws, sweeps, take downs, chokes, and clinch fighting techniques. The stances tend to be more upright, closer to a boxers stance, for mobility. Most styles are a blending of hard and soft techniques, and very few are flashy, and are focused on effective self defense motion. Okinawin karate tends to suit smaller people very well, because quite honestly your average okinawin is on the small side.

2) Japanese styles- These on average tend to be more sport oriented, but if taught by a good instructor are more then adiquate for self defense. These styles tend to have lower stances, which are great for power, but they sacrafice some mobility. Most japanes estyles that I know of would fall more into the hard style catagory.

3) American Hybred styles- These are styles that people have made up, and run the gammit from excellent to not worth c***. These are the ones you really want to check out the instructors credentials and who developed the style, and find out how well respected they are in the martial arts community.

Realize that this is just a very broad veiw, and I could go into really greater detail.

TKD is a korean style that does essentially emphisize kick, especially if it is an olympic style school. Traditonal TKD also contains many punching and grappling techniques, unfortunatly schools that teach it are few and far between.

My advice is do some research, and visit all available schools in your area. There are many answers on here about how to find a good school, a good instructor, and what to watch out for, just use the search feature.

Remember more importent then style is the quality of instruction you can find, whether the school trains realisticly with resistance and contact, and what style fits you.

Answer 5

THERE IS NO BETTER ONE BETWEEN THE TWO!!! I am sick of this question. There is no martial art that is better than the other, there never was, and never will be. It is the same as tea. We, as people, put all these pre- assumed judgements on tea on how it tastes, where as, the tea doesnt judge itself, it is the people who do that, to me, tea is tea.

If you want a more simple comparision, here, take guitars for example. Take jimi Hendrix with a crappy epiphone sg, and some kid who has played for three hours who has a custom shop gibson les paul, Jimi Hendrix (one of the greatest guitarists of all times) will still sound better than the kid who has the nicer les paul guitar.

There is no better, only differences. Tae-kwon-doe is more foot and leg oriented than karate.

One martial art is not better than the other, it all depends on who is using it, and how proficient they are.

Answer 6

Kung fu

Answer 7

Tae-kwon-do is a Korean martial art with much emphesis on kicking.  Karate is a generic term for any Japanese martial art.  Although some styles emphasize both kicking and punching equally, karate generally focuses on hand techniques.  

I have personally taken both styles and would say that each has its merits.  Kicking will always outdistance punching, yet building up enough flexibility and strength in the legs to do kicks to the head or higher can be rather challenging.  On the  other hand (literally), motor control for fist techniques is more easily obtained.  Fist techniques are also superior for close-quarter combat.

As for making noises, it's generally up to your master (or sensai, in karate) to decide that.  Some masters require yelling only for forms (predetermined sets of exercises), while others may have you yell during routine training exercises.  Once again, I'll stress that the amount of yelling you would do is up to what school you go to.

However, I have never been to a school where there was no yelling at all.  Yelling is used to build power when executing attacks, and should not be underestimated.  Let me encourage you though - when I first started martial arts, I was daunted by yelling and wouldn't do it often at all.  As time went on, I got used to it and now it's second nature to me if I ever want to do a particularly powerful attack.

I think you would get used to it as well.

Answer 8

Taekwondo is better in my opinion. Taekwondo is based more on kicks.

Answer 9

taekwondo. I'm a black belt in taekwondo and i enjoy it. You do have to make noises like Ki-Ya or Ki Yap

Answer 10

No you dont have to make noises its just movie effects its actually pretty quiete i would recommend Tae Kwon Do i know someone whos tried both and he say that ones better