Which one is the best of those two in reality?Chinese Wushu or Japanese Karate?

Question

Which one is the best of those two in reality?Chinese Wushu or Japanese Karate?

Answer 1

Karate, wushu is like I dont know all that weird c**p that wouldn't ever work in a fight. Karate is much much better.

Answer 2

No martial arts is superior to another. It is the individual, what he was taught, and how good his skills are.

As for  thekippest  No offense but you need to calm down. You have a few of your facts a little off.

Wushu was the result of the Chinese governments attempt to control what is being taught. It is a combination of many different styles. It is a Communist contry after all.

Yes Karate was influenced by chinese arts but to say that it is a direct result of Chinese arts is debatable. That is especially true considering that the Okinawans already had fighting arts before the Chinese influence.

Now Here is where there is a misunderstanding or Kempo/kenpo. While the commonly know styles of kenpo (like Parker kenpo) do have roots in common with some other systems there are a few Kempo styles that are relatively unknown. I happen to have spent most of the last 41 years learning one of them. Although I'm not going to mention the name of the style I will say this. Our style has roots that started in China, when to Korea, then Japan, before coming to the U.S. in the 1960's.   Our style is not connection at all with the roots of any other kempo/kenpo style.   I wish people would stop making generalizations about arts.  There are offshoot arts in many places around the world that have only a small following of students. Yet that may or may not be like other arts using the same terminology to describe them.

Answer 3

Wushu is a demonstration art. It's too flashy and showy there are authentic techniques in there, but it's not combat based. I have to go with Karate.

Just Added:

To those who I offended, I apologize for my ignorance about Chinese Martial arts. I'm fully aware that Karate, and most other arts, were born from Kung Fu. However, when I think Wushu, all I picture is the demonstrations that I have seen, both on t.v, and in person. You learn something new everyday, which is what this site was intended for. Again, I apologize. But I stand by my opinion. As an overall art, Mental, Physical, and spiritual, Chinese martial arts are great. As far as pure fighting applications go, I'm of the opinion that Karate is superior.

Answer 4

Neither........you bring the best of Wushu and the best of Karate. There are strengths and weaknesses in both....but if you have you the BEST of each style.........all you got is a lucky strike or someones miscalculation. Which is solely on the master's shoulders, not the art itself.

Answer 5

I don't know whether to laugh at thekippe's lack of knowledge or smack him upside the head and knock some sense into him.

falsehood 1 - "To be a master (sifu) of chinese gong fu, you must have been the sole disciple of your master (chosen by the master when he retired, the disciple is taught for many years and years after the master stopped teaching his school) but in KARATE... ANY joe shmoe can teach you after 5 years" if this is true then how come there are so many Kung fu schools? And traditionally you need to be a 3rd degree black belt to open a school.

falsehood 2-"karate is also not as adaptive, and the forms they did a hundred years ago are nearly exactly the same no matter the style." - There are numerous versions of Isshin-Ryu karate where the movements in the kata are different, depending on the time period that the marine who brought it back trained under Tatsuo Shimibuku, because he was constantly improving the style. Anyway how much different can a punch, kick, or grab be now then it was 100 years ago? i also do not see kung fu forms changing all that much.

falsehood 3- "as i said before KARATE CAME FROM CHINESE GONG FU" Partially incorect-Some of the techniques on Okinawin karate were modified from Kung fu motions and blended with indiginous fighting methods, but not everything came from Kung Fu.

falsehood 4- "Japanese karate came from gong fu" WRONG, WRONG, WRONG Japanese Karate was developed from Okinawin Karate. This is undesputible.

Please refrain from bad mouthing an art when you obviously have no knowledge of the subject.

As for the question it is impossible to pick one over the other. For one thing there are many forms of karate and many of kung fu, so which styles are you talking about? How good is the instructor, and does he know the true application? Does the school train realisticly, with "aliveness or progressive resistance? Do they spar with contact?

Kung Fu and Karate if taught right and traine well can both be excellent for self defense and can work quite well in reality. A style and the techniques they contain are only tools, how they are used and how well they perform are up to the individual.

Answer 6

Karate. Wushu is good for show. But I'd pick karate.

Answer 7

While I have a high respect for karate in general; I really have to admit that Chinese Wushu is the best and most complete system for self-defense.

But it really takes a very long time to learn Wushu, and karate is really a young man's pursuit (under 30 years of age) because karate takes a lot of energy to apply.

Karate by its very inception is a limited, though powerful, fighting style.  Karate was derived from Chinese Wushu in the 17th century.

Answer 8

Of course Karate.

Answer 9

Hi.

Wushu (or Kung Fu) and karate are not specific styles, they are broad categories containing hundreds upon hundreds of individual styles.

Generally speaking though, Karate may be a little more directly applicable to combat within a shorter period of time.  In other words it's easier to learn, understand and apply.  

Kung Fu in some cases tends to be a little abstract, it takes longer to learn, understand and apply.  Again, (and I can't emphasize this enough) generally speaking.

You will always have strengths and weaknesses in any given style.  A style of Kung Fu may be relatively weak on kicking and a style of Karate may be strong by comparison, or vice versa.  Kung Fu does tend to be a little more comprehensive, if only in the sheer amount of information there is to be absorbed.  However some styles of Karate are no less comprehensive.

There really is no such thing as a "best" style.  What it really comes down to is personal preference and how the style is taught.

What works for me may not be your preference and therefore you may not excel in it as well as I.

Also you could learn the most complete, advanced martial art in the world but if your instructor is no good then you may not get anything of value out of it.

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Still the nature of a given style is of great importance.  Different styles inherently focus on different things.  

Some focus on the sport aspect, both in Karate and Kung Fu.  

Some focus on the art aspect itself and create very beautiful and exotic styles of martial arts, but they sometimes lose some of their practicality in the process (usually this happens in Kung Fu).  

Some focus on self defense and are actually labeled as "self defense styles", these are usually styles of Karate.  Kenpo Karate for example is a category of styles many of which are categorized as self defense styles.  In my humble opinion these are the best (keeping in mind it has a lot to do with other factors as well) for self defense, street combat, reality, or what have you.

Some of these styles of Kenpo Karate actually combine Karate and Kung Fu.  So you'll have the immediate combat applications that are strengths of Karate but still have the depth of knowledge that you can find in many styles of Kung Fu.  For example my style is Chinese Kenpo Karate; it uses Karate, some Jujitsu and some Hung Gar Kung Fu.  It takes a relatively short time to learn how to use the style but a lifetime to master it.

So in summary, there is no single best style or group of styles, at least that everyone could come to a consensus on as it is largely personal preference and how the style is used.

It is the artist that makes the art, not the other way around.

I hope this adequately answers your question :)

Answer 10

ignore the ignorant comments of wushu being flashy and demonstrative. especially since Karate CAME FROM chinese gong fu.  gong fu just means a skill or an ability, more specifically wu shu means 'War art' or similar translations.  gymnastic wushu is what the one boy was talking about when he said it was flashy.  

NO ART is better than the other inherently.  it is somewhat about how dedicated the person training the art is. it is also MAJORLY about how effective the instructor is at teaching the art.  THIS is where wushu accelerates.

To be a master (sifu) of chinese gong fu, you must have been the sole disciple of your master (chosen by the master when he retired, the disciple is taught for many years and years after the master stopped teaching his school)  but in KARATE... ANY joe shmoe can teach you after 5 years

in my gong fu school , it takes 6 years of regular training (atleast 2-3 days weekly) to even attain black sash (at the soonest!!!)

karate is extremely commercialized and the average karate school you can get a black belt in 2-3 years easy.

karate is also not as adaptive, and the forms they did a hundred years ago are nearly exactly the same no matter the style.

as i said before KARATE CAME FROM CHINESE GONG FU.

the closest karate style that still resembles gong fu is Kenpo Karate where they use similar fists found in various gong fu styles (leopard fist, cranes beak, tiger claws.. but kenpo renamed the fists)

if you can find a legitimate gong fu school, do that.  Japanese karate came from gong fu, but chinese gong fu has been around thousands of years and is naturally the most complex system of combat available.

Answer 11

neither they both suck!