How Is Karate Different From Martial Arts?
By Jeff Baines
5th Degree Black Belt in Kempo
2nd Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do
Level 4 Apprentice Instructor in Jeet Kune Do
Owner of Dojo Source
In the United States, the word Karate became so popular that at some point most people came to believe that Karate means any kind of fighting. People who don’t know any better will say something like, “Wow you do Karate?”, and someone who is tired of explaining it will just say “yeah”, even though they don’t actually do Karate they do some other style of Martial Art. Martial Arts is the broad term used to describe any kind of fighting, and Karate is just a style of Martial Arts. As you can see from the picture above, Martial Arts has essentially 3 Main Types, Striking, Felling, and Grappling. You can also train in Weapons, but Martial Arts that train with weapons usually also focus on one of the other 3 Types as well. Martial Arts often do a little bit of 1 or both of the other types, but I put these Martial Arts in the category that matched their main focus. These 3 types of Martial Arts are different than the 5 Fighting Ranges (Weapons, Kicking, Punching, Trapping, and Grappling), to learn more about the fighting ranges you can read What Kind Of Martial Art Do We Do or Which Martial Art Is Best For MMA & Self Defense.
A Striking Martial Art is one that uses punches, kicks, knees, elbows, open hand strikes, weapons, etc. to hit and cause harm to an opponent, and blocks to defend yourself from the opponent. Striking Martial Arts are some of the most common styles that are offered as punching, kicking, and blocking are your first line of defense when you are being attacked. Karate is a Striking Art that comes from Japan and thanks to movies like “The Karate Kid '' (1984) it became one of the most popular styles practiced in the United States. The United States created a Striking Martial Art, called Boxing, where you are only allowed to punch opponents, kicks and certain other types of moves are not allowed in this style. Korea created a Martial Arts style, called Tae Kwon Do, that is mostly kicks. Punches are allowed in Tae Kwon Do, but their kicks are so quick and legs are longer than arms so punches are thrown much less often. Also kicks are worth more points than punches in Tae Kwon Do so fighters usually focus on kicks. Boxing, Tae Kwon Do, and Karate are actually the 3 Striking Martial Art styles in the Olympics.
Another Type of popular Martial Art is Felling. A Felling Martial Art is one that teaches takedowns to knock the opponent down, both harming the opponent and keeping them from attacking you. The idea is that if you take the opponent down, they will be hurt enough that you will be able to get away. The most popular Felling style of Martial Art is Judo, and it is very popular because it has been included in the Olympics. It is the only Felling Martial Arts included in the Olympics.
The last, but definitely not the least popular Main Type of Martial Art is Grappling. Freestyle Wrestling (sometimes called Catch Wrestling) and Greco Roman Wrestling are both very popular Grappling Martial Art styles that are popular and have been in the Olympics for a long time. However, the UFC and Mixed Martial Arts brought Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) to the public and has become one of the most popular Martial Arts styles practiced in the world. A Grappling Martial Art deals with how to trap, lock, or break your opponent’s joints, usually these are taught while you are already on the ground.
So which Type or style is Best? Well none actually, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. One of the reasons BJJ and Grappling is so popular is because you can train it at faster speeds and with more effort because rather than actually having your joints broken you can give up a fight to your opponent by “tapping out”. Being punched, kicked, and taken down by an opponent, like in Striking and Felling Martial Arts styles, is very hard on the body so you can only go “full contact” once every month or so and even then you might sustain injuries that take longer to heal. But in BJJ, you can fight at combat speed every day, multiple times a day even, without getting seriously injured.
Many Grappling Martial Artists will say “Fights always go to the ground”, but I think this is because they want that to be true. If all of my Martial Arts techniques were really effective on the ground, I would want to take you to the ground. My skill set lies mostly in Striking however, so I wouldn’t want to take the fight to the ground, I would want to use my punches and kicks to end the fight. If an untrained fighter attacked a skilled fighter, the skilled fighter would obviously play to their strengths and win that fight in the range that makes sense for them. However, if we are talking about 2 skilled fighters of different styles getting into a fight, the one with more training will probably win. If a skilled Grappling or Felling Martial Artist wanted to take a skilled Striking Martial Artist to the ground, they would first have to find a way past all the punches and kicks which is much easier said than done against a skilled Striker. You will be able to find lots of videos online that can both prove or disprove that Striking, Grappling, or Felling is the superior type of Martial Art. The truth is whichever Martial Art you study, you will gain skills that make you dangerous in that range, but unless you take more than one style of Martial Arts there will be weaknesses in what you do. If you want to learn more, read Which Martial Art is best for MMA or Self Defense.
At Dojo Source, we start off by teaching you Kempo. Kempo is a mix of mainly Japanese Karate and Chinese Kung Fu, but it also includes some of the takedowns of Judo and the traps and locks of Jiu Jitsu. We would describe Kempo as mostly a Striking Martial Art, but it contains some of both Grappling and Felling. We prioritize the Striking in the beginning of your training in order to develop a good foundation of attributes like Coordination, Balance, Speed, Power, etc. then we build off this foundation and begin to teach you Grappling and Felling from the other styles that we also train in. We first want you to feel comfortable being able to punch, kick, and block your opponent so that they can’t take you down. Then if they find a way to get in close and try to take you down, we show you ways to stop them and counter their takedowns or go with them. If that fails and they take you down, we show you ways to fight from the ground and maybe even stand back up so you can keep punching and kicking. To learn all of this I had to begin training in Jeet Kune Do, which has a core principle of “absorb what is useful, reject what is useless.” My Jeet Kune Do Instructor has trained in over 50 styles of Martial Arts over 40 years, he has done over 500 MMA fights (when there was almost no rules), and has been in more real life Self Defense Scenarios than any person should (much more than he wished he had). Through all of this he has honed his system in Jeet Kune Do and is passing his knowledge on to me.
Kempo is a good base, but as we reached the higher ranks we found gaps and weaknesses in the style that our Kempo instructors couldn’t give adequate explanations of. So we train in other styles to fill in these gaps. We hope to pass on to you a much more complete knowledge of Martial Arts than just Kempo can provide. Anyone who tells you that one style is superior to another style, just hasn’t been training long enough or fought against enough different people to know what the weaknesses of that style are. A Complete Martial Artist must learn all 3 Types of Martial Arts (and understand how to defend themselves in the 5 Ranges) to be truly prepared for ANY kind of attacker. This is our goal at Dojo Source, to help you be prepared for any kind of attacker.
Outline
How Is Karate Different From Martial Arts?
-Martial Arts is the broad term used to describe any kind of fighting like Boxing, Wrestling, Karate, Kung Fu, etc.
-Karate is a Style of Martial Arts. Karate comes from Japan and is mostly a Striking Art.
-There are 3 Main Types of Martial Arts, Striking, Felling, and Grappling (sometimes weapons are included as a Type but it is usually done alongside 1 of the other 3 Types), these are different from the 5 fighting ranges.
-A Striking Martial Art is one that uses punches, kicks, knees, elbows, open hand strikes, etc. to cause harm to an opponent, and blocks to defend yourself from the opponent. Some popular Striking styles of Martial Arts include: Boxing, Karate, Kung Fu, Muay Thai, and Tae Kwon Do
-A Felling Martial Art is one that teaches takedowns to knock the opponent down, both harming the opponent and keeping them from attacking you. Some popular Felling styles of Martial Arts include: Judo and Aikido
-A Grappling Martial Art deals with how to trap, lock, or break your opponents joints, usually these are taught while you are already on the ground. Some popular Grappling styles of Martial Arts include: Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling
-There is NOT one Martial Arts style that is perfect, all styles of Martial Arts have their weaknesses which is why Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has become so popular. When you train one style of Martial Arts, you need to mix in other styles as well if you want to be a complete fighter.
-At Dojo Source we do a Mixed Martial Art called Kempo which takes Chinese Kung Fu, blended it with Japanese Karate, Judo, and Jiu-Jitsu. So Kempo has some Felling and Grappling, but Kempo would mostly be considered a Striking Martial Art.
-We are currently training with a Jeet Kune Do instructor to include many different styles of Martial Arts so that we can give you a more complete Martial Art and self defense training.
Martial Arts is a wonderful activity that is both fun and has many benefits. I hope that you give Martial Arts near you a try to see the benefits for yourself. If you are near Arvada, CO come to Dojo Source to see a class for yourself. Click Here to try a Free Class.
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