¶ … Shorin Ryu Karate and Tae Kwon Do Shorin-ryu karate and tae kwon do have much in common with each other, and much in common with several other Asian martial arts practices. They all -- karate, tae kwon do, judo, jujitsu and aikido -- emphasize two things. Those two things are that:

It is better to solve problems without fighting, by seeking peace.

A practitioner of martial arts must develop not only his or her body, but mind and spirit as well.

Robert Scaglione, one of the foremost masters of shorin-ryu karate in the United States, says that, "Karate was indigenous to the RyuKyu culture, pervaded by weapons bans throughout the centuries...." This forced the people of the RyuKyu culture, the Okinawans, to develop a system of self-defense using what they had to defend themselves from the invaders, who were mainly the Japanese. What they had were their hands. "Te" means "hand."

The word karate, means "the art of the open hand, " Scaglione, advised in an article on the Shorin-Ryu Karate U.S.A. Web site.

The Koreans,...

What they developed was similar to karate, in that it used only the combatant's own body to successfully fight enemies. Their system, now known as tae kwon do, translates as "the way of smashing with the foot and destroying with the hand," according to Grand Master James S. Benko, Ph.D., writing on the International Tae Kwon Do Association Web site.
Korean martial arts had been practiced by unaffiliated schools in the United States until the 1950s, when six major schools got together and unified what they taught, choosing the name tae kwon do.

The name alone gives some insight into the difference in styles. Where the Okinawan karate is quiet and the movements fluid, tae kwon do is more vigorous, with greater explosive energy used for the self-defensive movements.

Jimmie Nixdorf and Phil Lusignan, writing in Black Belt magazine and the magazine's Web site, note that the approaches to training and…