Anonymous wrote:My kid has a brown belt in karate but we moved, and the nearest karate studio from our huse is about 45 minutes away vs. 10 minutes away for Tae Kwon Do. Kid is not super-keen to switch martial arts and is proud of being a brown belt, but I can't discount not having to do all that driving through traffic 2-3x per week for lessons.

Any thoughts about switching from one martial arts form to another? Any guesses on whether my kid have to start as if they are a brand new beginner in TKD?

The transition from karate to TKD shouldn't be especially tough.

Most places will make you start as a white belt but I have seen places where you can get accelerated promotion. The case I saw was TKD to TKD where the kid hadn't reached black belt yet so they had to start over.

Anonymous wrote:As mentioned above, karate (and there are many versions) and TKD are cousins, and there is a good amount of overlap between the two.

Regardless of karate or TKD, what the program produces varies widely depending on the studio's philosophy. Some are more oriented as an after-school program to help with a child's self-confidence, others have a lot more of a flavor of a self-defense academy. All comes down to what you and your son want. I think it would be good to at least watch a class (at the hour your son would attend) at the TKD place you're considering and decide if the two align.

With regard to 'starting over' - at the risk of going Mr. Miyagi, if you think your son is going to be interested in continuing martial arts over the long haul, the color of the belt doesn't matter (fully acknowledge the aspect of self-affirmation and social hierarchy). Most places where I've studied require even kid black belts to start over completely when they transition to adult classes.

Honestly, I'd be leery of a place that allows you to just carry the level belt from another style over. By the same token, I'd also be leery of 'belt factories,' which tend to make $$$ off testing fees (you can get a sense by watching the skill levels of kids at sessions vs the color belts they're wearing).

Hope that helps. I used to box and got up to brown in karate. My wife is a black belt. My kids got up to different levels, but moving around interrupted the color belt aspect. In all cases, the only things that mattered/carried over at the end were the fundamentals learned at each place. I couldn't even tell you where in our house the old belts and such are.

Honestly most TKD places around here advance people based on social promotion. You get promoted with your cohort when you take the test. At least until red belt or so.
You see wild gaps in ability and skill at the red belt level at some places.

As mentioned above, karate (and there are many versions) and TKD are cousins, and there is a good amount of overlap between the two.

Regardless of karate or TKD, what the program produces varies widely depending on the studio's philosophy. Some are more oriented as an after-school program to help with a child's self-confidence, others have a lot more of a flavor of a self-defense academy. All comes down to what you and your son want. I think it would be good to at least watch a class (at the hour your son would attend) at the TKD place you're considering and decide if the two align.

With regard to 'starting over' - at the risk of going Mr. Miyagi, if you think your son is going to be interested in continuing martial arts over the long haul, the color of the belt doesn't matter (fully acknowledge the aspect of self-affirmation and social hierarchy). Most places where I've studied require even kid black belts to start over completely when they transition to adult classes.

Honestly, I'd be leery of a place that allows you to just carry the level belt from another style over. By the same token, I'd also be leery of 'belt factories,' which tend to make $$$ off testing fees (you can get a sense by watching the skill levels of kids at sessions vs the color belts they're wearing).

Hope that helps. I used to box and got up to brown in karate. My wife is a black belt. My kids got up to different levels, but moving around interrupted the color belt aspect. In all cases, the only things that mattered/carried over at the end were the fundamentals learned at each place. I couldn't even tell you where in our house the old belts and such are.

Much of Tae Kwon Do effectively originated in/effectively duplicated Shotokan Karate plus Korean foot techniques, but there has been a huge amount of development since then. TKD always had multiple schools as well. So, bottom line, there will be similarities, the Karate hand techniques may be superior, and the TKD foot technique repertoire will be much larger. Stances may be very different or very similar, depending on how traditional the TKD school is.

It is hard for a kid to change styles, because they lose their “rank” (despite it being pretty meaningless in the greater scheme of things). The good news is that OP’s son should already be well conditioned and be familiar with a lot of the underlying concepts.

Take him for a trial lesson or two and check out multiple schools if available. He might like the new style better.

Something similar happened to me when I was younger. To be honest, I didn't like the feeling of starting over and not liking/being familiar with the different way the things were done. So never pursued the new one offered.

I think the issue was back then I didn't understand the wide variety and differences between the different styles.

Now I'm a little bit more familiar and understand the benefits/differences between some of them. For example TKD is known for it's kicking. A lot of martial art practitioners learn multiple disciplines to pick up or fine tune the aspects the different disciplines focus on.

And while not being exactly the same, some of the principles are the same and allows for a smaller learning curve and allowing for faster promotions. And at the very least your child will apply the same discipline they already developed while doing karate to help them learn TKD.

They say the best gym is the one you know you'll go to. So I would choose the closer TKD place if it fits your schedule better and make sure to give your child a heads up on how it's different and the benefits on it. ie how it emphasizes on powerful kicks, is a competition in the Olympics, etc.

And if they ever wanted to go back to Karate, they can always do so in the future when scheduling works out better or they're able to pursue it on their own when they're older.

Contact your local taekwondo studio and ask.

I have kids in taekwondo and new kids, who are not new to martial arts, generally start as not total beginners, but I think this is likely studio and kid dependent.

My kid has a brown belt in karate but we moved, and the nearest karate studio from our huse is about 45 minutes away vs. 10 minutes away for Tae Kwon Do. Kid is not super-keen to switch martial arts and is proud of being a brown belt, but I can't discount not having to do all that driving through traffic 2-3x per week for lessons.

Any thoughts about switching from one martial arts form to another? Any guesses on whether my kid have to start as if they are a brand new beginner in TKD?