Taekwondo is a great based martial art that involves kicking and punching. Its main emphasis is on head-height kicks, fast kicking, jump kicks, and spinning jump kicks.
This Korean traditional martial art teaches more than physical fighting skills. Kenpo is a Japan-based martial art that mainly emphasizes standing locks/throws, punches, and kicks.
Most of its practitioners study forms and also involve themselves in preordained fighting movements, but generally, it is about realizing self-defense, unlike taekwondo.
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Benefits of Taekwondo
Martial arts, regardless of the type chosen, has a lot of benefits to both the mind and the physical body.
The benefits include defending oneself to building mental endurance and strength. While all martial arts have similar benefits, they are unique and differ based on the specific martial art. Here are the benefits of learning taekwondo.
- Improved muscle toning
- Increased confidence
- Improved stamina
- Taekwondo training promotes flexibility
- Promotes enhanced cognitive abilities
- Improves concentration abilities
- Taekwondo enhances self-esteem by exacerbating a practitioner’s mental and physical powers.
- It helps build confidence by encouraging practitioners to take control and succeed in life.
- Taekwondo helps in developing discipline through thorough mind and body training in its techniques and taekwondo.
- Taekwondo strengthens the body and mind via increased mental discipline and physical coordination.
Disadvantages of taekwondo
While taking taekwondo as an effective self-defense martial art, it can pose a lot of risks to its practitioners. Some of the disadvantages of taekwondo include;
- Can cause injuries to the head
- Bruises
- This can lead to a false sense of security
- The techniques are difficult to incorporate in a real-life fight
- There are high possibilities of incomplete combat teachings because it is not taught as a sport.
- It can result in bodily injuries and strains.
- It takes a long time to learn and master.
- It has a high potential of leading to frustration
- Taekwondo has high risks of overconfidence in confrontation
Advantages of Kenpo
- Kenpo is a beneficial martial art in all practitioners’ life aspects. Its benefits include ;
- Kenpo is a comprehensive system that can help in countering real-life attacks.
- Kenpo instills a great sense of discipline, enabling small individuals to logically defend themselves.
- The practice of Kenpo strengthens both body and mind, developing composite deeper insight, more self-defense, and a clear process of thought.
- Kenpo strengthens the whole body, promotes general body health, builds stamina, improves coordination, and quickens reflexes.
- Kenpo valid humility, self-control, justice, courtesy, and integrity.
Disadvantages of Kenpo
Kenpo is a karate art respected in both fitness and martial arts fields. However, it has its drawbacks. The drawbacks include
- The quality of its instruction is questionable and lacks consistency.
- It is expensive to train and complete the training
- There are high chances of injuries to practitioners.
- Kenpo is hard on both the mind and body
- It is time-consuming as it has no time off.
- Kenpo training can lead to a false sense of security.
- There are limited schools that offer karate training.
Differences between Taekwondo and Kenpo
Taekwondo and Kenpo are forms of martial arts, but they are different in various ways.
- Taekwondo is a Korean-based martial art that mainly involves kicking and is now used almost all over the world.
- On the other hand, Kenpo is a rare form of martial art and is a mix of Japanese and Chinese martial arts.
- While taekwondo emphasizes kicking techniques, Kenpo emphasizes mainly hand strikes
- Kenpo has its roots in Okinawa, Japan, while taekwondo originates in Korea.
- In taekwondo, prearranged techniques sequences are termed poomsae while in Kenpo, they are known as kata.
- Taekwondo is an Olympic sport, while Kenpo is a style of karate. So the stances, movements, and postures differ significantly between Kenpo and taekwondo.
- While taekwondo aims to favor fast kicking, taekwondo training is well-rounded and involves learning punches, open-handed, joint locks, throws, and punches.
- Contrariwise Kenpo is popular for hand techniques; it frequently includes elbow and knee strikes and uses kicking techniques to some extent.
- Kenpo uses hand attacks more, while taekwondo involves more jumping, kicking, and spinning.
- In Kenpo, the legs are kept grounded and use kicks as a backup, while in taekwondo hands are the backup. Kenpo emphasizes solid stances, strength, and power, while taekwondo emphasizes mobility, speed, and flexibility.
Similarities between taekwondo and Kenpo
- Taekwondo and Kenpo are both excellent martial art forms that offer numerous benefits
- Both taekwondo and Kenpo feature core principles that emphasize a high code of personal conduct and self-discipline.
- Both offer practitioners a good workout and keep self-defense as the main focus.
Conclusion
Both Taekwondo and Kenpo are better when defending, attacking, and destroying opponents. However, each has its tactics, although they share some trick aspects.
One can choose any of these two forms of martial art based on the specific purpose and how comfortable to train each.
In a particular aspect, taekwondo is not that aggressive compared to Kenpo. Particularly, if you want a great martial art with exercise, go with Taekwondo.
However, for strike-first techniques and with a rapid succession of strikes lies the Kenpo.