What Are Hard Style And Soft Style Martial Arts?

By Clint Leung

Sometimes one would see references to 'hard' style and 'soft'style martial arts. To many non-martial artists, these terms maybe puzzling. In North America, these terms are used to classifymartial art styles into two main categories. Japanese/Okinawankarate and Korean are generally referred to as hardstyles. Movements in both karate and are oftenlinear with their forms (traditional sequence of set moves)performed with crisp movements. Chinese kung fu styles areusually referred to as soft styles. The circular motions of kungfu forms give them a more visually graceful or softer appearanceespecially when many of the movements flow from one to another.Even Korean kuk sool won which is sometimes referred to as'Korean kung fu', is often classified as a soft style since itsmovements are also more flowing than the stop and go of tae kwondo or karate. This is not to say that hard styles such as karateor are more powerful martial arts than kung fu andother soft styles. The term 'soft' is a bit misleading becausethe power from circular kung fu moves are often hidden. Circularmoves can generate just as much power as linear ones.

The terms hard style and soft style came as a result of theevolution of North American martial arts competitions,particularly in forms divisions. For many years, open karatetournaments which allowed all martial arts styles, hadcompetitors from different martial arts backgrounds compete inthe same forms divisions. All equivalent level competitors,whether they used a Japanese/Okinawan karate kata, a Korean taekwon do



pattern or a Chinese kung fu form, competed together inthe same divisions. This provided a nice martial arts showcasefor spectators especially at the bigger tournaments. However,some competitors and judges considered divisions with combinedstyles to be too complicated. For example, judges who werefamiliar with only Japanese or Korean styles had a difficulttime scoring competitors performing Chinese kung fu forms.Sometimes competitors from different martial art styles feltthat judges were being biased against them. Judging a hard styleform against a soft style form was often like trying to compareapples to oranges.

To help resolve these issues, many of the larger martial artstournaments expanded to have separate divisions for hard andsoft styles. This was a way to equalize things and add some morefairness to all competitors. The largest tournaments wentanother step ahead and further separated Japanese karatestylists from Korean stylists by putting them intodifferent divisions too. This still left many kempo stylists upin the air because their particular forms have both hard andsoft style elements since their movements are both linear aswell as circular. Some promoters of large tournaments decided toaccommodate kempo stylists by adding in separate forms divisionsjust for their style too. Of course many smaller localtournaments have not been able to offer separate hard and softstyle divisions for martial arts forms competitors mainlybecause of financial budget restrictions. The terms hard styleand soft style are used only in North America and parts ofEurope since these are the only regions of the world that haveopen martial arts competitions. Martial arts competitions inother parts of the world such as Asia are generally restrictedto certain specific styles only.

About the author:Clint Leung is a lifelong martial artist with over 32 years oftraining experience in kung fu, tae kwon do, karate, kickboxingand martial arts weaponry. He has won Canadian and worldchampionship titles (NASKA, NBL and WSKF). He is also owner ofFree Spirit Activewear (http://www.FreeSpiritActivewear.com) ,an online retailer and designer of premium martial artsactivewear. Free Spirit Activewear has martial arts infoarticles.