What is a hard style and is a soft style? How are they different?
Hard styles are those collections of martial arts techniques which tend to concentrate on the hard techniques. Examples of this are Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Thai Kickboxing (Muay Thai), and Boxing. Soft styles are those collections of martial arts techniques which tend to concentrate on the soft techniques. Examples of this are Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Aiki Jujitsu, and its derivatives (Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, Hapkido). Of course, these definitions are general. In fact, there is no martial art which is purely comprised of only hard techniques or only soft techniques. Quite often as the student progresses in a hard style, they will learn more soft techniques. Likewise, as the student progresses in a soft style, they will learn more hard techniques. (This is the general theory. In modern times, as most of us need day jobs, martial artists often don’t get to the fusion of hard and soft techniques.) Back to table of contents …
