Preception of True TKD

[terryl965]

I would love to hear everyone opinion about traditional TKD before the Kukkiwon and before the sport aspect came into play. How much was really influenced by Okinawa Karate and how much was influenced by Japanese Karate.

Master Southwick brought up some great points about the Poomsae having Japanese Patterns to them and even using Japanese wording for the patterns themself.

What do all you feel about this and does it show a lack of respect towards the Okinawa and Japanese roots from the Koreans towards there initial training.

Just thought I would see what everyone has to say.

[Kacey]

I would love to hear everyone opinion about traditional TKD before the Kukkiwon and before the sport aspect came into play. How much was really influenced by Okinawa Karate and how much was influenced by Japanese Karate.

Well, I know for a fact that Ch'ang H'on (Blue Cottage, Chon-ji pattern set, ITF, whatever you want to call it) TKD was heavily influenced by Shotokan. Gen. Choi had a black belt in Shotokan prior to creating the Ch'ang H'on patterns, and, in fact, when the first edition of the TKD Encyclopedia was published in 1965, it had 20 Ch'ang H'on patterns (there are 25 now, although most practitioners only use 24; one was dropped and replaced, but we still do all of them, for historical accuracy), and a large selection of Shotokan patterns (I'd have to look to see how many) were included in the volume.

For his VI Dan test, my sahbum learned the first Shotokan pattern, and performed it side-by-side with another student who did the second Ch'ang H'on pattern (Dan-Gun); seeing them side-by-side made it obvious how closely related the patterns really are.

From what I've seen, many of the movements are the same as well - it is the technical details that vary. In general, at least from what I've seen, Shotokan movements tend to be larger and the stances tend to be lower and longer; everything appears, to me, to be exaggerated, although I realize that's just because my training has been in similar, but smaller/less expansive movements.


Master Southwick brought up some great points about the Poomsae having Japanese Patterns to them and even using Japanese wording for the patterns themself.

What do all you feel about this and does it show a lack of respect towards the Okinawa and Japanese roots from the Koreans towards there initial training.

Just thought I would see what everyone has to say.

I think that not acknowledging the historical influences and sources for any art is disrespectful - which is not the same and learning the differences and acknowledging any changes (good or bad) which may have been made. Like languages, martial arts are (or should be) alive - that is, they evolve through their practitioners, as people grow in their understanding of the art(s) they practice. Knowing where an art started is the key to understanding those changes, and therefore the art itself, and is, I think, a key factor - and one I'm still working on; graduate school hasn't left me nearly as much time for research as I'd like.

[zDom]

In general, at least from what I've seen, Shotokan movements tend to be larger and the stances tend to be lower and longer; everything appears, to me, to be exaggerated, although I realize that's just because my training has been in similar, but smaller/less expansive movements.

Hmmm.. I would love to see video.

MSK TKD is known for training with low, long stances and using large motions.

I wonder if we are as low/long/large as Shotokan, similar to Kacey's, or somewhere in between.

[Kacey]

Hmmm.. I would love to see video.

I don't think there is a video, sorry... of course, I was testing for III Dan at the same time; anything that occurred off the floor is a blur!


MSK TKD is known for training with low, long stances and using large motions.

I wonder if we are as low/long/large as Shotokan, similar to Kacey's, or somewhere in between.

I couldn't say without seeing one, or getting a good description of a stance. Here's a couple of ours, for comparison: walking (front) stance is one shoulder width wide, measured from instep to instep, and 1 1/2 shoulder widths long, measured from big toe to big toe, with the front knee bent so that it is directly over the ankle. Low stance, by contrast, is the same width, and is 1 1/2 shoulder widths long, but is measured from the heel of the front foot to the big toe of the rear foot, making it one foot-length longer - and many of the Shotokan practitioners I've seen use a walking/front stance very similar to our low stance.

[Iron Leopard]

If you're looking for perception outside of the TKD circle. For myself and many that I train with TKD is seen as distancing itself from it's japanese, chinese or okinawin roots. pardon the mispelling there! That may not be the truth, as it's only a perception.

Another perception is that it isn't self defense oriented. This perception has been furthered by the offerings of "seperate arts" classes such as Krav Maga in the TKD studios.

Not putting down TKD, that's just a general perception in my circle of martial arts friends and associates.

[terryl965]

If you're looking for perception outside of the TKD circle. For myself and many that I train with TKD is seen as distancing itself from it's japanese, chinese or okinawin roots. pardon the mispelling there! That may not be the truth, as it's only a perception.

Another perception is that it isn't self defense oriented. This perception has been furthered by the offerings of "seperate arts" classes such as Krav Maga in the TKD studios.

Not putting down TKD, that's just a general perception in my circle of martial arts friends and associates.


I understand the sport side not being precieved about Self Defense but traditional TKD is loaded with it, with that being said what do you believe to be the strongest asset of TKD.

[FieldDiscipline]

The lack of recognition is almost certainly due to the fact that the Japanese werent highly popular, having just been kicked out of Korea. Taekwondo and Tae Kyon demonstrations were staged by Master Son Duk Ki and others to emphasise the differences at that time.

General Choi had a Karate BB and the Chung Do Kwan founder, Won Kuk Lee, trained under Funakoshi Gichin, founder of the Shotokan. That said, and whilst I agree Karate must have had some influence, due to General Choi and Won Kuk Lee (and one must assume others too), I believe the larger part of Taekwondo to be from older Korean styles (Tae Kyon, To-San etc). Both Choi and Lee both learned Tae Kyon as children.

[zDom]

Hmmm.

We used both "high" stances and "low" stances in MSK.

Walking stances may have been even HIGHER than yours: just a like a completely natural walking step.

Front stances, on the other hand, are about two shoulder lengths in length (still about shoulder-width wide).

Same front leg: directly over foot.

So, not as deep as, oh, some kung fu type stances, for example, or some of the karate circuit deep stances, but definately lower than the WTF stances I've been seeing lately.

"High stances for mobility and deep stances for stability" is how it was presented to us.

IMO, changing things from Japanese styles just for the sake of being different is unwise.

I'll never change my TKD simply because some Koreans are having a hard time dealing with their history.

I like what the Koreans had done with the Japanese arts in the '40s-'60s: I think they really came up with something great.

But the recent changes just don't make sense to me, aesthetically or on a practical level.

[Xue Sheng]

IWhat do all you feel about this and does it show a lack of respect towards the Okinawa and Japanese roots from the Koreans towards there initial training.

I no longer train TKD and haven't in years but I did train TKD, in Worcester and Boston Mass, prior to it becoming an Olympic sport. I never studied Okinawa Karate or Japanese Karate so I am not sure how much of TKD was influenced by them.

I will say what I do see in many sports schools to day is an emphasis on point scoring instead of actual self-defense. When I trained TKD we had low kicks, medium kicks. High kicks as well as close in fighting and some takedowns. I have seen none of this is any TKD school I have been to since it became a sport. The best TKD School I have seen since is also a HKD school and they still did not train close fighting and take downs in TKD.

It is likely I don't understand the question but as for showing lack of respect; do Japanese martial arts school show respect to Chinese Martial arts schools, does Yiquan show respect to Xingyiquan, does Hebei Xingyi show respect to Shanxi Xingyi, does Sun style Tai Chi show respect to Chen style Tai Chi, bagua and Xingyi. Does Aikido show respect to Aikijitsu, does Judo show respect to Jujitsu, does Chinese, Kenpo or American Kenpo show respect to Shaolin, do many CMA styles show respect to Shaolin, Wudang or Emei?

Many martial arts came from or were influenced by other martial arts and have similar forms and form names, so I guess I do not know what type of respect they are suppose to show?

[Iron Leopard]

TKD strongest in? Well I would have to say kicks and that's what I've seen when sparring against TKD guys.

I think, if there really are valid self defense principles in TKD, then that is what needs to be projected and less of the sport aspect.

[rmclain]

I would love to hear everyone opinion about traditional TKD before the Kukkiwon and before the sport aspect came into play. How much was really influenced by Okinawa Karate and how much was influenced by Japanese Karate.

Master Southwick brought up some great points about the Poomsae having Japanese Patterns to them and even using Japanese wording for the patterns themself.

What do all you feel about this and does it show a lack of respect towards the Okinawa and Japanese roots from the Koreans towards there initial training.

Just thought I would see what everyone has to say.


It is really old news that the pre-Taekwondo type schools were teaching karate through Japan from Okinawa. After WWII ended and South Korea was free to rebuild, some of the only sources of martial arts knowledge were from Koreans that had studied karate in Japan from the first generation of instructors from Okinawa, such as Funakoshi Gichin or Toyama Kanken.

R. McLain

[matt.m]

Just to throw .02 in.....Since GM requires ITF and WTF per gup test and I am sure dan ranks I have noticed that with the ITF side the stances are "Deeper" than the WTF stances so far. I talked with GM about Shotokans value in TKD in and during TKD's inception and he said that pre kkw etc. that from his knowledge that all the the major players in the formation of tkd had dan ranking in shotokan.

From what I have learned the WTF poomse have narrower stances when compared to their ITF counterparts.

From what I preceive TKD to be is also two seperate animals....You have the traditional art and you have the olympic competitive sport. I wholeheartedly believe that true tkd uses poomse to reinforce basic moves, combinations, self defense techniques, all done with grace and properly channeled energy for maximum effective power.

[allpet]

I talked with GM about Shotokans value in TKD in and during TKD's inception and he said that pre kkw etc. that from his knowledge that all the the major players in the formation of tkd had dan ranking in shotokan.
And that was why they found together so easily. Have you ever heard of any other system being brought together like this? It's almost always going the other way. But having the same background made it possible.

One of the GM's should have had 6th dan in Shotokan. Can't find the reference right now though.

[DArnold]

Master Southwick brought up some great points about the Poomsae having Japanese Patterns to them and even using Japanese wording for the patterns themself.

What do all you feel about this and does it show a lack of respect towards the Okinawa and Japanese roots from the Koreans towards there initial training.

Just thought I would see what everyone has to say.

Well of course much of the patterns and wording are the same. All you need to do is study the Korean history. The cultural genocide brought on the Koreans by Japan and China.

If you spoke Korean, read Korean, taught Korean then you were executed.
If you were middle class you were executed.
Everything in Korea had to be Japanese by law.
Why do you think most of the prominant Korean figures went to Japan to study???
If you varied from this you were executed.

Exactly like the quote from the movie "Braveheart".

The problem with Korea is that it is full of Koreans.
If we can't get them out... we'll breed them out.

Thus why most of the important figures in Korea are concerned with the "Education movement" Without the education movement nothing of Korean culture would have survived, and they did this under the threat of death.

I wonder why Cambodians don't respect Pol Pot.
I wonder why Jews don't respect Hitler...

I wouldn't expect any Korean to emulate the Japanese - thus the total denial and break!

Also TKD has evolved. Similarities - Yes, the same - NO
but to that end there are similarities in most all styles.

[FieldDiscipline]

Similarities - Yes, the same - NO but to that end there are similarities in most all styles.

Agreed. Very good post by the way.

[FieldDiscipline]

And that was why they found together so easily. Have you ever heard of any other system being brought together like this? It's almost always going the other way. But having the same background made it possible.

One of the GM's should have had 6th dan in Shotokan. Can't find the reference right now though.

I dont believe Kim Bok Man trained in Shotokan. All the biographies of him mention only older Korean styles.

[exile]

This topic is one of my favorite (or at least more obsessive) hobbyhorses, and there are some great points in the previous posts. My own TKD style, Song Moo Kwan, was founded by Ryo Pyung Chik, who like Lee Won Kuk, the Chung Do Kwan's founder, reached dan ranking in Shotokan under Gichin Funakoshi, and Yoon Pyung In, who founded the Chang Moo Kwan, reached fifth dan in Shudokan karate under Kanken Toyama. The original hyungs of the Moo Duk Kwan were explicitly identified by Hwang Kee as deriving from Anko Itosu. There are large chunks of the Palgwes that come straight out of the Pinyan/Heian katas (the opening sequences of Palgwe Oh-Jang are move-for-move identical to the first three moves of Pinyan Shodan). There is thus a huge amount of technical content which we can positively identify as Okinawan/Japanese in origin.

On the other hand, FieldDiscipline's suggestion that `the larger part of Taekwondo from older Korean styles (Tae Kyon, To-San etc). Both Choi and Lee both learned Tae Kyon as children' has to be viewed with some skepticism, I think. The fact is that we don't actually know what the technical content of the `tae kyon' that these masters learned actually [I]was; in fact we don't know how old this elusive `tae kyon' actually is, because there's no way to link the name to any well-documented martial art from an earlier time. The documentation just isn't there. There is a pan-Siberian/northern Asian tradition of leg-wrestling and kicking games/contests, and some writers have suggested that `tae kyon' is actually the Korean manifestation of this practice, rather than being a structured fighting art. I'd say the (heavy) burden of proof is on those who think that TKD was significantly (or even mildly) influenced by tae-kyon, let along the essentially legendary hwarang-do or whatever. Last Fearner and I have debated this point before and I'm pretty sure he disagrees with me, but I think the jury has to be regarded as still out on the role of indigenous Korean fighting systems, whereas the huge contribution of Okinawan-derived combat arts is indisputable). And if you want evidence of Gen. Choi's view of the `true' content of TKD, just look at the content of the Chang Hon suls he created, bearing in mind that he repeatedly emphasized the core role of these forms for learning TKD: if you take just about any hyung at random, you'll find that almost all of the striking techniques are hand/arm moves, with kicks a very conspicuous minority—yet tae kyon was supposed be a largely kicking art! So it seems to me that the General's own living testament to the foundations of the art recognizes the central role of the upper-body strikes that Funakoshi emphasized in his repackaging of Itosu's earlier repackaging of the well-mixed fighting systems used in 19th c. Okinawa.



I think that not acknowledging the historical influences and sources for any art is disrespectful - which is not the same and learning the differences and acknowledging any changes (good or bad) which may have been made. Like languages, martial arts are (or should be) alive - that is, they evolve through their practitioners, as people grow in their understanding of the art(s) they practice. Knowing where an art started is the key to understanding those changes, and therefore the art itself, and is, I think, a key factor

Agreed 100%, Kacey. In the case of TKD, the reluctance to acknowledge the Japanese influence is clearly based on hatred for the Japanese occupation (and, I suspect for many Koreans, the occupiers themselves). Stuart Anslow in his new book points out that Choi's earliest work emphatically cites the role of Japanese karate in the formatin of TKD; he then cites three or four publications at successively later dates showing in each case a further retreat from this position, with Choi's last statements on the topic emphatically denying any connection with Shotokan or other Okinawan-based fighting arts. The smooth progression from emphatic acknowledgement to brusque denial is quite striking and makes it pretty clear that there was some kind of momentum building up continuously from the late 1950s on against the idea that TKD had historical origins in Japanese MA. I've sometimes wondered if the intensity of the Korean War, and the patriotic fervor it triggered, contributed in some way to this hardening of attitude towards TKD's Japanese past...



I understand the sport side not being precieved about Self Defense but traditional TKD is loaded with it, with that being said what do you believe to be the strongest asset of TKD.

I believe you're absolutely right about the content of tranditional TKD, Terry—the modern realistic bunkai/boon hae movement makes clear the harsh street-effectiveness of the fighting principles and tactics embodied in the hyungs, if we learn to read them correctly—and I think that straightforward, powerful approach to self-defense is the thing that gives TKD its great strength as a MA. The Korean armed forces who've used TKD to defense themselves in two major wars—effectively enough to make their enemies openly fear their use of their H2H fighting skills—would probably agree on that one.


I like what the Koreans had done with the Japanese arts in the '40s-'60s: I think they really came up with something great.

But the recent changes just don't make sense to me, aesthetically or on a practical level.

Again, complete agreement, zD. I think Olympic style sparring can be useful training things like balance and accuracy; but the point-scoring system reward moves which I find byzantine in their complexity, relative to what you need to do in a violent encounter on unfriendly ground.



From what I preceive TKD to be is also two seperate animals....You have the traditional art and you have the olympic competitive sport. I wholeheartedly believe that true tkd uses poomse to reinforce basic moves, combinations, self defense techniques, all done with grace and properly channeled energy for maximum effective power.

Exactly right, and the only thing further that I'd add is that to take advantage of the techniques Matt refers to, it's probably necessary to do serious combative sparring, along the reality-based lines that Iain Abernethy outlines in the final chapter of his book Bunkai-Jutsu, and which he now has a terrific DVD out on. We need a new word, maybe—what IA is talking about here is nothing like the ordinary kumite or Olympic-style tap-exchanges that so much MA tournament sparring consists of. It's as close as you can get to an all-out street fight as possible without getting the participants injured, but it covers the gamut of issues—from adrenal shock to on-the-fly adjustments in tactics during the chaos of a real punch-up—that come into play when you start imagining just how you would use your MA abilities if the worst came to worst. I think that kind of training is going to become more and more a feature of TKD training (and, from what I've read, used to be the case, in advanced training in Korea during the kwan-era).

[FieldDiscipline]

Exile, that is a superb post. I enjoyed reading that.

[exile]

Exile, that is a superb post. I enjoyed reading that.

Thanks, FD, very much—I appreciate the feedback—and I hope it's clear from what I said that I wasn't dismissing your comments on tae kyon out of hand; I actually went on a quest to try to dig up some info on tae kyon at one point, but had to rely on secondary sources a lot—MA historians who, unlike me, can actually read Korean!—and what I picked up over and over again was this frustration on their part at the `trickling out' of any leads about what tae kyon might really have consisted of, and when, and what its connections to earlier Korean MAs must be. It might well have played a bigger role than what my comments may suggest; the problem is the lack of hard evidence on the point, which we may just have to live with...

...a big problem is that so much of Asian MAs is so loaded with political freight. The complex history of Chinese and Japanese involvement in Korean history, and the sometimes bafflingly complex history of the early Korean kingdoms and the networks of internal and external alliances that they created and altered, means that a lot of martial activities took on national or political symbolism making it hard to separate changes in content from changes in labelling. Nothing about the history of Korean MAs is easy, it seems...

... what I'd really love to see—love to see—is a detailed history of kwan-era martial arts in Korea, before the sport-orientation, the rift between TSD and TKD (which actually split one of the original kwans down the middle, so that there's both Moo Duk Kwan Tang Soo Do and Moo Duk Kwan Tae Kwan Do, go figure) and all sorts of other stuff happened that badly blurs the picture which Terry's original post on this thread is trying to get a handle on, I think. But again, the problem is documentation—so many of those original kwan founders have died, and so much documentation was destroyed during the Japanese occupation... I really wonder if we'll ever be able to get a picture of what the different kwans in the early 1950s were actually doing. Even that recently, it's hard to get hold of enough of a paper trail, it looks like...

Anyway, thanks again for your kind words, FD!

[Andrew Green]

I think "true" TKD is a myth. As is "true" karate, or "true" Jujitsu or any other system.

They are what you make them, and all cover a range. More often then not the people that claim "True ____" are simply trying to put themselves above everyone else and bipass the critizism of there system by saying it only applys to everyone else.

What is "true" football? American Football? Canadian? Rugby? Soccer? Any of the countless other variations that existed but didn't get standardized from the same time period or before?

[exile]

I think "true" TKD is a myth. As is "true" karate, or "true" Jujitsu or any other system.

They are what you make them, and all cover a range. More often then not the people that claim "True ____" are simply trying to put themselves above everyone else and bipass the critizism of there system by saying it only applys to everyone else.

What is "true" football? American Football? Canadian? Rugby? Soccer? Any of the countless other variations that existed but didn't get standardized from the same time period or before?

Andrew—which of the posts are you referring to? The original post from Terry doesn't refer to `true TKD' anywhere:


I would love to hear everyone opinion about traditional TKD before the Kukkiwon and before the sport aspect came into play. How much was really influenced by Okinawa Karate and how much was influenced by Japanese Karate.

Master Southwick brought up some great points about the Poomsae having Japanese Patterns to them and even using Japanese wording for the patterns themself.

What do all you feel about this and does it show a lack of respect towards the Okinawa and Japanese roots from the Koreans towards there initial training.

Just thought I would see what everyone has to say.

And I can't find any other post in the thread which refers to `true TKD'. Terry's question was about the origins of TKD, its historical roots in Okinawan-based arts and Korean (and other) attitudes towards those roots, which is a separate question. I agree, the notion `true [fill in MA style here]' is basically whatever you want it to be, but the issue here seems quite a bit different...

[Kacey]

I think he's referring to the title of the thread.

[exile]

I think he's referring to the title of the thread.

Ahh, right you are, Kacey—I lost track of that....it's just that none of the discussion in the thread itself seems to have been about the trueness of anything in particular... but you're correct, it's there in the title, duhhh....

[Andrew Green]

Just wording, which I took from the title. I'd go with the same about "traditional ____" if you prefer. There is no such thing. There has always been a range of reasons why people practiced, how they practiced, and what they practiced.

There is no "true" or "traditional" form, just a big mush of different things. IMO the idea of a "true" or "traditional" version of a style is a modern idea that doesn't really reflect the reality of what people did 50 years ago.

[Brad Dunne]

{Preception}..........The operative word. What I may see/perceive, will more often be different than what someone else may see/perceive. Andrew was correct in the sense that it's what the individual makes out of it. But, we can do a basic point - counterpoint on the art as a whole, which has already been established with the "sport vs non-sport" equation. So based upon that generalization, I'll deal with the non-sport variable. For argumental sake, I'll refer to it as "Original TKD". The aspects that made up many of the beginning kwans teachings came not only from shotokan, but from a variety of other disciplines. Going back and reviewing the original hyungs/katas, we can see their influences and this has also been stated before. In addition to the "karate" influences, there was also Aiki-Jujitsu/Hapkido and Judo in the mix. These disciplines have also been authorized-accepted, based upon discussions from other MA sites and from personal acknowledgement from mine and other's Korean instructors. What has happened is that the old guard has been removed from the instructional process and the new teachers have not been privy to the original concepts. This does include the Koreans themselves, because they are the one's who actually changed things.

So my generalized preception of TKD is this................it has become a hobby, a sport, a way to get in shape and someplace to put the kids after school.
What it has not become is a viable instrument for self defense for the "majority" of folks spending time and money for training.

[Andrew Green]

So my generalized preception of TKD is this................it has become a hobby, a sport, a way to get in shape and someplace to put the kids after school.
What it has not become is a viable instrument for self defense for the "majority" of folks spending time and money for training.


Not become, always was ;)

[exile]

Just wording, which I took from the title. I'd go with the same about "traditional ____" if you prefer. There is no such thing. There has always been a range of reasons why people practiced, how they practiced, and what they practiced.

Whoa, hold on there. The term `traditional' is loaded, certainly. But that doesn't mean it can't have a specific meaning in a particular context, one that gives rise to a specific claim or question. What Terry is asking about, as I read him, is whether the denial of the Okinawan/Japanese basis for TKD, as reflected in the fighting practices in the Korean MAs from the kwan era on, has led to, or at least been implicated in, the dilution of the martial content of TKD, so that its practice as a hard self-defense system has been systematically watered down in order to make the specifically Korean point-fighting foot-tag style of MA we see in the Olympics the main public image of TKD. And he's also asking whether this constitutes a kind of disrepect toward the demonstrable sources of the bulk of TKD's combative content. It may be true, as you say, that `there has always been a range of reasons why people practiced, how they practiced, and what they practiced', but that's not relevant to the specific question Terry is asking: whether the TKD that was practiced during the kwan era—brutal, hard, street-oriented and rooted in the nasty techniques encoded in the hyungs—was able to be replaced by the high-kick/low hands foot-tag of modern TKD at least partly because of a kind of deliberate amnesia about the origins of the art in (ultimately) Okinawan combat methods. That's a specific question and deserves a specific answer.


There is no "true" or "traditional" form, just a big mush of different things. IMO the idea of a "true" or "traditional" version of a style is a modern idea that doesn't really reflect the reality of what people did 50 years ago.

We have contemporary accounts of how martial artists of 50 years ago viewed TKD; we know what, on the basis of their own training, under Funakoshi or his students or other Okinawan karate masters teaching in Japan, their exposure to the Japanese MA they spent years studying probably taught them (diluted, compared with Matsumura, Itosu and Chotuko Kyan knew, but much, much harder than anything that goes on in most current dojangs, if Choi's training regimen for the ROK armed forces is any guide). If—and yes, it is an `if', but I think it can be argued strongly—modern TKD begins as at least 90% a product of the Okinawan/Japanese close-quarters arts that go under the label karate, then why is it incorrect for Terry to identify that version of TKD—the one that hopped across the Sea of Japan and became the ancestor of the modern `national martial art of Korea'—as `traditional'?

And even if you object to the term, and we replace `traditional' with `ancestral' or `founding' or whatever, doesn't Terry's question still merit an answer?

[rmclain]

I would love to hear everyone opinion about traditional TKD before the Kukkiwon and before the sport aspect came into play. How much was really influenced by Okinawa Karate and how much was influenced by Japanese Karate.

Master Southwick brought up some great points about the Poomsae having Japanese Patterns to them and even using Japanese wording for the patterns themself.

What do all you feel about this and does it show a lack of respect towards the Okinawa and Japanese roots from the Koreans towards there initial training.

Just thought I would see what everyone has to say.



I don't think this shows any disrespect for the root arts the Koreans were studying following WWII. Arts will evolve naturally through time and people's perceptions of the art and what they would like to do with it. What is taught now as Taekwondo, has an identity unique from the kwan-era arts.

What is disrespectful is using art as property for politicians and businessmen's agendas.

I have information about what the kwans were practicing during the 1950's and 1960's from someone that was there. I have one interview with a Korean martial artist from those times and it is pending publication with Black Belt Magazine right now. I'd be happy to send an electronic copy to the MartialTalk Magazine with photos. There will be more detailed interviews and stories coming as well.

My own system preserves the requirements of the Chang-moo Kwan and Kangduk-Won. Some of these I demonstrated during my visit to Mr. Stoker's dojang during the visit he was kind enough to host.

R. McLain

[matt.m]

Not become, always was ;)

Andrew, I for one find myself agreeing with a lot of your opinions on this board. However, to say that tkd is just a hobby to spend money on and it isn't a great means of self defense in my opinion is just laughable.

Sorry, not to attack but I have read countless times and have talked to countless Korean and Vietnam Marine Corps veterans who have said without thought or stutter that the N. Korean/N. Vietnamese feared or respected what the Marines were capable of in hand to hand.....they were horrified of the ROK Marines fighting abilities.

I am sorry but a properly trained tae kwon doist will have little trouble defending themselves if they are and were properly taught and didn't get cycled through a black belt factory. The striking techniques are just too powerful, the combinations are just too formidable to be disregarded.

[exile]

I have information about what the kwans were practicing during the 1950's and 1960's from someone that was there. I have one interview with a Korean martial artist from those times and it is pending publication with Black Belt Magazine right now. I'd be happy to send an electronic copy to the MartialTalk Magazine with photos. There will be more detailed interviews and stories coming as well.

My own system preserves the requirements of the Chang-moo Kwan and Kangduk-Won. Some of these I demonstrated during my visit to Mr. Stoker's dojang during the visit he was kind enough to host.
R. McLain

rmcl, I would love to see the interview you refer to—it's exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see a lot more of in the MA mags and TKD literature. Will you indeed be posting this interview to the MT mag?

[exile]

Andrew, I for one find myself agreeing with a lot of your opinions on this board. However, to say that tkd is just a hobby to spend money on and it isn't a great means of self defense in my opinion is just laughable.

Sorry, not to attack but I have read countless times and have talked to countless Korean and Vietnam Marine Corps veterans who have said without thought or stutter that the N. Korean/N. Vietnamese feared or respected what the Marines were capable of in hand to hand.....they were horrified of the ROK Marines fighting abilities.

I am sorry but a properly trained tae kwon doist will have little trouble defending themselves if they are and were properly taught and didn't get cycled through a black belt factory. The striking techniques are just too powerful, the combinations are just too formidable to be disregarded.

Just to second Matt's point, it seems to be necessary to point out—yet again—that the TKD that Gen. Choi required the ROK armed forces to learn was sufficiently damaging to VC combatants going up against the Korean troops in Vietnam that a VC field directive captured in July of 1966 specifies that VC fighters `never defy Korean soldiers without discrimination, even when [they] are not armed, for they are all well trained with Taekwondo' (cited in Stuart Anslow's new book Ch'ang Hon Taewondo Hae Sul: Real Applications tpo the ITF Patterns). There are very well-documented records of individual battles that justified this extreme caution, e.g., the one in which the ROK Marines used TKD techniques in hand-to-hand combat against North Vietnamese troops to kill between two and three hundred enemy soldiers at Tra Binh Dong in 1967, an outcome which resulted in the promotion of every member of the ROK 11th Marine Company one full rank (a detailed account of the battle is given in an issue of the U.S. Marine Corps Gazette, also reproduced in Anslow's book).

It's true that if you don't train for realistic combat, you won't be able to use TKD—or Goju Ryu, or EPAK, or etc.—effectively in combat. But plenty of people, including Matt himself, have trained this way, particularly in earlier phases of TKD before it became so concentrated on sport sparring, and more are doing so all the time as reality-based training methods are increasingly adopted in the TMAs, a development which has been going on for some time now in the UK in particular. Someone who trains TKD specifically to damage an attacker, and who has no qualms about doing so, is verly likely capable of injuring an attacker much more seriously than the words `hobby' and `sport' suggest.

It's probably best not to be quite so quick to make those kinds of generalizations over the whole realm of TKD students until you've looked at the evidence a bit more broadly, eh?

[Andrew Green]

Andrew, I for one find myself agreeing with a lot of your opinions on this board. However, to say that tkd is just a hobby to spend money on and it isn't a great means of self defense in my opinion is just laughable.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I'd say that is the same now as it was then. Some people do it for a hobby, some for health, and a few for self-defence.

There is effective TKD now, and there was then. But I would disagree that peoples reasons differ. We got the same span of reasons now as there was 50 years ago. Just more people doing it.

[FieldDiscipline]

A detailed history of the kwans... Would be a book well worth a read.

[exile]

A detailed history of the kwans... Would be a book well worth a read.

Did you catch rmclain's post above? It sounds like he he has some materials that would be a great foundation for a book like that...

[FieldDiscipline]

Yeah I did thanks.

It'd be a great shame if all of the founders of TKD were to die before a comprehensive history of their lives works was recorded.

[exile]

Yeah I did thanks.

It'd be a great shame if all of the founders of TKD were to die before a comprehensive history of their lives works was recorded.

Right, and there's not an awful lot of time left. I suspect that there was a significant shift in attitudes between the kwan founders, who worked out their approach to the KMAs during the dark days of the occupation—when Korean cities were rife with crime and desperation and life was incredibly cheap, and no one was looking out for you—and their later students, many of whom will have spent a significant chunk of their professional lives in the increasingly strong economy of a resurgent ROK, under the wing of a single centralized regulating authority. That difference in perspective is almost certainly going to be a distorting lens so far as student memories and impressions of their instructors' ideas and methods. So without some serious documentary work and oral history, we're going to be losing some of the most crucial information irretrievably in the near future, I fear—e.g., in what specific ways did the kwans differ from each other in their technical content and training methods. How did rivalries between the diffenent kwans lead to differences or special emphases in training or combat? And so on—stuff that could shed a lot of light on why we do things the way we do...

[terryl965]

I don't think this shows any disrespect for the root arts the Koreans were studying following WWII. Arts will evolve naturally through time and people's perceptions of the art and what they would like to do with it. What is taught now as Taekwondo, has an identity unique from the kwan-era arts.

What is disrespectful is using art as property for politicians and businessmen's agendas.

I have information about what the kwans were practicing during the 1950's and 1960's from someone that was there. I have one interview with a Korean martial artist from those times and it is pending publication with Black Belt Magazine right now. I'd be happy to send an electronic copy to the MartialTalk Magazine with photos. There will be more detailed interviews and stories coming as well.

My own system preserves the requirements of the Chang-moo Kwan and Kangduk-Won. Some of these I demonstrated during my visit to Mr. Stoker's dojang during the visit he was kind enough to host.

R. McLain


Master McLain is right he did come in and demostrate to us his Chang-Moo Kwan and it was a pleasure and he is very knowledgtable and we appreciated his kindness and his student showing us there tremendous program.

[exile]

Master McLain is right he did come in and demostrate to us his Chang-Moo Kwan and it was a pleasure and he is very knowledgtable and we appreciated his kindness and his student showing us there tremendous program.

So can we please get him to post that interview he mentioned in connection with kwan practices in the immediate post-WW2 era in Korea? FieldDiscipline and I and probably quite a few others would really like to get hold of some of that information...

[Brad Dunne]

What it has not become is a viable instrument for self defense for the "majority" of folks spending time and money for training.

"Not become, always was" (AG)

Andrew, I beg to differ........ My statement above is directed at the "sport" aspect of modern/todays TKD and the operative word there is "majority", for there will always be those that can and have the inate abilities to defend themselves will a modicum of training. Old school as I like to call it, was driven from a pure self defense platform. In fact, the majority of the kwans associated with the development of TKD where Tang Soo Do, which folks agree was Korean Karate. Even today, the TSD folks are considered Korean karate, which is a major step IMO, above todays TKD. A lot of the history as we know it, is available for review and folks have already pointed this out. It would be nice if we could get a summary from the kwan heads, but that is highly doubtful for two reasons. One, most are probably deceased, so anything we could get would again be 2nd or 3rd hand "I was told". Not much different from what we already have to review. Secondly, the ego manifestation will not allow real truth to come forth. Folks like to label this under a political guise, but we all know what it really is. I would suggest, that if possible, find a source that still teaches the old school curriculums. I realize that they are almost impossible to find in this day and age, but if you could find such a venue, I'm sure your point of view would be changed as far as your "Not become, always was".

[Last Fearner]

Well, my position on some of these topics being discussed in this thread is no secret, and most of you know how I feel. The same old arguments, opinions, and lack of verifiable "proof" to back claims seems to keep everyone guessing, and relying on sparse details to form their own beliefs, or mimic those that they have heard from others.

Some interesting points have been brought up, and who knows, maybe we will eventually stumble onto something that changes most everyone's perceptions about Taekwondo. Anyhow, since you asked, Master Stoker, here is some of my thoughts on this topic.

Thread Title: "Preception of True TKD"

Since the term "True Taekwondo" was brought up earlier, I would like to address that, and how I feel it relates to "Traditional Taekwondo." However, I will hold that for the end of my post.

Original Question:

I would love to hear everyone opinion about traditional TKD before the Kukkiwon and before the sport aspect came into play. How much was really influenced by Okinawa Karate and how much was influenced by Japanese Karate.

If this question is the main focus of Master Stoker's quest for opinions, I will respond by saying this. How much was influenced by Okinawa Karate, and by Japanese Karate? All of it, and none of it. Here is what I mean by that. I have made my opinion fairly clear before that there are three distinct eras of Taekwondo's history.

First is that time period of Korea's development, from the 1st century B.C. until the Japanese occupation in 1910. Most historians believe that the term "Taekwondo" was not used during this time period to describe the unarmed combat that was used in the old Chosen peninsula, however, if there is any doubt that a unique native unarmed combat existed, you only need to observe the fact that the Korean people are still here to know this.

They were not soldiers, warriors, or armed militia by trade, and survival from the 1st through the 19th century depended greatly on their Martial Art skills. If you are hung up on the fact that the term "Taekwondo" did not exist at that time, consider the fact that they were not even called "Koreans" then, but the ancestors of today's Koreans were not Japanese, even if Japan did occupy the country and attempt to assimilate the population.

The second era of Taekwondo's history is that time period during the occupation when most of the aforementioned "Kwan founders" were born, grew up, and started learning about the Martial Art in the first place. Naturally, there was not much option during this time period but to become a student of "Japanese Martial Art," and gain any certification of "Dan" rank from a Japanese system. These students of Shotokan, and other variations were undoubtedly 100% influenced by Japanese and Okinawan Martial Karate, judo, jujutsu, etc. The operative word here is "influenced." This condition of being "forced" to learn Japanese culture did not change Korean history, nor did it make the future creation of Taekwondo of Japanese origins. However, the influence on these people, and their own personal skills is undisputable

Now, if you were to begin the historical development of Korean Martial Art in 1910, and end it in 1945 when the main Kwans were started, and you called this Martial Art "Taekwondo," then I would say that Taekwondo was originally a "repackaging" of Japanese Martial Art under a new name. However, this is not what happened. Korean Martial Art did not begin in 1910, and did not stop developing in 1945. Japan's occupation had a huge influence on Korea's Martial Art, but that does not make Taekwondo a descendent of Japanese Martial Art (as much as people would like to draw that false conclusion).

I do not judge the content of an entire Martial Art by the "forms" they use, nor the terminology exchanged, nor the documentation of its participants' ranks. For example, I might have a diploma from a ballet school, but if I prefer to dance to rock and roll, and that is what I teach, then the paper certificate only shows what else I know. Forms are only tools for training and practicing skills. Skills that existed long before the Japanese influence. Japan has their native Martial Art, China has their's, and Korea has its own. Each will eventually be influenced by the other. The "occupation era" was just part of the historical process. If we were to never have had that occur, Korean Martial Art would still have striven for perfection of skills to a modern day application, and could have been called anything, so why not "Taekwondo."

I agree that it would be nice to learn as much of the "recent" history of the Kwans, their founders, and their generations of students, and what they taught, but I have a more intriguing question. Who were the teachers, and Masters of the earlier Korean Martial Art which was passed down through the centuries, and slipped through the fingers of the Japanese occupiers. Skills that have been called Taekyon, Subak, and Hwarangdo, etc. When General Choi Hong Hi said in his 1965 publication of "Taekwon-do," that his "well-known" calligraphy teacher, Mr. Han Il-Dong, was also a "veteran" of the "ancient T'ae-Kyon," from where did this come?

This is where young Choi Hong Hi began his Martial Art training; "thus it came about that in 1936 the author took up T'ae-Kyon, which was consisting solely of foot manoeuvres." Now, the questions are, was this a "sport game" or was it a method of unarmed combat, and did it come from older Korean history? Gen Choi called it "ancient" and said that Mr. Han was a "veteran" of T'ae-Kyon. Choi was born on December 22, 1918, and began T'ae-Kyon at the age of 17-18 in 1936. Who did Mr. Han learn T'ae Kyon from, and how many other T'ae-Kyon and Subak teachers were in Korea at that time that young Choi had not met?

The third era of Taekwondo's history is the post WWII formation of the Kwans, and the various organizations of Korean Martial Art (the KTA, ITF, WTF, the Kukkiwon, and all of the other national and international associations). This is not only where practitioners of Taekwondo have been influenced by Japanese and Chinese Martial Art that had already been made popular around the world, but every other form of unarmed combat that existed everywhere. Most Martial Artists of the later part of the 20th century have done their research to compare and contrast what they know and practice with what others know. This will undoubtedly change certain techniques, and current applications, but does not influence the core principles of the art, nor does it alter the "true" history of Korean Martial Art - - whether people want to accept, or acknowledge what that is or not.

Much of the world's history is tainted by personal perspectives, individual interpretations, and outright lies. Consider the Native American Indian history which was mostly recorded by the "White" European invaders. Many cultures have little written record of what happened in their past because they were illiterate, or it was unlawful for them to learn to read or write. Much like the African slaves who were raised in captivity in early American history. Their culture was handed down by word of mouth, artifacts, and spiritual songs.

This does not mean that these things did not happen because you can not find a specific standard of historical documentation, and I would not go so far as to discount it because of this lack of evidence. Folklore might be more accurate, in some cases, than the lies told by those who won wars, and dominate other cultures.

In his 1965 book, Choi says, "Taekwon-Do" is a modern version of the ancient art of self-defense known as T'ae Kyon." The Korean people know about their ancient Martial Art traditions, simply because it has been kept alive in the minds, hearts, and words of those who told their children, and grandchildren about it. Do we need to know every single detailed technique that was taught in ancient Taekyon and Subak in order to accept them as viable methods of training in self defense, moral integrity, and spiritual enlightenment? Do we nee to know these things in order to understand that Taekwondo is the modern manifestation of centuries of cultural struggle and oppression? I don't believe so.

By 1955, the pressure of Japanese occupation, and influence on the Korean culture, and history was finally lifted, but the pain was still there. South Korea had just established itself as a free Democracy (post Korean War), and it was ready to reclaim its past. A "new name" for the ancient traditional Martial Art was chosen, and that name was "Taekwondo." Those modern day Kwan leaders were influenced in their own personal skills by the Japanese occupation, and there is no doubt that this will forever change the perception of "Taekwondo" and all of Korea's history. For me, it is but one chapter in a book, that began a long time ago.

What is "Traditional Taekwondo" to me? It is the same as other National Martial Art traditions. We seek to improve ourselves, value and appreciate life, and strive to protect life and fight for justice through Martial Skills that nature provides us through the Grace of God. "Tradition simply means that it has been done before, and we honor that memory by doing it again. We do some things the same to remember the roots, and some the same because it is core knowledge that will always work, but we do many things different to grow with the times, lest we wither and die. Everyone who studies Taekwondo today has the option to train for reality (as tradition holds) or for sport, health, hobby, or any combination.

What is "True Taekwondo?" The same as any "True Martial Art." It is the proper training of the body, mind, and spirit in order to achieve successful results in life, self defense, and for preservation and perpetuation of the art for positive moral purposes. "Integrity" is the quality of strength achieved through the completeness of anything. A lack of integrity is the weakness which is derived from a flaw within. "True Taekwondo" is absolute integrity. It is not a lofty goal, or a hobby, or a sport, although we can participate in those things - - "True Taekwondo" is not a mask we wear, or a uniform we don, it is a path we follow - - it is a way of life ~ the warrior's life."

This is my humble opinion. :asian:
CM D.J. Eisenhart

[FieldDiscipline]

I wholeheartedly agree with Last Fearners superb post.

My understanding of Tae-kyon is that it was originally a combative sport, enjoyed at festivals and the like. However part of the reason the name TaeKwonDo was chosen was to clearly differentiate it from Tae-kyon which had developed a bad reputation as a streetfighting art used by gangsters and criminals. As we have seen, General Choi, Kim Bok Man and other founders of TKD practiced this art when young. To quote from GM Kim's book Practical TaeKwonDo:

'In 1948 at the age of 16 he was introduced to the ancient Korean foot-fighting art of Tae-Kyon, forerunner of TKD. This intoduction changed not only Kim's athetic career but also the pattern of his life.'

In his recent book on Chun Kuhn Do he also talks about To-San which he was secretly taught from the age of seven in 1941 by a buddhist priest at his temple.

No mention is made of Karate or any other Japanese arts.

[rmclain]

Changmoo-Kwan/Kangduk-Won article
http://www.arlingtonkarate.com/articles/CMKstory.pdf

Interview
http://www.arlingtonkarate.com/articles/KoreanMAtruth.pdf

R. McLain

[exile]

Well, my position on some of these topics being discussed in this thread is no secret, and most of you know how I feel. The same old arguments, opinions, and lack of verifiable "proof" to back claims seems to keep everyone guessing, and relying on sparse details to form their own beliefs, or mimic those that they have heard from others.

LF---

there are some important points you raise that need addressing. I want to begin by questioning the use of scare quotes here around the work proof. Historians recognize that when a claim is made about an historical event, or a series of historical events that one is trying to give an explanation for, a certain standard of documentation is called for. This is what professional historians spend years learning to achieve—it's the core of their training in graduate school—and while it doesn't have the same status as a proof in mathematics or logic, it does have about the same status as a proof in a hard science like physics: if you have enough of certain kinds of documentation, there burden of proof is on those who challenge your interpretation. As you go down the scale, with less and less of that documentation, the burden of proof starts shifting back to you; at the very end, if all you have are unverifiable reports and assertions and minimal contemporary evidence, you've still got the burden of proof for your assertion. Scare quotes aren't necessary: if you have enough evidence, you have what historians regard as proof, period; if you don't have that evidence, you may have suggestions and hypotheses, but not proof. Asking for hard documentation is no more unreasonable in the history of martial arts than it is in the history of anything else. In the days when Erik van Daniken went around raving about various monuments all over the world having been built by aliens, he brushed aside the lack of any evidence at all for that claim by referring derisively to those who insist on `proof'—in scare quotes—but it was obvious to pretty much everyone that he was trying to eliminate the criterion of sufficient evidence in getting acceptance for his ideas, because he had nothing that would count as evidence. I don't think it helps anyone's argument to appear to be suggesting that those who dispute that argument are asking for anything unreasonable when they insist on documentary evidence bearing on the argument—as I say, that's common practice in the normal practice of history.


I have made my opinion fairly clear before that there are three distinct eras of Taekwondo's history.

First is that time period of Korea's development, from the 1st century B.C. until the Japanese occupation in 1910. Most historians believe that the term "Taekwondo" was not used during this time period to describe the unarmed combat that was used in the old Chosen peninsula, however, if there is any doubt that a unique native unarmed combat existed, you only need to observe the fact that the Korean people are still here to know this.

Sorry, but I don't see how this follows. The fact that the Korean people are still here tells us they could fight, and fight well enough to survive. It does not tell us, however, that a `unique native unarmed combat' [system?] existed. The Basque people survived the overrunning of their peninsula by elements of the original Indo-european population. Are we allowed to infer the existence of a `unique Basque unarmed combat system' from this face? The Jewish peoples, the Romani peoples and many others survived centuries, or millenia of violent persecution and, in some cases, violent and sustained efforts to exterminate them. Are we justified in inferring the existence of a `unique Jewish/Romani/... combat system' simply because the Jews, Gypsies and .... survive to this day?

Obviously, all of the aforementioned peoples could fight. But the point you're making hinges critically on the notionn unique—specific to them, that is, systematic and developed, part of their own cultura identity. And that is a deduction that in no way follows the simple fact of their survival.


They were not soldiers, warriors, or armed militia by trade, and survival from the 1st through the 19th century depended greatly on their Martial Art skills.

Again, if by `Martial Art skills' you mean, fighting skills, no argument; but the fact that none of the people I've mentioned were `soldiers, warriors, or armed militia by trade' in no way allows you to deduce the existence of a specific structured unarmed fighting system unique to their respective cultures.


The second era of Taekwondo's history is that time period during the occupation when most of the aforementioned "Kwan founders" were born, grew up, and started learning about the Martial Art in the first place. Naturally, there was not much option during this time period but to become a student of "Japanese Martial Art," and gain any certification of "Dan" rank from a Japanese system. These students of Shotokan, and other variations were undoubtedly 100% influenced by Japanese and Okinawan Martial Karate, judo, jujutsu, etc. The operative word here is "influenced." This condition of being "forced" to learn Japanese culture did not change Korean history, nor did it make the future creation of Taekwondo of Japanese origins. However, the influence on these people, and their own personal skills is undisputable

I'm sorry, but I don't follow the last part of this. Every one of the early kwan founders studied MAs in Japan and came back with a set of skills and combat strategies and tactics, embedded in the forms—because kata were the foundation of karate teaching at that time—and used these forms as the technical basis of their own methods: the Pinan/Heian kata, Naihanchi, Bassai and many others were taken over literally, with acknowledgement to the Okinawain sources (as when Hwang Kee of the Moo Duk Kwan identified Anko Itosu as the source for the MDK's poomsae). This isn't just influence; it's a huge importantion of technical content.



Korean Martial Art did not begin in 1910, and did not stop developing in 1945.

As per the above, we have no hard evidence of just when a specifically Korean martial art began. So to say that Korean MA didn't begin in 1910 begs the question: to make that claim, you have to have a reason to believe it began at some earlier date, and if your only evidence is the reasoning you presented above, then your conclusion is unsupported—we have no documentation for a systematic Korean unarmed combat system from any earlier time, and the continued survival of the Korean people in no way allows the safe inference of a specifically Korean MA. As far as the further development of KMA after 1945, it's fairly obvious that it did develop. What Terry's post is about is the desirablilty of those developments. Like him, I think that a lot of that development was undesirable, from the point of view of combat effectiveness.



I do not judge the content of an entire Martial Art by the "forms" they use, nor the terminology exchanged, nor the documentation of its participants' ranks. For example, I might have a diploma from a ballet school, but if I prefer to dance to rock and roll, and that is what I teach, then the paper certificate only shows what else I know. Forms are only tools for training and practicing skills. Skills that existed long before the Japanese influence. Japan has their native Martial Art, China has their's, and Korea has its own. Each will eventually be influenced by the other.

The forms are a lot more than just training and practice skills. As Iain Abernethy has documented, they were originally regarded by the founders of the Okinawan MAs as actual fighting systems on their own. They contain the technical content of those arts, and training in those arts consisted of intensive study and experimentation with applications within the confines of one or two of those forms. Funakoshi spent nine years exclusively studying and training in the applications of the the Naihanchi kata. That's how his students and the students of the other Okinawan expatriate masters in Japan learned their MAs. And part of what they learned, therefore, was that the forms embody the fighting system. The fact that their own hyungs reflect almost literally the Japanese kata they learned means that they had made the fighting systems embodied in the kata the basis of the arts they themselves taught.

Much of the rest of your post deserves to be answered in detail, but the main points can be summarized as follows: General Choi talked about tae kyon a lot, he referred to it as ancient, therefore it must have been an important part of his training and must indeed be ancient. Historians of KMA have combed all available records and found very little specific information on just what tae kyon consisted of, how widely it was practiced and what its condition was by the 1930s. But as for the agenda underlying Gen Choi's statements, consider the following, from Combat magazine, cited in Stuart Anslow's new book on the ITF tuls:

(Interview from the 1970s) `Without karate, there would have been no Taekwondo.'

(Interview from the 1980s) `Karate was simply a reference tool that helped'.

(Interview from the 1990s) `Karate had only a minor or no impact on Taekwondo'

This is a reliable witness?? Contradictions in testimony like the above, in a court of law, would get a case thrown out of court so fast it would be a blur! General Choi hated the occupying Japanese, and he wasn't alone in that respect amongs the kwan founders. Many of the latter, however, and their senior students, were much more candid about the central place of the Okinawan/Japanese arts in their systems; S. Henry Cho, in his 1968 masterpiece Taekwon Do: Secrets of Korean Karate, states unequivocally that `the modern karate of Korea [his characterization of TKD throughout his book], with very little influence from tae kyun, was born with the turn of the 20th century...' [emphasis added].

One last point:


This does not mean that these things did not happen because you can not find a specific standard of historical documentation, and I would not go so far as to discount it because of this lack of evidence. Folklore might be more accurate, in some cases, than the lies told by those who won wars, and dominate other cultures.

On the basis of this reasoning, you have equal reason to believe any number of things that there is no documentation for. It is virtually impossible to prove that X didn't happen. But it's equally impossible to prove that Y didn't happen, or Z, or... So what counts in not what you can't disprove, but what you have some evidence for, that sets X apart from Y, Z, ... and gives it a priviledged status among hypotheses. That's why historians—and natural scientist— demand certain standards of evidence before granting a certain degree of plausibility to a given hypothesis. And folklore, over and over again, has been shown to be unreliable as a matter of historicala record; there's a whole subliterature in history devoted to the often bizarre relation between folk belief and verifiable sequences of events.

In any case, the founding relation between Okinawan/Japanese MAs and TKD hardly constitute `lies told by those who won wars, and dominate other cultures.' It is attested by the writing of kwan founders and their students, and in the living testimony of the hyungs, the technical core of TKD, constructed almost completely, in both ITF (see Anslow's book) and WTF (see Simon O'Neil's forthcoming book) on the basis of the kata of Okinawan/Japanese systems of karate. Of course there has been cultural imperialism and oppression and all sorts of genocidal horrors throughout history—but that doesn't alter the fact that all available evidence supports the centrality of karate as the foundation for the modern KMA of TKD.

[FieldDiscipline]

The fact that the Korean people are still here tells us they could fight, and fight well enough to survive. It does not tell us, however, that a `unique native unarmed combat' [system?] existed.

As to documentary proof:

Social documents from the Koguryo dynasties include the words Soo Bak.

Documentary evidence from the Paekje period (18 B.C. - 600 A.D. approx) exists in the form of a document called the 'Jae Wang Un Ki' This document states that a martial art was used and practiced by the common people and the military. The martial art entailed the use of hands and feet.

It is documented in the 'History of Koryo' (935 AD - 1392 AD) that King Chung Hae required his soldiers to practice Soo Bak and appointed the very best as high government officials.

During the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910) the ministry of national defence (Byung Jo) sponsored Soo Bak contests for the purpose of choosing soldiers. Slaves spent lots of time practicing as should they defeat their opponents they would be released from slavery and appointed as soldiers. Shield soldiers and guards were also chosen in this manner. These occurances were recorded in 'Sae Jo Shil Lok' or the Authentic records of the King.

Also from the Yi dynasty the 'Hae Dong Juk Ji' records make considerable reference to Su Sul (the Tae-kyon of those days), the techniques, forms etc. Also mentioned was the martial art of Su Byuck Ta in which opponents faced each other sitting on the ground. The competition involved a series of scored punches and striking movements.

In 1790 King Chongjo asked General Lee Duck Mu and two scholars to compile a book of all types of martial arts that were known in Korea. The book was known as the Mu Ye Do Bo Tong Ji and was to be used as a martial arts reference. It includes illustrations of movements and forms of several martial arts including Soo Bak, Tae-Kyon and numerous armed techniques. The book is still used as a reference and many of the techniques have been intergrated into modern Tae Kwon Do.

In 1958 Masters Song Duk Ki and Sung Hwan of Tae-Kyon and TKD gave a demonstration for the presidents birthday. The purpose was to show the many differences between TKD and karate. The masters felt their main objective was to purify TKD and return to the traditional unarmed form and technique that was free from the influences of other martial arts.

According to the WTF Tae Kwon Do has gone by many names, Tae Kyon, Soo Bak Do, Kong Soo Do, Tang Soo Do and others.

I must state that I have quoted heavily from Kim Jeong Rok's textbooks here.

Now, to rmclain's interviews...

[exile]

As to documentary proof:

Social documents from the Koguryo dynasties include the words Soo Bak.

Documentary evidence from the Paekje period (18 B.C. - 600 A.D. approx) exists in the form of a document called the 'Jae Wang Un Ki' This document states that a martial art was used and practiced by the common people and the military. The martial art entailed the use of hands and feet.

It is documented in the 'History of Koryo' (935 AD - 1392 AD) that King Chung Hae required his soldiers to practice Soo Bak and appointed the very best as high government officials.

During the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910) the ministry of national defence (Byung Jo) sponsored Soo Bak contests for the purpose of choosing soldiers. Slaves spent lots of time practicing as should they defeat their opponents they would be released from slavery and appointed as soldiers. Shield soldiers and guards were also chosen in this manner. These occurances were recorded in 'Sae Jo Shil Lok' or the Authentic records of the King.

Also from the Yi dynasty the 'Hae Dong Juk Ji' records make considerable reference to Su Sul (the Tae-kyon of those days), the techniques, forms etc. Also mentioned was the martial art of Su Byuck Ta in which opponents faced each other sitting on the ground. The competition involved a series of scored punches and striking movements.

In 1790 King Chongjo asked General Lee Duck Mu and two scholars to compile a book of all types of martial arts that were known in Korea. The book was known as the Mu Ye Do Bo Tong Ji and was to be used as a martial arts reference. It includes illustrations of movements and forms of several martial arts including Soo Bak, Tae-Kyon and numerous armed techniques. The book is still used as a reference and many of the techniques have been intergrated into modern Tae Kwon Do.

According to the WTF Tae Kwon Do has gone by many names, Tae Kyon, Soo Bak Do, Kong Soo Do, Tang Soo Do and others.

I must state that I have quoted heavily from Kim Jeong Rok's textbooks here.


What you've shown, FD, is that (i) there were references to things called Su Bahk, Tae Kyon and other entities that had martial significance in ancient Korean documents and (ii) that there is a modern MA whose practitioners call it Tae Kyon. What you haven't shown—and what there isn't any documentary support for—is any particular relationship between what these two historically (widely) separated uses of these terms. You might be interested in the conclusions of Marc Tedeschi, whose monumental surveys of the technical content of several different KMAs include a careful study of their historical relations based on the textual evidence, including the observation that

During the [Three Kingdoms] period, Korean artial arts did not possess a single umbrella-name. Instead, it is believed that specific skills were grouped into technique areas, which were labelled using generic terms. Some of these terms were

Su Bahk (punching and butting)
T'ae Kyon (kicking)
Kag Ju (throwing)
Kung Sa (archery)
Ki Ma Sa Bop (horse archery)
Tan Gom Sul (short knife)
Kom Sul Bop (sword skills)
Su Yong Bop (fighting in water)

Note that these are not the names of specific martial arts styles or systems, although they are often used incorrectly in this context
(M. Tedeschi, Taekwondo: Traditions, Philosphy, Technique, 2003, Weatherhill Inc., p. 27; emphasis added).

So what you have, basically, is a set of generic vocabulary items for certain kinds of actions that are, in some cases at least, universal in any fight: people kick, head-butt, punch and try to throw each other down on the ground. From ancient Egypt to Dodge City in its glory days, that's the
way people fight hand-to-hand. To establish your point, you've got a lot more work to do than just reporting the existence of archaic terminology for fighting moves that were also carried out by all of the Kingdom's ancient Asian neighbors, not to mention the rest of the world—you have to present evidence that what is called Tae Kyon and Su Bahk in the Three Kingdoms era and what is called Tae Kyon in the late 18th c. and what is called Tae Kyon today have anything to do with each other, other than that they involve, well, kicking. And you're not going to be able to do this, because, as Tedeschi goes on to observe directly, `there are are unfortunately no surviving written accounts describing these native martial systems or their specific techniques'. So you have, to put it plainly, no contemporary evidence for what any of these items from the ancient Korean lexicon actual denote. And it is as plausible to think that what calls itself tae kyon in the 20th c. had any technical roots in the 7th c. as it does to think that what was practiced in the ancient 9th c. Shaolin temple as a result of the very possibly legendary Bodhidharma's visit is the technical root of what calls itself Shaolin Kenpo Karate (there are some threads around that cover this topic pretty thoroughly!) in late 20th c. America. The point is, nothing you've offered has the status for documentary proof of the roots of modern TKD in ancient indigenous combat systems called Su Bahk and Tae Kyon.


In 1958 Masters Song Duk Ki and Sung Hwan of Tae-Kyon and TKD gave a demonstration for the presidents birthday. The purpose was to show the many differences between TKD and karate. The masters felt their main objective was to purify TKD and return to the traditional unarmed form and technique that was free from the influences of other martial arts.

Exactly Terry's point and mine. Political agendas led to the purging of Okinawan/Japanese content from the kwan era arts, the abandonment of the (many, many) poomsae from that era which derived from kata, and so on. You are helping me make one of my main points...

[Kacey]

I have nothing to add to the discussion at this point, except to say how much I am enjoying the information and viewpoints that are being posted in this thread - especially the civility with which the debate is taking place. Thank you all for allowing us into this discussion, and for the citations, which are giving me ideas for my reading list. :asian:

[TraditionalTKD]

Something else to consider:
The founders of Ji Do Kwan, Chang Moo Kwan, Moo Duk Kwan, and most of the others were Japanese karate/Chinese kung fu practitioners. If you studied Ji Do Kwan, Chang Moo Kwan, or most of the other kwans, you were essentially learning Japanese karate. S. Henry Cho states "Tae Kwon Do is identical to Japanese karate". Why? I suspect it is because he is Ji Do Kwan, and essentially learned Japanese karate in Korea.
Now, Chung Do Kwan, Oh Do Kwan, Song Moo Kwan were founded by men who had indeed learned karate, but also quite possibly learned Tae Kyon. Some of the few that had. These kwans were also largely at the forefront of Tae Kwon Do's emergence in modern Korea. I don't believe the Kwans aside from Chung Do Kwan, Oh Do Kwan, and Song Moo Kwan were respected as much as the aforementioned three, since CDK, ODK, and SMK wanted very much to make Tae Kwon Do reflect Korean history and philosophy. And since it is quite possible that the founders had studied Tae Kyon, they would have brought that Korean sensibility to their arts, as opposed to merely teaching Japanese styles in Korea the way the others seemed to be doing. There is a reason why only Chung Do Kwan black belts were accepted as is by the Korean military. Choi apparently felt that the others were not up to par.
Which is not to say that Chung Do Kwan and Oh Do Kwan were merely reflections of Japanese karate. Influenced? Yes, a little hard not to be considering the circumstances. Mere imitations or reflections? Hardly. From what I've read about Chung Do Kwan and some of the others, even in the old days, it was a style different from karate in both practice and philosophy.

[exile]

Something else to consider:
The founders of Ji Do Kwan, Chang Moo Kwan, Moo Duk Kwan, and most of the others were Japanese karate/Chinese kung fu practitioners. If you studied Ji Do Kwan, Chang Moo Kwan, or most of the other kwans, you were essentially learning Japanese karate. S. Henry Cho states "Tae Kwon Do is identical to Japanese karate". Why? I suspect it is because he is Ji Do Kwan, and essentially learned Japanese karate in Korea.
Now, Chung Do Kwan, Oh Do Kwan, Song Moo Kwan were founded by men who had indeed learned karate, but also quite possibly learned Tae Kyon. Some of the few that had. These kwans were also largely at the forefront of Tae Kwon Do's emergence in modern Korea. I don't believe the Kwans aside from Chung Do Kwan, Oh Do Kwan, and Song Moo Kwan were respected as much as the aforementioned three, since CDK, ODK, and SMK wanted very much to make Tae Kwon Do reflect Korean history and philosophy.

Again, one of the key points at issue here: the degree to which martial systems became counters in a political/cultural battle—very reminiscent of the eras in skiing when the Austrian government heavily promoted counterrotation and their chief rivals the French pushed avalement as the favored ski techniques, reflected in their instructional practice and pumped up with some of the finest extreme rhetoric that you could ever want. Funnily enough, the French and Austrian racers, the technical elite for whom efficiency and economy left nationalism trotting behind in the dust, were using virtually exactly the same methods to get through the gates in the shortest time. Part of what this thread is about, I think, is just this issue of the degree to which considerations of martial effectiveness have become compromised by the political symbolism of certain technical features, the origins of formal patterns encoding combat-applicable information, etc.



And since it is quite possible that the founders had studied Tae Kyon, they would have brought that Korean sensibility to their arts, as opposed to merely teaching Japanese styles in Korea the way the others seemed to be doing.

Again, though, we have no good idea of what this `tae kyon' they supposedly studied really was, nor what that `study' actually consisted of.


There is a reason why only Chung Do Kwan black belts were accepted as is by the Korean military. Choi apparently felt that the others were not up to par.

Which is not to say that Chung Do Kwan and Oh Do Kwan were merely reflections of Japanese karate. Influenced? Yes, a little hard not to be considering the circumstances. Mere imitations or reflections? Hardly. From what I've read about Chung Do Kwan and some of the others, even in the old days, it was a style different from karate in both practice and philosophy.

Well, my own TKD lineage is Song Moo Kwan (my instructor Allen Shirley <--- Greg Fears <--- Joon Pye Choi <--- Ryo Pyung Chik). And our technique, from everything I've been able to learn, as well as the view of combat I've been taught, seems awfully close to what I've been able to learn about Shotokan (apart from the consistently open-hip approach we take to all kicking techs)! As you say, not exactly the same, but close enough that you can see a clear relationship.

[rmclain]

[quote=FieldDiscipline;693810]As to documentary proof:

In 1958 Masters Song Duk Ki and Sung Hwan of Tae-Kyon and TKD gave a demonstration for the presidents birthday. The purpose was to show the many differences between TKD and karate. The masters felt their main objective was to purify TKD and return to the traditional unarmed form and technique that was free from the influences of other martial arts.

quote]

Hello FieldDiscipline,

I'd like to clear up this story. I asked Grandmaster Kim Soo about this, since he was there on March 26, 1958 for this event. He told me that they weren't there to compare anything. Duk Ki-song wasn't there.

The demo was by the Taekyun-Kwonbup group (proper name of Kangduk-Won at that time). Main demonstrator was Master Park Chul-hee, assisted by Kim Pyung-soo (3rd Dan).

I have attached a links to photos at the demo for President Rhee. Grandmaster Kim still has the program from this event. Looks like the web master put the incorrect year for the bottom photo, but I'll e-mail and get that fixed.

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/58_Demo/58_demo.htm

After this event, Kim Pyung-soo became assistant instructor for President Syngmann Rhee's police detachment(bodyguards). I provided a link to photos below.

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/presGuards/presGuards.htm

This next photo is interesting because it was taken at the Sangmoo-Kwan dojang. In the group photo was Duk Ki-song.

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/58_blueHouse/blueHouse.htm

R. McLain

[exile]

[quote=FieldDiscipline;693810]As to documentary proof:

In 1958 Masters Song Duk Ki and Sung Hwan of Tae-Kyon and TKD gave a demonstration for the presidents birthday. The purpose was to show the many differences between TKD and karate. The masters felt their main objective was to purify TKD and return to the traditional unarmed form and technique that was free from the influences of other martial arts.

quote]

Hello FieldDiscipline,

I'd like to clear up this story. I asked Grandmaster Kim Soo about this, since he was there on March 26, 1958 for this event. He told me that they weren't there to compare anything. Duk Ki-song wasn't there.

The demo was by the Taekyun-Kwonbup group (proper name of Kangduk-Won at that time). Main demonstrator was Master Park Chul-hee, assisted by Kim Pyung-soo (3rd Dan).

I have attached a links to photos at the demo for President Rhee. Grandmaster Kim still has the program from this event. Looks like the web master put the incorrect year for the bottom photo, but I'll e-mail and get that fixed.

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/58_Demo/58_demo.htm

After this event, Kim Pyung-soo became assistant instructor for President Syngmann Rhee's police detachment(bodyguards). I provided a link to photos below.

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/presGuards/presGuards.htm

This next photo is interesting because it was taken at the Sangmoo-Kwan dojang. In the group photo was Duk Ki-song.

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/58_blueHouse/blueHouse.htm

R. McLain

Very, very much appreciated, rmcl!

And that interview you posted with Gm. Kim Pyung Soo is a real eye-opener, in all kinds of ways...

[FieldDiscipline]

Robert I would like to thank you for posting both your photos, interview and article, which I have enjoyed and found very interesting.

I just find it difficult to believe that General Choi and the WTF would formulate such a huge lie about the '2000 year history', which surely would be glaringly obvious to the Korean people.

On a purely practical side, we know Song Duk Ki to have continued Tae-kyon (Robert feel free to correct me) and that there are practioners today. Watching videos they appear to perform techniques identical to an Axe kick, in my experience I have never seen Shotokan perform an axe kick. We do know however Gen. Choi learned Tae-kyon from his calligraphy teacher. Small example I know, I just feel that the truth must lay between the two poles.

[rmclain]

Robert I would like to thank you for posting both your photos, interview and article, which I have enjoyed and found very interesting.

I just find it difficult to believe that General Choi and the WTF would formulate such a huge lie about the '2000 year history', which surely would be glaringly obvious to the Korean people.

On a purely practical side, we know Song Duk Ki to have continued Tae-kyon (Robert feel free to correct me) and that there are practioners today. Watching videos they appear to perform techniques identical to an Axe kick, in my experience I have never seen Shotokan perform an axe kick. We do know however Gen. Choi learned Tae-kyon from his calligraphy teacher. Small example I know, I just feel that the truth must lay between the two poles.

I was told that Master Lee Nam-sok(Changmoo-Kwan) wrote an article in the 1950's about Korean martial art links to the Korguryo Dynasty, etc., and that many, many people believed it - since nobody was teaching history about the backgound of their art during this time. Master Lee Nam-sok later joined with Choi Hong-hi, so who knows who spoke about it first.

Duk Ki-song was good friends with Grandmaster Kim Soo. He admitted to Grandmaster Kim that he didn't remember much. I never got the impression that Duk Ki-song never really taught much either. My instructor(Grandmaster Kim Soo) helped him(Duk Ki-song) get recognized as a cultural asset because of preserving some Taekyun. But, I don't think much was preserved. Duk Ki-song always emphasized that Taekyun was really just a friendly game during the Dan-Oh Festival. While this is his story, there is no-doubt, a martial application to Taekyun.

Perhaps during the Yi Dynasty (preceeding WWII) that emphasized Confusionism and intellectual persuits (poetry, art, etc) instead of martial arts(which were considered "low class"), Taekyun changed from the martial aspect into a sporting game with the cultural emphasis.

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/song-duk-ki.html

R. McLain

[FieldDiscipline]

So would I be right in thinking what is practised now as Tae-kyon is a re-invention drawn from the portion that Song Duk Ki could remember and pass on?

What I'd give to know what General Choi knew.

[rmclain]

So would I be right in thinking what is practised now as Tae-kyon is a re-invention drawn from the portion that Song Duk Ki could remember and pass on?


Probably. The Korean Taekyun Association has hosted Grandmaster Kim's visit so that he could tell them about Song Duk-ki and the old days. Most Taekyun instructors today are too young to have even remembered Song Duk-ki.

http://www.kimsookarate.com/cyrnews/taek-kyun.html

R. McLain

[exile]

Robert I would like to thank you for posting both your photos, interview and article, which I have enjoyed and found very interesting.

I just find it difficult to believe that General Choi and the WTF would formulate such a huge lie about the '2000 year history', which surely would be glaringly obvious to the Korean people.

What is at all difficult to believe about a man who had risked his life in resistance to the Japanese, and come to believe that they had been an unmitigated catastrophe in his countrymen's life—and who was aware of a folk tradition that (on the basis of a bad etymology for certain Korean characters, very possibly; see below) seemed to support the existence of something non-Japanese connected with fighting which was at least referred to in certain ancient document—convincing himself and others that this vestigial relic was the basis of the whole of modern TKD? And why on earth with this fabrication be `glaringly obvious?' to anyone but a historial of the martial arts? The story of ancient Korean culture is confined to a number of complex documents that it's unlikely more than a tiny number of Koreans know the existence of, let alone the content of. Here is a war hero and an educated man of great power and authority who tells them something that they almost certainly want to hear: their national martial art is theirs alone, sui generis, owing nothing to the hated occupiers. Exactly what is `glaringly obvious' about the fact that there is absolutely no documentary support or any other evidence for this two millenia linkage?


On a purely practical side, we know Song Duk Ki to have continued Tae-kyon (Robert feel free to correct me) and that there are practioners today. Watching videos they appear to perform techniques identical to an Axe kick, in my experience I have never seen Shotokan perform an axe kick. We do know however Gen. Choi learned Tae-kyon from his calligraphy teacher. Small example I know, I just feel that the truth must lay between the two poles.

Given that there is strong evidence already cited on this thread that tae kyon, whatever else it might be, is not what General Choi claimed it is, and a tiny anecdotal fragment that suggest there might, possibly, conceivably be a bit more, why would you expect that `the truth must lie between the two poles'? Given the total vast evidence that there is indeed no such thing as cold fusion, and a few largely fabricated quasi-experiments that argued there was, should physicists concluded that the truth must be somewhere in the middle? I don't follow this at all.

This is something I'd meant to include earlier in my reply to you, from an earlier thread; it was easier to just excerpt it than paraphrase it:

`And as far as taekkyon is concerned, you might want to take a look at Stan Henning's authoritative survey of the state of traditional Korean martial arts in the first issue of the 2000 volume of Journal of Asian Marital Arts, where he discusses the term `taekkyon' and shows that this term is based on erroneous interpretations, in early premodern Korean manuals of physical training and combat methods, of the meaning of certain Chinese ideograms. The correct rendition of the item isn't taekkyon, which seems to have a connection to the modern Korean tae `foot', but takkyon, `push the shoulders', about which Manning says `the term originally may only have been meant to describe a specific... technique to put an opponent off balance.' Takkyon appears to have been effectively suppressed by the Japanese in the 19th c.; taekkyon is an essentially modern discipline with no demonstrable connection to anything in Korean (pre)history. Bear in mind that Manning , a respected martial arts historian with degrees from the University of Hawaii, has based his conclusion on an exhaustive perusal of the full set of documentary records we currently possess on the topic---the full set of combat technique manuals published in Korea along with contemporary historical chronicles such as the Koryo History publishhed in 1451, which contains material going back to the 10th century, and the Encyclopaedia of Illustrated Martial Arts Manuals published by Yi Dok Mu in 1790---itself incorporated extensive material form still earlier Chinese sources, an important resource since apparently a huge proportion of Korean combat techniques have Chinese sources, not surprisingly. Mannings authoritative overview, BTW, concludes with the somewhat bleak assessment that `traditional [Korean] martial args... appear to have been almost entirely abandoned by the beginning of the twentieth century'. He rubs the point in that `the evidence does not allow us to say, as some claim, that the traditional military skill, subak, was directly related to taekwondo or that "taekwondo is a martial art independently developed over twenty centuries ago in Korea", citing a very commonly repeated bit of legendary history from a web site on TKD. His conclusion---supported by what looks to me like the most exhaustive survey of the surviving documentary evidence to date---is that `Taekwondo, for the most part,... appears to be a post-Korean War product, developed primarily from what the Koreans call tangsudo (karate) introduced during the period of Japanese rule.' The tradition Korean martial arts are but a vague memory and taekwondo a symbol born in the cradle of modern Korean nationalism...'

There's no question that something called taekkyon (very likely based, as Manning notes, on a Korean folk etymology of the last century) existed in the early 20th century as a combat system and that some of the Kwan founders practiced it, to one degree or another. But there's no evidence tying it to any ancient indigenous martial art of Korea. The vast weight of the evidence---especially the actual technical content of TKD---makes it clear that TKD is... well, karate as practiced in Korea.'
_____________

[FieldDiscipline]

The harder we look the more that appears to be the case.

Glad I played devils advocate though, I have learnt a lot from this!

I'd love to know what General Choi knew!

[exile]

The harder we look the more that appears to be the case.

Glad I played devils advocate though, I have learnt a lot from this!

I'd love to know what General Choi knew!

FD---it's absolutely vital that someone always play the devil's advocate—that's the only way positions get adequately tested: there's got to be opposition and scrutiny. And I hope I've made it clear that by the very nature of things, we cannot rule out in advance the possibility that there are indeed very ancient, unique and complete martial systems that contributed substantially to modern TKD. It's just that at present, we don't have a basis for giving the status of `plausible' to such possibilities. Given the number of alternative scenarios that all `could have been', we need to stay skeptical till we are given solid evidence one way or the other.

But you can see perhaps why, coming out of all this, I'm so interested in early kwan era history. Because if I'm right about TKD, then there are certain predictions that follow and that could be confirmed, or, equally important, disconfirmed, on the basis of that history. My take on things imples that we should expect to find the early kwans, like the dojos at which the founders of those kwans studies, teaching on a small number of poomsae—very small—where adepts were expected to study those few poomsae (again, I'd predict these would be literal or somewhat reorganized kata) for a very long time, till they understood the martial applications very well. That what my model of the development of TKD very strongly implies should be the case; but is it?.... so that's one reason I'm so interested in Robert's research and what it might show, and that of others who, I hope, will pursue that kind of investigation.

[terryl965]

I do appreciate all the Honor and respect everyone has given to this thread and to Master McLain for providing some great articles and phote's, I will take the time to go over everything tonight and give my perspective to it but I thank you all for all your efforts on his thread.

[exile]

I do appreciate all the Honor and respect everyone has given to this thread and to Master McLain for providing some great articles and phote's, I will take the time to go over everything tonight and give my perspective to it but I thank you all for all your efforts on his thread.

Terry, yes, I am very curious to know what you yourself think about the questions you posed when you first started the thread, and I suspect, though I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, that that goes for all the other thread participants as well. So please do share your thoughts with us, when you've got them ready to post! :)

[The Boar Man]

Great thread!

This topic has long fascinated me since my instructor had first told me of the Japanese karate influence years ago on TKD, and combined with my love for history I have always sought out articles, books etc. etc. and information on the formation of the martial arts.

With that in mind I believe that by denying the infuence or any part of a history of a martial art or system is wrong. Because by acknowledging the connection you can go back and research what the art was like when the founders of the systems were studying and what their influences might have been. For instance several founders of the early kwans studied Japanse karate, knowing this you can then read about the training that was going on during the years they trained, about the teachers of that time period and so on and so on, in the end I believe having a wider prespective instead of having the narrow party line view. Even trying to understand what the political situation was like back then helps shed light on how things were developed.

A friend sent me this site that shows a comparasion of the TKD forms. If you look at the forms on the right side (I forget the names) they are clearly versions of the Japanese karate katas (Heians/Pinans). If you look at the ITF forms you can see the influences of these katas.

http://www.natkd.com/tkd_forums.htm

with respect
Mark

[exile]

I believe that by denying the infuence or any part of a history of a martial art or system is wrong. Because by acknowledging the connection you can go back and research what the art was like when the founders of the systems were studying and what their influences might have been. For instance several founders of the early kwans studied Japanse karate, knowing this you can then read about the training that was going on during the years they trained, about the teachers of that time period and so on and so on, in the end I believe having a wider prespective instead of having the narrow party line view. Even trying to understand what the political situation was like back then helps shed light on how things were developed.

Absolutely, Mark—I couldn't agree more.


A friend sent me this site that shows a comparasion of the TKD forms. If you look at the forms on the right side (I forget the names) they are clearly versions of the Japanese karate katas (Heians/Pinans). If you look at the ITF forms you can see the influences of these katas.

http://www.natkd.com/tkd_forums.htm

with respect
Mark

Thanks for posting this link, Mark—but it doesn't seem to connect to anything now (at least when I'm trying it). Is it possible it was moved or something?

My TKD instructor learned the Pinan katas as part of his own (Song Moo Kwan) TKD training; once upon a time they were part of the TKD canon, but were dropped several decades ago. If you're iterested in combat applications of the Pinans, Iain Abernethy has a terrific video that covers all of the Pinan kata and uncovers some very direct and effective apps, at different fighting ranges (but mostly focusing on the typical very close quarters you get to quite quickly in a street attack) underlying the movement recorded in the Pinan forms.

[The Boar Man]

A magazine that features a lot of articles on "Traditional karate" Dragon Times and which evoled into a magazine on martial disciplines of China, Japan, and Okinawa called Classical Fighting Arts has had a few articles on this subject.

In Dragon Times Volume 23 (the final issue before it changed to CFA) there is a part two of "TKD a Historical Appraisal" by Robert E. Dohrenwend, Ph.D.

Table 1 The Early Kwans (1944-46)
Chung Do Kwan Shotokan
Song Mu Kwan Shotokan
Yun Mu Kwan Shotokan (?)
Mu Duk Kwan Eclectic (mainly Shotokan from books)
Chang Mu Kwan Shudankan Chuan Fa
Chi Do Kwan Shito-ryu

One point he brings out is that of prejudice from the Japanese to foreigners in Japan "and this would definitely applied to Koreans.....Given the instructional tradtions in the Japanese martial arts, this fact alone would have acted to keep most Korean students from receiving full instruction in these arts. So there was a very small number of Koreans who founded the early kwans, introducing modern karate to Korea, and these remarkable men had reached intermediate, and in two cases, claimed high levels of instruction."

Mark

[The Boar Man]

Absolutely, Mark—I couldn't agree more.



Thanks for posting this link, Mark—but it doesn't seem to connect to anything now (at least when I'm trying it). Is it possible it was moved or something?

My TKD instructor learned the Pinan katas as part of his own (Song Moo Kwan) TKD training; once upon a time they were part of the TKD canon, but were dropped several decades ago. If you're iterested in combat applications of the Pinans, Iain Abernethy has a terrific video that covers all of the Pinan kata and uncovers some very direct and effective apps, at different fighting ranges (but mostly focusing on the typical very close quarters you get to quite quickly in a street attack) underlying the movement recorded in the Pinan forms.

http://www.natkd.com/tkd_forms.htm

Sorry if I copied down the address wrong, but I just checked this one and it works.

I am going to have check out his video, I watched G. Dillman's video (1 of them) years ago and it really bored me. However I have seen some others and been to some seminars and I like the material.

[exile]

http://www.natkd.com/tkd_forms.htm

Sorry if I copied down the address wrong, but I just checked this one and it works.

That works fine—alas, I use a Mac and there's no way I can run .wmv video files. I'm gonna have to find a Windows machine to get these on.


I am going to have check out his video, I watched G. Dillman's video (1 of them) years ago and it really bored me. However I have seen some others and been to some seminars and I like the material.

Abernethy's videos are mesmerizing. If anything, the problem is that there's so much good stuff packed into them that you need to view them many times to get the full content. Abernethy's a true star of the realistic bunkai application movement, as I think of it, but he doesn't act like a star. His whole focus is the material, and making sure the reader/viewer really understands just what the mechanics of the application are. He'll demo the same technique several time, very slowly, in `frames', so you can see what separate movement are involved, then in flowing slo-mo, so you can see how the techs flow together, then at combat speed so you can see how you'd be applying the kata techs in real time. And his spoken explanations for what he's doing are crystal-clear...

[FieldDiscipline]

I trained with an excellent Shotokan school some years ago when I was unable to find a TKD dojang.

I remember noticing similarities with kata and poomse even then, I seem to recall the 1st kata was move for move identical to Taeguek 1 Jang until about half way through when 1 jang changes. Unless my memory fails me and it was Chon-Ji instead of a Taeguek, but either way...

[exile]

I trained with an excellent Shotokan school some years ago when I was unable to find a TKD dojang.

I remember noticing similarities with kata and poomse even then, I seem to recall the 1st kata was move for move identical to Taeguek 1 Jang until about half way through when 1 jang changes. Unless my memory fails me and it was Chon-Ji instead of a Taeguek, but either way...

This is very common. There are big chunks of the Pinans strewn throughout the Palgwe series, which we do at my school instead of the Taegeuks, as colored belt forms. And the first `training' forms, the kichos, in (WTF) TKD are essentially identical to certain early Shotokan forms. In a lot of cases, the bunkai you would have learned for the standard shotokan kata can be transfered over whole to the TKD poomse.

One of the things I'm very, very curious about in early kwan practice was the degree to which the kwan masters were aware of the kinds of bunkai (or boon hae, as Iceman has pointed out for the corresponding Korean term) that are latent in the poomsae which they came up with by recombining component subsequences—the ones corresponding to `complete' fighting scenarios—of the various katas they'd learned in Japan. I've been involved in various threads where this was discussed; some people doubt that the kwan founders developed a detailed understanding of what the Okinawan mastered had intended each of these subsequences to teach, and instead took them at the literal level that people like Abernethy, Rick Clark, Bill Burgar and many others have shown to be seriously impractical for actual combat use. I have no idea if that's so or not... that's another reason I'm really interested in what the actual content of kwan training was in the late 1940s and early 1950s...

[matt.m]

Me, myself....I believe true tae kwon do is what you make it as well. You approach tae kwon do with humility and the understanding and desire to follow the tenants of tae kwon do and it not only will become yours but it will be true tae kwon do.

Do you have honor? Do you have Perserverance and show humility, and integrity? If so then are you not following what Tae Kwon Do is supposed to be?

Knowing history and who contributed what and where influences come from and where they don't is great. Don't get me wrong, I am all about the proper formulation of accurate history. However, in the 80's my history teachers in grammer school said that "In the North it is called the Civil War and in the South it is called the War of Northern Aggression."

Did the war really happen? Yes, it did. Were their positives and negatives on both sides? Yes.

I have seen black belts from other schools that are fabulous olympic style sparring practitioners. However, they would do poomse.....well, I will leave that alone. Were they good at olympic style sparring? Yes, very good. Should we say that it isn't Tae Kwon Do? No, not considering that it is an aspect of olympic sports. I only compete in poomse because of medical limitations, does this mean I am not learning and performing true, traditional tae kwon do. Certainly not. The olympic aspect is just a tamed down version from competitions in the past.

When GGM founded Moo Sul Kwan in Cape Girardeau, MO his training was tough and hard. He expected a lot from his students. This is no wander when you look at his first wave of students technical expertise in hapkido and tae kwon do. However, he had told the story "On a cold day in korea when we didn't want to train in korea then we would sit outside barefoot in the snow and study pressure point charts." How many of us have had to do that as a part of tae kwon do training in America?

[Last Fearner]

I wish I had the time to give this thread the attention it deserves. I could probably write an entire book on this subject, and still, not everyone would get the meaning of this one perspective about influence versus origin.

First, I want exile to know that I respect you and your point of view on this issue, and I like you a lot. You are a knowledgeable Martial Artist and an asset to this forum, and you have always shown me courtesy, even when we disagree. For this, I thank you.

To address your first concern:

I want to begin by questioning the use of scare quotes here around the work proof.... Scare quotes aren't necessary: if you have enough evidence, you have what historians regard as proof, period

Perhaps you misunderstood the purpose for my use of the scare quotes. There is a broader definition for the term "scare quotes," and more than one reason for using them. The usage that you seem to be referring to is when you express doubt about the validity of a word, or to criticize its use. The other part the definition is "to emphasize a word or phrase or to indicate its special status." (Heritage Dictionary, 2000)

My intention was merely to point out that the term "proof," while important to research, can be misleading and often holds a variety of levels of standards depending on the evidence offered. It is the same dilemma that exists in a court of law. Is this a criminal trial where a burden of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" must be met, or a civil case where a mere preponderance of the evidence (slightly more than 50%) tipped one way or the other is enough to satisfy the question of guilt or innocence. Then there is the issue of the quality of the evidence offered.

As to the issue of "Ancient Taekwondo," I am going to simplify an otherwise lengthy response by saying the following:

A. I believe that unarmed combat skills have been established as being present in the Chosen Peninsula during the three kingdoms period. I believe that these skills were used effectively by average citizens for self defense, and as a form of resistance to military aggression. These skills were likely reproduced in sport games, which became more popular as the demand for combat usage declined.

B. I accept the inference that these unarmed combat skills were most likely handed down in various forms from those who migrated into the peninsula and became a part of the unique culture of these indigenous people during the 1st century AD. I further believe that these combat skills were handed down from one generation to the next creating a teacher/student relationship.

C. Lastly, I believe that the moral culture, perseverance, and integrity of these early Korean ancestors was unique, and their efforts to unify the three kingdoms and repel attacks from foreign armies using their unarmed combat skills as part of their arsenal qualifies what they did as the true essence of a "Martial Art." I believe that the unique characteristics displayed among these early inhabitants were later recorded within the Hwarang-do, and exemplify the true Martial Spirit and tenets which are the bedrock of today's Taekwondo.

All of these three things combined, convince me that the reports of early skills of unarmed combat in Korea is genuine, and qualifies as a Martial Art. I believe that these skills have been called many things over the centuries, and have evolved in their overall development. In 1955, the Korean Government supported the efforts to unify what existed at that time, and give a name to the national Art. This means, first and foremost, that the reality of the ancient skills which existed before, was being recognized and renamed. The name they chose was "Taekwondo" thus this is the name of the ancient skills, regardless of what those skills were. This new name was also used and applies to the modern application, and development of Korean Martial Art for future use in self defense, sport, health and fitness.

It is a modern National Art as well as an ancient one. The name "Taekwondo" applies to both. The influence of Japanese Martial Art upon the Kwans is absolute, but the modern instruction of Taekwondo, as taught by Korean standards, is not a duplication of Japanese Martial Art, but a culmination of the ancient origin of Taekwondo in old Chosen, and the modern knowledge of current self defense skills.

This whole discussion of Shotokan forms and their similarity to Taekwondo tuls or poomsae, is not a new revelation (although I realize new students are just discovering this). It is no secret about where Gen. Choi and the other Kwan leaders trained during the occupation, nor where they got the idea for these patterns. The point that seems to be ignored is that these forms, while important as a tool, and a deep rooted philosophy in teaching Taekwondo, do not make up the core of what Taekwondo is, nor do they identify the origin of the art. To my understanding, the concept of forms such as the Shotokan patterns did not exist in Korean Martial Art prior to the occupation, thus they are clearly not part of what Taekwondo truly is.

The modern poomsae of Taekwondo are an add-on that can have as much meaning and purpose as it does in Japanese Karate, and the concept is clearly borrowed from the Japanese system, but this is just one method of teaching what is essentially either Japanese knowledge, or Korean knowledge using a similar methodology. I support the use of forms, and believe they are an invaluable tool in teaching, but I also know that if you strip away all of the forms from Taekwondo, I can still teach students every aspect of what Taekwondo truly is, in physical self defense, exercise, mental discipline, moral culture, and spiritual enlightenment.

The substance of Taekwondo is not what comes from these forms, but rather the concept of forms are used to display the substance of whatever art they are applied to. The system and patterns of forms come from Shotokan, thus the obvious resemblance, but Taekwondo itself does not come from the Japanese Martial Art. The name "Taekwondo" applies to whatever the Korean people define it as since their history was originally independent and separate from the Japanese culture, and their ancient fighting skills lacked a nationally recognized name until 1955.

I don't know if my meaning is clear, or understood by others, but it will never change the fact that some people are focused on recent events, and others view Taekwondo as belonging to a nation of people who survived for centuries through the power of a skill and philosophy that did not come from Japan. What happened during the occupation was a sharing of knowledge, and the ancient Korean Taekwondo of the past can absorb any or all of what it is exposed to to become the Taekwondo of the present and future. Yet the core and roots of Taekwondo are unique, and does come from Korea's history prior to 1910.

Well, I've done the best I can to explain this in a larger sense. I hope it does not confuse others as to the true meaning.

Thanks for your time
CM D.J. Eisenhart

[exile]

I wish I had the time to give this thread the attention it deserves. I could probably write an entire book on this subject, and still, not everyone would get the meaning of this one perspective about influence versus origin.

First, I want exile to know that I respect you and your point of view on this issue, and I like you a lot. You are a knowledgeable Martial Artist and an asset to this forum, and you have always shown me courtesy, even when we disagree. For this, I thank you.

To address your first concern:


Perhaps you misunderstood the purpose for my use of the scare quotes. There is a broader definition for the term "scare quotes," and more than one reason for using them. The usage that you seem to be referring to is when you express doubt about the validity of a word, or to criticize its use. The other part the definition is "to emphasize a word or phrase or to indicate its special status." (Heritage Dictionary, 2000)

My intention was merely to point out that the term "proof," while important to research, can be misleading and often holds a variety of levels of standards depending on the evidence offered. It is the same dilemma that exists in a court of law. Is this a criminal trial where a burden of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" must be met, or a civil case where a mere preponderance of the evidence (slightly more than 50%) tipped one way or the other is enough to satisfy the question of guilt or innocence. Then there is the issue of the quality of the evidence offered.

As to the issue of "Ancient Taekwondo," I am going to simplify an otherwise lengthy response by saying the following:

A. I believe that unarmed combat skills have been established as being present in the Chosen Peninsula during the three kingdoms period. I believe that these skills were used effectively by average citizens for self defense, and as a form of resistance to military aggression. These skills were likely reproduced in sport games, which became more popular as the demand for combat usage declined.

B. I accept the inference that these unarmed combat skills were most likely handed down in various forms from those who migrated into the peninsula and became a part of the unique culture of these indigenous people during the 1st century AD. I further believe that these combat skills were handed down from one generation to the next creating a teacher/student relationship.

C. Lastly, I believe that the moral culture, perseverance, and integrity of these early Korean ancestors was unique, and their efforts to unify the three kingdoms and repel attacks from foreign armies using their unarmed combat skills as part of their arsenal qualifies what they did as the true essence of a "Martial Art." I believe that the unique characteristics displayed among these early inhabitants were later recorded within the Hwarang-do, and exemplify the true Martial Spirit and tenets which are the bedrock of today's Taekwondo.

All of these three things combined, convince me that the reports of early skills of unarmed combat in Korea is genuine, and qualifies as a Martial Art. I believe that these skills have been called many things over the centuries, and have evolved in their overall development. In 1955, the Korean Government supported the efforts to unify what existed at that time, and give a name to the national Art. This means, first and foremost, that the reality of the ancient skills which existed before, was being recognized and renamed. The name they chose was "Taekwondo" thus this is the name of the ancient skills, regardless of what those skills were. This new name was also used and applies to the modern application, and development of Korean Martial Art for future use in self defense, sport, health and fitness.

It is a modern National Art as well as an ancient one. The name "Taekwondo" applies to both. The influence of Japanese Martial Art upon the Kwans is absolute, but the modern instruction of Taekwondo, as taught by Korean standards, is not a duplication of Japanese Martial Art, but a culmination of the ancient origin of Taekwondo in old Chosen, and the modern knowledge of current self defense skills.

This whole discussion of Shotokan forms and their similarity to Taekwondo tuls or poomsae, is not a new revelation (although I realize new students are just discovering this). It is no secret about where Gen. Choi and the other Kwan leaders trained during the occupation, nor where they got the idea for these patterns. The point that seems to be ignored is that these forms, while important as a tool, and a deep rooted philosophy in teaching Taekwondo, do not make up the core of what Taekwondo is, nor do they identify the origin of the art. To my understanding, the concept of forms such as the Shotokan patterns did not exist in Korean Martial Art prior to the occupation, thus they are clearly not part of what Taekwondo truly is.

The modern poomsae of Taekwondo are an add-on that can have as much meaning and purpose as it does in Japanese Karate, and the concept is clearly borrowed from the Japanese system, but this is just one method of teaching what is essentially either Japanese knowledge, or Korean knowledge using a similar methodology. I support the use of forms, and believe they are an invaluable tool in teaching, but I also know that if you strip away all of the forms from Taekwondo, I can still teach students every aspect of what Taekwondo truly is, in physical self defense, exercise, mental discipline, moral culture, and spiritual enlightenment.

The substance of Taekwondo is not what comes from these forms, but rather the concept of forms are used to display the substance of whatever art they are applied to. The system and patterns of forms come from Shotokan, thus the obvious resemblance, but Taekwondo itself does not come from the Japanese Martial Art. The name "Taekwondo" applies to whatever the Korean people define it as since their history was originally independent and separate from the Japanese culture, and their ancient fighting skills lacked a nationally recognized name until 1955.

I don't know if my meaning is clear, or understood by others, but it will never change the fact that some people are focused on recent events, and others view Taekwondo as belonging to a nation of people who survived for centuries through the power of a skill and philosophy that did not come from Japan. What happened during the occupation was a sharing of knowledge, and the ancient Korean Taekwondo of the past can absorb any or all of what it is exposed to to become the Taekwondo of the present and future. Yet the core and roots of Taekwondo are unique, and does come from Korea's history prior to 1910.

Well, I've done the best I can to explain this in a larger sense. I hope it does not confuse others as to the true meaning.

Thanks for your time
CM D.J. Eisenhart

And thanks to you, Master Eisenhart, for your thoughtful comments—which, as always, are thought-provoking and insightful. I want to think more about and digest what you've written here. The case of TKD is certain complex and mulitfaceted... the potential book you refer to writing at the very beginning would certainly be a very valuable addition to what is now an all-too-sparse literature on TKD history (I know that Doug Cook is writing one on that topic, but there aren't many full-length treatments of KMA history that I've been able to find).

On with this great discussion! :)

[Brad Dunne]

:asian: I bow in respect, to the full simplicity and truthfullness of the following:

"What Taekwondo truly is......... Physical self defense, exercise, mental discipline, moral culture, and spiritual enlightenment". (CM D.J. Eisenhart)

[MSUTKD]

History, a distillation of rumor. - THOMAS CARLYLE

ron

[exile]

I think there are some fundamental issues that are tied up with the history of TKD and its relevance to the practice of TKD. The contrast Last Fearner drew in his post was between influence on the one hand and origin on the other. The opposition I'm concerned with is a little different, but it possibly comes down to the same thing: my take on the question is that the history of a MA may be relevant to its technical interpretation, but doesn't necessarily exhaust its technical content. In simple cases, yes, the MA has inherited from the practitioners of the past an overall strategy, a set of tactics, and a repertoire of techs that implement those tactics; so if you had a complete technical history of the MA, it would match up perfectly with what people do, or can do, with that art. But in complicated cases—and I think KMAs have very tangled histories—that's not the case in any straightforward way. The role of hyungs is a striking example of this in TKD for reasons that I'll get to later on.

But because the history of an MA may offer clues about that technical content, I'm anxious to get the best possible sense of just how plausible this or that given interpretation of a particular story about the development of that MA is—how much credence, regardless of our own preferences, can we give that story, based on the existence (or not) of evidence which should lead us to favor that story as vs. many others for which we have no analogous evidence. This is what historians worry about all the time, but I'm not interested in the history of TKD for academic reasons; I want to know certain specific things about its past because of very practical concerns—what light will that knowledge shed on how I train TKD, how I identify the resources of that art so I can take advantage of them?

Some of what appeared to be an issue between me and LF involved the way I interpreted his use of quotation marks around the word proof; I now understand that he was using them to indicate emphasis, to highlight the somewhat problematic status of the notion of proof when applied to real-world events, as opposed say to a logical or mathematical proof which, if reasoned correctly, is final and admits no uncertainty. And I heartily agree! In science, and that much more in history, there is no absolute proof, just relative degrees of plausibility. So amount of evidence can prove that something did or did not happen; there are always `escape hatch' scenarios that none of the available evidence rules out, though they may not seem very likely. So no issue here, and I thank LF for taking my concerns seriously and clarifying his intentions so courteously, and I'm on the same page with him here.

The substantive issues that we seem to go keep circling on this and other threads has to do with the following issues:

(i) what were people using to defend themselves on the Korean peninsula in deeply ancient times? How much do we know, and what can we confidently infer from all of the evidence we have—documentary, archaeological, whatever?

(ii) how much of the practice we're trying to discover in (i) came down to modern times, in anything like its ancient form?

(iii) how much of the `relic knowledge' alluded to in (ii) was incorporated into the modern form of the MA, as reflected in the teachings and training methods of the people who we can identify as the modern sources of that art?

(iv) what is the relationship between the inventory of resources that are present in the modern form of the MA (including any relic knowledge as per (iii)) and the available technical content of that MA?

The last of these questions, (iv), is in some way the trickiest, because there is an implicit `should' implied in it: it could be paraphrased, `Given what we have now, and what we are reliably sure we had in the past, what should we regard as the available content of this art? What should we be doing such that we can say, we do just this art?'. This is an issue that arises in a very practical way when it comes time to judge what the role of the hyungs is in our overall take on TKD.

LF has a number of suggestions about the best answers to at least several of these questions:




A. I believe that unarmed combat skills have been established as being present in the Chosen Peninsula during the three kingdoms period. I believe that these skills were used effectively by average citizens for self defense, and as a form of resistance to military aggression. These skills were likely reproduced in sport games, which became more popular as the demand for combat usage declined.

B. I accept the inference that these unarmed combat skills were most likely handed down in various forms from those who migrated into the peninsula and became a part of the unique culture of these indigenous people during the 1st century AD. I further believe that these combat skills were handed down from one generation to the next creating a teacher/student relationship.

C. Lastly, I believe that the moral culture, perseverance, and integrity of these early Korean ancestors was unique, and their efforts to unify the three kingdoms and repel attacks from foreign armies using their unarmed combat skills as part of their arsenal qualifies what they did as the true essence of a "Martial Art." I believe that the unique characteristics displayed among these early inhabitants were later recorded within the Hwarang-do, and exemplify the true Martial Spirit and tenets which are the bedrock of today's Taekwondo.

All of these three things combined, convince me that the reports of early skills of unarmed combat in Korea is genuine, and qualifies as a Martial Art. I believe that these skills have been called many things over the centuries, and have evolved in their overall development. In 1955, the Korean Government supported the efforts to unify what existed at that time, and give a name to the national Art. This means, first and foremost, that the reality of the ancient skills which existed before, was being recognized and renamed. The name they chose was "Taekwondo" thus this is the name of the ancient skills, regardless of what those skills were. This new name was also used and applies to the modern application, and development of Korean Martial Art for future use in self defense, sport, health and fitness.

It is a modern National Art as well as an ancient one. The name "Taekwondo" applies to both. The influence of Japanese Martial Art upon the Kwans is absolute, but the modern instruction of Taekwondo, as taught by Korean standards, is not a duplication of Japanese Martial Art, but a culmination of the ancient origin of Taekwondo in old Chosen, and the modern knowledge of current self defense skills.

So LF's view is that there is indeed certain plausibility to the idea that we already have a specific and robust set of skills unique to the Korean peoples of the Three Kingdoms era, and that these were preserved and transmitted, though we don't necessarily have a definitive picture of just what their technical content as combat arts was, in terms of striking, unbalancing, grappling and other relevant methods of self defense. LF, is this a responsible summary/paraphrase of your take on my questions (i)—(iii)? The crux of the problem, and some of the disagreement between us, is I think highlighted in LF's statement `This means, first and foremost, that the reality of the ancient skills which existed before, was being recognized and renamed. The name they chose was "Taekwondo" thus this is the name of the ancient skills, regardless of what those skills were. This new name was also used and applies to the modern application, and development of Korean Martial Art for future use in self defense, sport, health and fitness.'
The difficulty I see is this, even granting the reality of these unique ancient arts: if their detailed technical content isn't known, then their is the danger of thinking that because the name Taewondo was intended to apply to include these arts, we therefore can assume that that ancient content still resides in the actual practice of TKD as determined, say, by the Kukkiwon curriculum. So LF's point really rests on the degree to which we can be reliably confident that these ancients skills persisted and were part of current practice at the time that TKD was named as such. I base my somewhat bleak judgment of this degree on the work of people like Stan Henning and other MA historians who have the language and philological skills to undertake research with the relevant ancient Korean, Chinese and Japanese documents that bear on the point; I've cited Henning's conclusions in earlier posts, and it seems to be that, based on the surviving evidence, he makes a convincing case. So that's the basis for my persistent doubt about our ability to reliably identify the actual content of ancient Korean MAs and chart their survival and incorporation in modern Korean MA practice. And that's one of the main reasons why I think the history of the early Kwans—which would give a snapshot of that practice at the time the name `Taekwondo' was officially introduced—is so important.

The issues raised in (iv) are touched on in the following part of LF's post:



This whole discussion of Shotokan forms and their similarity to Taekwondo tuls or poomsae, is not a new revelation (although I realize new students are just discovering this). It is no secret about where Gen. Choi and the other Kwan leaders trained during the occupation, nor where they got the idea for these patterns. The point that seems to be ignored is that these forms, while important as a tool, and a deep rooted philosophy in teaching Taekwondo, do not make up the core of what Taekwondo is, nor do they identify the origin of the art. To my understanding, the concept of forms such as the Shotokan patterns did not exist in Korean Martial Art prior to the occupation, thus they are clearly not part of what Taekwondo truly is.

The modern poomsae of Taekwondo are an add-on that can have as much meaning and purpose as it does in Japanese Karate, and the concept is clearly borrowed from the Japanese system, but this is just one method of teaching what is essentially either Japanese knowledge, or Korean knowledge using a similar methodology. I support the use of forms, and believe they are an invaluable tool in teaching, but I also know that if you strip away all of the forms from Taekwondo, I can still teach students every aspect of what Taekwondo truly is, in physical self defense, exercise, mental discipline, moral culture, and spiritual enlightenment.

If I'm reading this right, LF is saying that the techniques embodied in the Shotokan/Shudokan-derived hyung patterns (as revealed, say, by the sophisticated bunkai and oyo revealed in the work of the leading-edge kata analysts in the UK and elsewhere) are definitely part of the self-defense curriculum of TKD, and have a kind of intrinsic validity, in a way that the poomsae themselved don't have. This is reminiscent of some of the views on the `kataless karate' thread: the techs are valid, but you don't need the kata to teach them. I've argued on that thread that you actually do, but I don't want to get into that at this point, we've got enough on our plate as it is! :wink1: What I mostly want to do is make sure that I understand LF correctly. So LF: when, say, Iain Abernethy shows that the double overhead `block' and `uppercut' movements early in Pinan Shodan are best interpreted, from a combat standpoint, as a rising block to a roundhouse-type punch with a simultaneous trap by the `middle blocking' arm, leading to a lock and throw taking down the assailant, and when I find almost that exact same sequence in Palgwe Sa Jang, am I allowed, under your view of things, to take that combat tech, and the more general principles it embodies, to be part of what you're calling the substance of TKD? My impression from what you say above, or the following, suggests that you would indeed allow that:



The substance of Taekwondo is not what comes from these forms, but rather the concept of forms are used to display the substance of whatever art they are applied to. The system and patterns of forms come from Shotokan, thus the obvious resemblance, but Taekwondo itself does not come from the Japanese Martial Art. The name "Taekwondo" applies to whatever the Korean people define it as since their history was originally independent and separate from the Japanese culture, and their ancient fighting skills lacked a nationally recognized name until 1955.

Further to this, though, my impression is that different subgroups of Korean MAists have somewhat different definitions of what is the core of TKD practice. I'm not sure there is actual consensus there...


I don't know if my meaning is clear, or understood by others, but it will never change the fact that some people are focused on recent events, and others view Taekwondo as belonging to a nation of people who survived for centuries through the power of a skill and philosophy that did not come from Japan. What happened during the occupation was a sharing of knowledge, and the ancient Korean Taekwondo of the past can absorb any or all of what it is exposed to to become the Taekwondo of the present and future. Yet the core and roots of Taekwondo are unique, and does come from Korea's history prior to 1910.

This is a `big tent' view of TKD, and one I heartily sympathize with and approve of. I'd just like to make sure that the technical content that I see implicit in the poomsae that have evolved in TKD has a place under that tent....

I'm also interested in what you think about the relationship between TKD and Tang Soo Do. This question seems somehow to have an important place in the discussion, since originally the two split off, institutionally, from a single set of related fighting systems, and TSD practitioners (as Master Penfil has observed in several posts) explicitly embrace the bunkai associated with the Okinawan kata that have become almost literally incorporated into the technical content of their system.


Well, I've done the best I can to explain this in a larger sense. I hope it does not confuse others as to the true meaning.

Thanks for your time
CM D.J. Eisenhart

And thank you, very much, sir, for your time and care in explicating your thinking and analysis. As I said in my earlier post, that book would be a watershed contribution to our understanding of KMA. Sorry this is so long... but it's a BIG topic, and I think a critically important one.

[Kwan Jang]

The posts by both Last Fearner and Exile have been thought provoking and excellent. It reminds me why I spend time on this type of forum. Thank you gentlemen.