Article: The TKD Billion Dollar Smokescreen

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Kacey

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Has anyone else seen this? Have any comments about it?

The Tae Kwon Do billion dollar Smokescreen

1. Tae Kwon Do is a Martial Art - FALSE it is The Korean National Sport. It was founded officially in 1965 - documented in the Korean Government as the national Korean sport. The point is, Tae Kwon Do came from no large or ancient art. It was developed from Japanese Karate styles such as Shotokan and also Judo. Now in America, since you can market anything whether it's the truth or not. They market strongly as a "Martial art" and when they see fit then it's a "Sport" , "self defense", "Kickboxing" , "inner development", "Tai Chi", "Kung Fu" or even "Yoga". The issue here is that Tae kwon Do leaders continue to purposefully fabricate the history of this sport and also claim it is a Martial art, ignoring the government documents on it's creation as the national sport and based solely on the fabricated history. The public needs to be aware that Tae Kwon Do IS NOT a Martial art and NEVER was. Tae Kwon Do practioners are referred to as Tae Kwon Doist, never Martial artist. Please read on as to why this is so important. Understanding that Martial art and Martial sport are 100% different.
2. Tae Kwon Do is an ancient art from 50BC - FALSE - It was formed by "unifying" the Kwans (mini-styles) that originated from 1945 to 1960 (the Kwan instructors studied Shotokan Karate or Judo in Japan and then formed their kwan) in Korea. Between 1945 to 1960 there were 40 different kwan that had sprung up all over korea. All the kwan were competing with one another and this was preventing the idea of Tae Kwon Do becoming a unified national sport. It was more or less forced on the Kwan heads to unify to form one National sport. Unifying all the kwans and developing Tae kwon Do into a National sport became the agreed objective for the "leaders & pioneers " in this movement. It was not developed from the Ancient lost Martial art called Taek Kyon. Alhough the name Tae Kwon Do is similiar. The leaders used this name purposefully because it resembled the name Taek kyon.
The name Tae kwon Do was being used by alot of the kwans,but many arguments about what to call the standardized sport was the delay in the process. In 1960, it was agreed to call it Tae Soo Do - that was what a majority of the "leaders" decided upon and put the name into existence. Then in 1965, after much argument, the name again changed from Tae Soo Do totally to Tae kwon Do.

There's more... I suggest clicking the link and reading the entire page before commenting. I'm still thinking about some of it.
 

crushing

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For a sense of perspective and more information on Master Christian Whitney, pioneer and Grand Master 10th Degree Black belt of Genshinryu and likely author of the site not to confused with TaeKwonDo Times, his school's website is at http://www.genshinkidojo.com/ as well as his bio at http://www.dojos.com/genshinkidojo/index.htm

I just want to briefly point out a few things.

The controversial history of TKD has been discussed at length on MT and elsewhere. It appears the nameless author's biggest argument is that people haven't been completely honest about the history of TKD and that it hasn't been around long enough to be a martial art. So that leads me to ask, "When does TKD reach 'the age of majority?"

But, the 'anonymous' author has some of the same problems with TKD that many TKDin have with black belt factory schools and six year olds getting 2nd dan (let alone first dan!). There is no disagreement that these things happen, but how does this keep TKD from being a martial art?

Sure there are TKD competitions. For these competitions rules are imposed and only a subset of the complete martial art is employed. Again, how does this keep TKD from being a martial art?

Disclaimer: TKD is one of my MARTIAL ARTS.
 

Sukerkin

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Sadly I'm at work at the moment and the company Net Nannie wont let me at the article to read it.

However, I can guess what the article contains and comment directly on the quoted snippet.

TKD may be the adopted national sport of Korea and, from related conversations elsewhere, some of you know what my opinion of the alleged 'history' of the art would be ... however, just because it's used as a sport doesn't make it not a martial art. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Plus, it may not be directly relevant to this thread but I've said before that the TKD people (at least here) have been amongst the most open-minded and welcoming I've ever come across in the martial community - so they're doing something right :tup:.
 

Makalakumu

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I would say that this guy has little understanding of syncreticism. If you go back in time long enough, all martial arts are imports from somewhere else. Sure, their may have been some innovations along the way, but all of them pretty much begged borrowed and stole their way into systemhood.

Any many of these arts are replete with stories of people going off "into the mountains" and "inventing" the exact same thing the other guys were doing.

So, I think the author needs to do a little more sincere research in this matter instead of jumping on the latest bandwagon and dissing TKD.
 
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Kacey

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Getting away from the content of the disparaging rant, I think the real purpose behind that website may be to get the TaeKwonDoTimes.com people to pony up some chon and purchase the domain from him.

http://www.google.com/search?q=define+cybersquatting

Entirely possible - and I would suspect it would be in their best interest to do so - but I still found the statements in the article to be... umm... at an interesting slant! I find most of it to be bashing, rather than informative, and I freely admit that I couldn't read in detail; I kept laughing to much to form a meaningful response. However, people who don't have experience and/or knowledge of TKD could consider it informative - which is what concerns me about it.
 

IcemanSK

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Entirely possible - and I would suspect it would be in their best interest to do so - but I still found the statements in the article to be... umm... at an interesting slant! I find most of it to be bashing, rather than informative, and I freely admit that I couldn't read in detail; I kept laughing to much to form a meaningful response. However, people who don't have experience and/or knowledge of TKD could consider it informative - which is what concerns me about it.

Agreed.
 

matt.m

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Wow, just wow. I won't go on a slambaste flame session on the author of the site. No need to. Everyone who trains tae kwon do at a good school in a good org. all knows that TKD is a martial art.

We all know schools that promote the "Black belt academy" etc. However, if you call tae kwon do a sport only/non-martial art then you have to do the same for judo.

This guy really went out of his way to convince himself that he is right.....that is about all I got out of it. BTW: In journalism or publishing you can't be slant, too easy of a setup for libel. Zdom is a journalist, we talked about this nonsensical site. I talked with a lot of others in the org about it as well. We all had a good laugh, the general gist is: "You are always more than welcome to train with us if you like. We welcome all."
 

Steel Tiger

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Well now, I didn't know you TKD guys used underhand marketing tricks and don't advertise yourselves as TKD schools. This ROK plot to use TKD to take over the world just gets deeper and deeper.:)
 

MA-Caver

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Are you sure the article wasn't written by some disgruntled TKD-er who lost at a Tournament?
 

Carol

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Getting away from the content of the disparaging rant, I think the real purpose behind that website may be to get the TaeKwonDoTimes.com people to pony up some chon and purchase the domain from him.

http://www.google.com/search?q=define+cybersquatting

After reading the article......I agree. This looks less like a scholarly debate and more like someone trying to extort money from the real TKD times by showing TKD in a bad light.

For that matter...the cybersquatter could very well be a disgruntled TKDer that lost at a tourney. :lol:
 

bluemtn

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There are so many anti- TKDers out there, it's hard telling who actually wrote it... Sadly many of them never experienced a couple of classes (at the very least) to get a better idea as to what TKD is really about (or had some real bad expericences, too). Sure, it might not be all that old, and there are quite a few schools out there that has it's main focus as sport! Does either one of those things make it less or not at all a martial art? To me? No!

Definitely an interesting article, but seriously one- sided, and a bit bashing.
 

crushing

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After reading the article......I agree. This looks less like a scholarly debate and more like someone trying to extort money from the real TKD times by showing TKD in a bad light.

For that matter...the cybersquatter could very well be a disgruntled TKDer that lost at a tourney. :lol:

Perhaps he couldn't get promoted in TKD! Hey, but at least he made 10th degree in his own school.

Based on the whois record for the domain, my assumption is that the author runs a karate school that competes with TKD schools for students. Put that together with the cybersquatting and it would appear the money is a driving force for such exagerations and disparaging commentary. And he complains in point 5 of his anti-TKD manifesto that TKD promotes cockiness and rudeness!?!
 

Kwan Jang

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I've seen some "interesting people" in the arts before, but this guy has reached new levels. Though there are some schools (McDojo/McDojangs) that sell belts and have little as far as real requirements, but should a guy who promoted himself to 10th dan be throwing the first stone? Of course, after his Hitler comparisons, what more needs to be said?
 

crushing

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There are so many anti- TKDers out there, it's hard telling who actually wrote it... Sadly many of them never experienced a couple of classes (at the very least) to get a better idea as to what TKD is really about (or had some real bad expericences, too). Sure, it might not be all that old, and there are quite a few schools out there that has it's main focus as sport! Does either one of those things make it less or not at all a martial art? To me? No!

Definitely an interesting article, but seriously one- sided, and a bit bashing.

Follow the whois record for the domain for a pretty good idea. The owner's own website says many of the same things (http://www.genshinkidojo.com/questionsandanswers/qandapage.html).

Yeah, it's just a 'bit' bashing.
 

Steel Tiger

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Definitely a man on a mission. And that mission would appear to be self promotion. Gotta agree with Kwan Jang, the Hitler reference was a bit much.
 
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