FieldDiscipline
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Exile:
In summary, there is a reason why punching the way we do is banned in boxing.
:wink1:
In summary, there is a reason why punching the way we do is banned in boxing.
I have read the thread and here is an answer to the question Karate is Japanese base and TKD is the Korean Art. Now how simple was that.
I know there is more to it than that but it is the best place to start.
chinto
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chinto
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chinto
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yep.. boxing is about the sport of the prize fight and making money for the boxing indestry, its not really about self defence at all.
chinto
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Actualy, Karate is Okinawan base, the Japanese Karate came from and was modified from the Okinawan Karate systems.... but basicly you have stated the initial place to start very susinctly.
Chintoone quick point: bear in mind that apart from the way scoring is done, it can often be quite hard to tell a TKD and a Karate sparring match apart, because sport karate operates at exactly the same ranges; if you read, say, Iain Abernethy or Peter Consterdine or other SD-application-oriented karatekas, you'll hear them saying virtually exactly the same thing about the fighting ranges in Karate tournaments, as vs. street-defense situations. It's not the art per se; it's the way, in both TKD and Karate, the scoring system is designed to award points, and the way judges implement those systems. Tournament Karate has come to put a premium on high kicks in much the same way that Olympic TKD has. SD-applications of both TKD and Karate start, in contrast, from the assumption of much closer fighting ranges. I've seen numbers like 12"18" given as a kind of estimate of the average separation between an assailant and his target at the start of a street attack; in any given situation the distance might be a bit closer still or maybe a little bit more, but that order of magnitude is what's intended, as vs. the kind of ranges where tournament competition in either art mostly takes place.
chinto
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yes and no, again I have been told by several TKD types that the idea of the kick preference was partly cultural... but mainly about the steep hills they have in Korea. beleave me they got some very steep hills there.. go look at any pictures from the Korean war... so I can see terain haveing an effect on it as far as if you are down hill that longer reach might let you take out a knee or something with out getting your head kicked in.... dont know how true that is as far as the basise of the doctrin I was told was a part of TKD.... but hell if it is as I was also told by both of them decended partly from shotokan you know they got some good close in punching and stuff too.
FieldDiscipline
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Cant comment on Okinawa, but Japan has got some rather good hills too...
Don't bet on that reasoning mate.
Righto, FD. The whole landscape there on the Pacific Rim is pretty up-and-down. The Japanese alpine region is spectacular—check out e.g. http://gojapan.about.com/cs/photogallery/l/blnat_jaalps3.htm.
But think about it, Chinto. The Koreans who learned their MAs from the Kwan founders who had studied in Japan were training it in dojangs. They weren't on hillsides. They were learning these techs on flat floors. Why would terrain considerations enter into it?
Reason it out: the original Okinawan techs, pre-tournament era, used low kicks primarily; the early Japanese Karate techs also did. As tournament competetion under `safe', point-scoring rules became a bigger part of the picture, kicks become higher (to take advantage of the rules rewarding technically more difficult shots, like head strikes, with more points). We can see this happening in recent decades. And the Shotokan kicks that people like Byung-Jik Ro and the other Kwan founders brought back from Japan were low too, and then as time goes on we see the kicks becoming higher, and also more tournament competition coming in... surely this is going to be a way bigger factor than anything to do with terrain? I've been in Korea, and there's plenty of totally level ground in Seoul—and even in steep parts of the city, the floors are level!
FieldDiscipline
2nd Black Belt
Funny image
Yeah, I have this image in my mind of guys doing one-steps on very wide staircases, where the low man has to kick to head height just to catch the chap on the upper stair somewhere on the thigh. Talk about making things hard for yourself, eh? :lol:
I've never gotten there so far... but people I used to know had skied in Japan and raved about the landscape.
Perhaps I have already answered this at some point during the thread and forgot, but the difference is in the range in which you choose to fight, which incidently is the difference between all the arts.
sean
sean
FieldDiscipline
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I think karate and TKD use the same range.
Last Fearner
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Like exile, I have been to Korea. I trained and taught there, and traveled the countryside. Some areas are hilly and there are mountains throughout, but just about anywhere you go, you are pretty much on level ground. It is not much different than Colorado or West Virginia in the U.S. You have mountains and flat land. A hill or mountain might be a chore to climb, but you are not typically standing on an incline all the time.
As a Taekwondoist, kicking would be one of the last things I would do if I were on a hillside. I think that theory is flawed, and the TKD type people who told you that are probably just repeating some 'guesswork' by someone the studied under. While there have been shared technical skills, and training concepts from the Shotokan Karate to the Kwan founders which remains in Taekwondo today, I think the unique aspect of kicking (even low to mid-section kicks), are a result of the traditional kicking that existed prior to the Japanese occupation.
Although there are those that disagree with the history and contributions of ancient Korean Martial Art, many believe that Koreans have had some unarmed combat skills as part of their history in civilian self defense, and military training for centuries. We don't know exactly when the kicking was first introduced, or what kicks they did, but Koreans were known for it. Some believe that it was merely a folk-game, or contest played to knock each other down, but I believe than any such contest was the reflection of a prior self defense skill that might have been modified for recreation, especially during less turbulent times.
I believe the Koreans, mainly because of the physical size and body structure, found it easier, and more powerful to kick an attacker to fend them off. It is most likely a natural development of self preservation that turned into an analysis of what kicks worked better, and did more damage. I would tend to believe that the majority of early use, training, and development of kicks was done on level ground, in average physical altercations.
When I was a kid (in the 1960s), if someone was beating you up, and hurting you, you might resort to biting them or kicking them. These things were generally considered undignified, unfair fighting tactics, and frowned upon by your peers. Kicking was usually considered the "sissy" thing to do, since this is how most girls stopped a boy bully (kick them in the shin, or knee them in the groin). Kids did not associate this with "self-defense" tactics in those days, and boys were usually chastised and teased for doing it.
In my early days of learning Taekwondo, we had to endure that label of "sissy kickers." It wasn't until guys like Bruce Lee, and Chuck Norris came along, and the movie industry made kicking more of a macho thing to do. The reason I mention this is because I believe that early Korea (1st century B.C. to the 19th century A.D.) had no such stigma attached to kicking. It became a natural part of their self defense skills, they might have even played it is a game in the streets, and it carried over to be re-inserted into the modern development of KMA after WWII.
Kicking has changed and been modified quite a bit since then, as exile pointed out, but I doubt its early use and development had very much to do with terrain, but more to do with the discovery of effectiveness a kick has on an attacker - - especially for a shorter, weaker person fighting a bigger stronger opponent. In this case, I think the Koreans fit the bill perfectly for necessity being the mother of invention.
chinto
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yep, you got a point.. I was passing on what I have been told.. not sure then or now that I totaly buy it, but it is a possibility. for myself, I train with low line kicks that is tought in my okinawan style and really hate high kicks as they always seem an invitation to desaster in a real confrentation. ( no this does not mean some people can not make them work there perhaps... but it does mean that if they dont make it work they are really sticking their necks out. That assumes the confrentation is with a skilled attacker who is out to do real injury.)
chinto
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hay I cant argue it, I am not a TKD guy, and really do not know any thing much about the style except the little I have seen. I went by what I was told by an instructor of the style as his justification for the kicks.. I personaly would not choose the style from what I have seen. just does not fit me some how... but when I saw what I do study I said .. "wow, that is for me" different strokes for different folks.. besides really there are a limeted number of ways to effecently and effectively use the human body in unarmed combat.. so I think you will eventualy end up in a similer place, perhaps just from a slightly diferent angle and point of veiw.
Chinto—the points LF underscores in his recent post have also been stressed by Simon O'Neil, in his excellent mini-essay `Taekwondo as a kicking art', who notes that
So on O'Neil's view, it's not so much that taekyon itself was a direct precursor to the modern KMAs as that it was simply an expression or manifestation of a particularly Korean fondness for kicking methods which became manifest in various avatars of MA in Korea, including the latest round based on Okinawan and Japanese methods. (And maybe not even particularly Korean per se: there's some reason to believe that modern Korean MAs incorporate a use of kicking and leg actions which, from ethnographic sources I've read describing northern Asian and (sub)Arctic cultures, seem very widespread over a vast region which includes Arctic Siberia, Kamchatka, what used to be called Manchuria, Korea and possibly Mongolia: kicking and leg-wrestling competition, conspicuously absent from what we know about ancient China and Japan). The crucial point: Koreans (and maybe other long-time residents of northern Asia) like to use kicking techniques for their own sake.
This affection for leg methods had important consequences for the development of modern KMAs: O'Neil goes on to suggest that
Remember also that if you're going to use kicking as a major part of your SD arsenal, you need to train it in a way that you don't necessarily need to do with hand techs: there are balance skills required for kicking that are not issues with the upper-body skill set that TKD shares with Okinawan and Japanese MAs, but which are very much at issue if you want to add effective kicking to the arsenal. This is something both LF and I have I think suggested earlier: if you're going to use kicking, you need to train some difficult balance and accuracy skills, and those skills are not routinely reinforced in other domains of normal activity. There are all kinds of everyday activities, games, sports and so on which both depend on and develop eye-hand coordination, but the use of legs, and independent manipulation of legs in good balance, to deliver full power, isn't really characteristic of too much that we do, either in sports or otherwise, on a day to day basis.
...The origins of modern Taekwondo as a predominantly kicking style can be found, among other factors, in the Korean people’s innate enjoyment of the method. A large, vigorous people by Asian standards, their physique and temperament seem to lend themselves naturally to wide, sweeping circular movements and leaps.
This tendency was embodied in Taekyon, a combative form first named as such in the early 19th Century... the limited historical evidence that is available suggests that it was essentially a recreational or tournament activity, in contrast to the other arts already mentioned. Bouts took place both informally, to settle disputes, or as part of organised youth festivals. Contestants would attempt to knock each other down using kicks, sweeps and throws. Wide, circular and spinning movements were favoured over linear techniques, and kicks to head level were assigned greater value than lower kicks. Taekyon was outlawed by the Japanese occupying authorities in the 1920’s and teaching of the art all but disappeared until a resurgence in the late 1950’s.
Taekyon can be seen, however, as a kind of culmination of the preference for kicking technique in Korean martial arts. ...In fact, in the early- and mid-20th Century, Taekyon even enjoyed the dubious honour of being a preferred streetfighting method of thugs and gangsters. The need to defend against these kicks is quoted as one of the reasons why Choi Yong Sool, the precursor of modern Hapkido, began to incorporate kicking technique into the Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jutsu which he had learned in Japan.
Pioneers of American Taekwondo like Jhoon Rhee and Henry Cho included a wide range of high and jumping kicks in their syllabus, despite teaching what amounted ... to a “Koreanised” version of Japanese Karate.
This tendency was embodied in Taekyon, a combative form first named as such in the early 19th Century... the limited historical evidence that is available suggests that it was essentially a recreational or tournament activity, in contrast to the other arts already mentioned. Bouts took place both informally, to settle disputes, or as part of organised youth festivals. Contestants would attempt to knock each other down using kicks, sweeps and throws. Wide, circular and spinning movements were favoured over linear techniques, and kicks to head level were assigned greater value than lower kicks. Taekyon was outlawed by the Japanese occupying authorities in the 1920’s and teaching of the art all but disappeared until a resurgence in the late 1950’s.
Taekyon can be seen, however, as a kind of culmination of the preference for kicking technique in Korean martial arts. ...In fact, in the early- and mid-20th Century, Taekyon even enjoyed the dubious honour of being a preferred streetfighting method of thugs and gangsters. The need to defend against these kicks is quoted as one of the reasons why Choi Yong Sool, the precursor of modern Hapkido, began to incorporate kicking technique into the Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jutsu which he had learned in Japan.
Pioneers of American Taekwondo like Jhoon Rhee and Henry Cho included a wide range of high and jumping kicks in their syllabus, despite teaching what amounted ... to a “Koreanised” version of Japanese Karate.
So on O'Neil's view, it's not so much that taekyon itself was a direct precursor to the modern KMAs as that it was simply an expression or manifestation of a particularly Korean fondness for kicking methods which became manifest in various avatars of MA in Korea, including the latest round based on Okinawan and Japanese methods. (And maybe not even particularly Korean per se: there's some reason to believe that modern Korean MAs incorporate a use of kicking and leg actions which, from ethnographic sources I've read describing northern Asian and (sub)Arctic cultures, seem very widespread over a vast region which includes Arctic Siberia, Kamchatka, what used to be called Manchuria, Korea and possibly Mongolia: kicking and leg-wrestling competition, conspicuously absent from what we know about ancient China and Japan). The crucial point: Koreans (and maybe other long-time residents of northern Asia) like to use kicking techniques for their own sake.
This affection for leg methods had important consequences for the development of modern KMAs: O'Neil goes on to suggest that
In the second half of the 20th Century the martial arts in general have undergone a transformation from the simple, unspectacular and often brutal self-protection systems of the past to the globally accepted and commercially attractive mass recreational disciplines of the present. Taekwondo has been especially forward-looking in this sense, remaining relatively unified in its goals (in comparison to other arts) and seeking international expansion and recognition as a bona fide sporting and educational method.
Naturally, any such initiative requires distinguishing features in order to establish its own identity in the public eye. One of the ways in which Taekwondo was made to look less like Japanese Karate was to take advantage of the wealth of native Korean kicking technique, and to emphasise this aspect within the existing framework. With time, kicking grew in importance in competition Taekwondo and featured more heavily in the hyungs and pumses than in the older patterns. As a result of the growing popularity of the tournament sport in particular, a large part of regular training is taken up by kicking drills and physical conditioning to enhance kicking ability.
Naturally, any such initiative requires distinguishing features in order to establish its own identity in the public eye. One of the ways in which Taekwondo was made to look less like Japanese Karate was to take advantage of the wealth of native Korean kicking technique, and to emphasise this aspect within the existing framework. With time, kicking grew in importance in competition Taekwondo and featured more heavily in the hyungs and pumses than in the older patterns. As a result of the growing popularity of the tournament sport in particular, a large part of regular training is taken up by kicking drills and physical conditioning to enhance kicking ability.
Remember also that if you're going to use kicking as a major part of your SD arsenal, you need to train it in a way that you don't necessarily need to do with hand techs: there are balance skills required for kicking that are not issues with the upper-body skill set that TKD shares with Okinawan and Japanese MAs, but which are very much at issue if you want to add effective kicking to the arsenal. This is something both LF and I have I think suggested earlier: if you're going to use kicking, you need to train some difficult balance and accuracy skills, and those skills are not routinely reinforced in other domains of normal activity. There are all kinds of everyday activities, games, sports and so on which both depend on and develop eye-hand coordination, but the use of legs, and independent manipulation of legs in good balance, to deliver full power, isn't really characteristic of too much that we do, either in sports or otherwise, on a day to day basis.
chinto
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hmm good point.. and it is true that the avaridge Korean is larger then say the averidge chinese or okinawan from what I understand... Diet perhaps? ( though the Okinawans and Japanese have gained something like 4 to 6 inches averdge in hight for males since WWII do to the better nutrition as children .. ie more protine in the diet and such)
So if you have longer legs and arms, why not work out side where you usualy can strike and kick with out getting struck or kicked especialy by the other guy on averidge? that may indeed be a more logical reason for the preference for good kicks and working out side some what more then say an Okinawan might. Don't know if its true.. but it is logical ... hell the Okinawans were on averidge smaller then the Japanese, but usualy stockier... the chinese where as I understand it about the same hight on avaridge as the Okinawans but tended to be a bit more slender in build.. .as always these are extreem generalitys... but your avaridge guys size and build will tend to effect how you develope your system if you are teaching others to fight in unarmed combat.... still going to end up sooner or latter with much the same kind of thing though as there are still only a limited number of ways to punch or kick or lock or throw or what have you.
