Purpose of naihanchi

[JT_the_Ninja]

Do you think that is GM had the opportunity/knowledge to understand the original intent of the forms he used he would have applied that knowledge? I bet he would have! The thing is he didn't, he had the superficial understanding made available in books at that time.So he innovated with what he had. Tang Soo Do is unique in its ability to apply knowledge of other systems freely, and still keep true to the art.

Exactly. TSD incorporates, in its teaching, things from many other martial arts. I respect that and admire that about my art. But the fact remains that I can learn these without having to study or cross-train with another martial art.

The point it [sic] YOU have the book (the hyung) you can choose how to read it, you can look at the cover and assume (the superficial movements, and thus the superficial understanding) or you can read and reason from the book, study it, and gain the its actual contents, which will no doubt greatly increase your technique, and pugilistic ability.

My point is I most certainly do not just look at the cover! Have you been reading me with any kind of attention at all? I have stated more times than I'd have the patience to count how much I look at the hyung and find out how they apply. You all seem to be of the opinion that I'm saying I'm happy just to go through the motions of the form and not find out what they mean! But I DO FIND OUT WHAT THEY MEAN!!!!!!! Do you think ITF instructors only go to ITF seminars? Do you think all that knowledge is hidden and locked up within all those styles from which it borrows? NO! My instructors, in accordance with Master C. S. Kim's will, are diligent to teach me how to apply what I learn from forms. My sa bum nim is always showing me different ways to interpret moves. I would be among the first to criticize any school that only showed students how to go through the motions of the hyung, without showing them the meaning behind it.

Let's say JT never trained in martial arts. He joins the military. Learns the most kick butt techniques a fighting man could ever learn...he can kill you with his little finger in 25 different ways. Now, JT is going to devise a way of remembering these forms. He chooses to do them in the air against an imaginary opponent. There are so many complex methods, but, he decides to streamline some of the movements so that he can remember them. He has a set of internal "cues" that remind him of where the techniques can change and the "kick buttedness" of the techniques can increase exponentially. Now...imagine some 16 year old is watching JT walk through this imaginary fight sequence. Without knowing JT's internal principles and cues, he tries to decipher what the movements mean and creates his own set of self defense techniques. The techniques will probably work because the kid is creative, but they are not right. He is trying to use stances and techniques based on the form that don't match his personal fighting methodology.

Thank you for honoring me with the vote of confidence that I could devise an entire system...but you know what, I still find that a bit skewed. Who but a martial artist would only shadowbox? In any case, that 16-year-old isn't going to stop there. He's going to learn as much as he can about martial arts. He's going to look to other sources. He's going to train in at least one martial art and learn how the body can be used. He's going to do what GM Hwang Kee did! You forget that the venerable GM wasn't a clueless newbie when he picked up a book on karate. He was a martial artist. After picking that up, what do you think he did? Just repeat the same things over and over again, never questioning what they were? I don't think so. What can be encoded can be decoded. The fact that he was able to come up with his own hyung, plural, is testament to his diligence in that matter, I believe. So don't tell me on one hand GM Hwang Kee was a great man who should be studied with reverence and on the other hand that he didn't know what he was doing.

Anyway, anyone who's read my previous post knows that Master Jay and I have decided to end the debate. Why I'm bothering to post a rebuttal, I don't know. You people never seem to know or care when an argument's over. And if I hear any more comments to "step out of the box" or "take the red pill"....honestly, could you be any more condescending?

That said, argument over. Again.

Tang Soo!

 

[exile]

That said, argument over. Again.

There's a point at issue, JT. Whether you and JSP have decided it's not worth your while talking to each other about it or not, the issue is still one of crucial importance to our understanding of the best approach to MA training. So the issues feeding the argument are still on the table, eh?

In looking over JT's posts, I couldn't help noticing something kind of odd.
One the one hand, we have:

But the fact remains that I can learn these without having to study or cross-train with another martial art.

But then, in the same post, we also have the following:

Do you think ITF instructors only go to ITF seminars?

In any case, that 16-year-old isn't going to stop there. He's going to learn as much as he can about martial arts. He's going to look to other sources.

Is it just me who sees some kind of contradiction here between the statement in red and those in green? If you're `going to learn as much as [you] can about martial arts [and] look to other sources', and if you're stating with evident approval that ITF instructors don't restrict themselves to just the fare they would get at ITF seminars... doesn't this seem to undercut the blanket statement in red that suggest that someone can gain an adequate understanding of their art completely from the inside, with getting an outside view that would come from at least studying what the people who created the hyungs you study, in their ancestral form, have to say about the logic of their movements?

And if the statements in green are to be taken seriously, then doesn't it seem as though there really isn't any incompatibility between what JT is saying here, and what JSP, UpN, Rob Rivers and other have been saying—that an important part in gaining an understanding of these TSD hyungs is precisely to `look to other sources', especially the sources that can tell you what the principles were that led to these hyungs having the particular structure they have—the Okinawan practitioners who still know the original bunkai? Surely `learn[ing] as much as [you] can about martial arts' would very logically encompass learning as much as you can about the interpretations that have been devised for these movements, even those that wouldn't necessarily be taught at `ITF seminars?' You can find plenty of meaning in Hamlet without knowing Shakespeare's intentions, granted; but if you wanted learn as much as you could about the play, you wouldn't turn down a chance to ask him about it if one miraculously arose, eh? That's what the passages in green in JT's post seems to be saying, and that's what the people on the other side of the argument seem to be saying... so why is there an argument?

 

[DavidCC]

You know, I think JT is just saying - "my instructor knows everything I am going to need to learn so why would I go to anyone else"

so what's wrong with that?

 

[exile]

You know, I think JT is just saying - "my instructor knows everything I am going to need to learn so why would I go to anyone else"

so what's wrong with that?

As I pointed out in my previous post, he also seems to be saying that to effectively learn a skill set in the MAs, it is advisable to learn as much as you can about the MAs and to go beyond what your own instructor knows. That was exactly the point of my citing those passages in green from his post. If he believes those passages, as I assume he does, then where is there a conflict between what JSP et al. are saying and what JT believes?

 

[JT_the_Ninja]

Fine, one last comment by me, because you love to keep these things going...

For exile:
(1) ITF does not equal TSD. And seeing a demonstration by another MA does not equal cross-training.

(2) I wasn't illustrating what I want to do. I was illustrating how GM Hwang Kee came to be able to create MDK TSD. Don't take me out of context.

For DavidCC:
(3) No, I'm not saying that, exactly. I'm saying that I can learn more about TSD and mature in my skills therein without having to go to another MA to learn it. TSD is rich enough that it can stand by itself, if you're dedicated enough to going beyond the surface.


There...that's it. Unless you want to go back to the actual topic, my contributions to this thread are done.

 

[exile]

Fine, one last comment by me, because you love to keep these things going...

Yes, I do like to keep discussions going when there is an important point at issue that I think further discussion bears on constructively.

For exile:
(1) ITF does not equal TSD. And seeing a demonstration by another MA does not equal cross-training.

I don't think I mentioned cross-training. And I don't believe cross-training in the standard sense is implied at all in anything Mssrs. Penfil, Rivers or UpN are saying. They are saying, take the trouble to learn the thinking that went into the creation of the forms practiced in TSD. Not, stop studying TSD and learn Okinawan karate. Not, keep doing TSD but also become an Okinawan karateka. Just: learn what the Okinawans thought was the correct bunkai set for the kata they created, which you have learned a descendent variant of.

(2) I wasn't illustrating what I want to do. I was illustrating how GM Hwang Kee came to be able to create MDK TSD. Don't take me out of context.

Sorry, I've no idea what you're talking about here. The context of your quotes was in fact a thought experiment about a young kid who is learning a set of forms based on someone's creation of an effective fighting system. In the course of it, you say certain things that seem to be entirely compatible with what I take certain of the other participants in the discussion to be saying—the statements in green that I highlighted . And I asked where there was a conflict. Nothing you've said seems to constitute an answer for that, but that's fine: by your own choice, you're out of the discussion.

The original thread topic implicitly brings these issues to the table. Going to the source of a form to understand its purpose is hardly a side issue in discussion of that purpose. There was a reason why, before an apprentice in a mediæval craft could become a master, he had to leave his guild and city and go off on his own, typically to work with and study under masters in another city. There is a reason why the top graduate programs in any given field rarely take their own undergraduate students into their programs, but instead try to get them into other top-ranked programs. No matter how good you are, there is always something you are not going to be able to get by staying `inside' your own craft, discipline, MA style. No one says you have to cross-train or become an adept in another art; but it is ultimately self-defeating to cut yourself off from knowledge that others arts can bring to you—especially in the historical context at issue.

 

[Master Jay S. Penfil]

Exile,
Thank you for your input in this thread… you have done a great job of dissecting JT’s statements and making sense of this quagmire.

I can relate what you have outlined here to another subject that many will be able to appreciate. Instead of using “Martial Arts” as the learning program, lets discuss learning a different language and being able to apply it in real life.

How many of you have learned the words of another language well enough to know what they are when you hear them, and speak them to a certain degree. Learning the words of that language is only half of the challenge. If you learn the words, but not the "sentence structuring" of those whose language you are learning, the meaning can be quite different from what might have been originally intended.

For example: (true story)
My friend Steve met a girl (Ruth) from Israel, fell in love and got married. When they came to the states for the first time we made a party for them. At the party I found myself sitting at the table next to Ruth with Steve sitting on the other side of her. To get a conversation started with me, Ruth smiled and asked me;

Jay, how long are you?
I said; Ruth, that is a very personal question. Maybe you should ask Steve.

Ruth turned to Steve and, in Hebrew (her native tongue), she told him what she had asked me.

Steve laughed and stated; Ruth meant, “How old are you?

From this conversation we can come to understand that, although Ruth had learned some words in the English language, without understanding "sentence structure", and the proper use of the words as with regard to our thought process, the original question that she asked me; “Jay, how long are you?” had quite a different meaning.

Watching someone performing a hyung/kata, or seeing the pictures in a book teach us nothing more than the shell of the system. Without the guidance of an instructor who is knowledgeable in the original intent is, and will always be fruitless.

This takes us back to the question of; whose way do you follow? Do we follow our instructor, his instructor, KJN Hwang Kee, Funakoshi, Motobu, Itosu, Matsumura, and so on, and so on. The further back we are able to go, the better we will understand the answers to the questions asked.

I have had a great many great discussions with my dear friend, KJN Charles Ferraro on this topics, and the one consistent thing that KJN Ferraro reminds me of is; in using the words “ORIGINAL INTENT”, you are stating that what you are demonstrating was absolutely the intent of the founder of the hyung/kata, and with every generation that comes and goes, the slightest difference of interpretation by each and every instructor that passes along the material will in some way dilute, or change to some degree what that “ORIGINAL INTENT” might have been. Even if it is close, it can’t at this point be exactly, to the letter, what was originally intended.

To this end, I can safely say that, by learning from hard core traditionalists whose up-line instructors have worked hard to pass along as close as possible, that which was given to them, from generation to generation has lead me to where I am today. When I meet with others whose history and seriousness is in line with my own, and in some cases, greater, I feel confident that I am on the correct path, and will continue to meet with and share with all who are interested in doing the same.

When we look at the manor in which a given association (Tang Soo Do or any system) performs their techniques we don’t like to say this way is right, and that way is wrong. Each way has its purpose, and each grandmaster had his reason for constructing his way the way that he did. We rather ask; what is your purpose for doing what you do, the way that you do it? The problems always surface when the individual can’t answer this question, and that is where the egos start to flare and you find those who will fight to make others respect their way. If they could simply answer the questions asked with purpose, and demonstrate the principles and philosophies of the techniques, as asked to, there wouldn’t be a problem; just good sharing of good information.

Every stance has multiple purposes, as does every technique. When KJN Hwang Kee received the material that he used to incorporate Tang Soo Do, he got it thru the lineage of Gichen Funakoshi. When Funakoshi put it all together and passed it along in both his classes and his books, he didn’t have anything more than the shell of the system. Hence, without going back further in the lineage to those who understood (if you will) the “sentence structuring” that the Okinawan’s had grown up with and used in their systems you will forever be staring at these techniques and wondering what they really are. Without learning the language that the hyung/kata were conceived in you may as well do what they do in open forms divisions at tournaments and just make up your own…

 

[exile]

Exile,
How many of you have learned the words of another language well enough to know what they are when you hear them, and speak them to a certain degree. Learning the words of that language is only half of the challenge. If you learn the words, but not the "sentence structuring" of those whose language you are learning, the meaning can be quite different from what might have been originally intended. [/SIZE]

This is an excellent analogy. Learning a language truly requires the ability to internalize the structural rules of that language, which are often far from obvious. Different structures correspond to very different meanings. In a lot of respects, learning a form in a MA which is a descendent of another MA, without taking into account what the structure and interpretation of the form is in the latter, is very much like trying to learn to speak, and communicate meaning in, a second language without knowing the structural rules which determine the deep organization of sentences. If one is offered a chance to learn those rules `free of charge', so to speak, what could possibly be a good reason to reject it? Same with the MAs...

For example: [/I](true story)
My friend Steve met a girl (Ruth) from Israel, fell in love and got married. When they came to the states for the first time we made a party for them. At the party I found myself sitting at the table next to Ruth with Steve sitting on the other side of her. To get a conversation started with me, Ruth smiled and asked me; [/SIZE][/FONT]

Jay, how long are you?

I said; Ruth, that is a very personal question. Maybe you should ask Steve.

Ruth turned to Steve and, in Hebrew (her native tongue), she told him what she had asked me.

Steve laughed and stated; Ruth meant, “How old are you?"

:rofl: :rofl:

To this end, I can safely say that, by learning from hard core traditionalists whose up-line instructors have worked hard to pass along as close as possible, that which was given to them, from generation to generation has lead me to where I am today. When I meet with others whose history and seriousness is in line with my own, and in some cases, greater, I feel confident that I am on the correct path, and will continue to meet with and share with all who are interested in doing the same...

...When we look at the manor in which a given association (Tang Soo Do or any system) performs their techniques we don’t like to say this way is right, and that way is wrong. Each way has its purpose, and each grandmaster had his reason for constructing his way the way that he did. We rather ask; what is your purpose for doing what you do, the way that you do it? The problems always surface when the individual can’t answer this question, and that is where the egos start to flare and you find those who will fight to make others respect their way. If they could simply answer the questions asked with purpose, and demonstrate the principles and philosophies of the techniques, as asked to, there wouldn’t be a problem; just good sharing of good information...

...Every stance has multiple purposes, as does every technique. When KJN Hwang Kee received the material that he used to incorporate Tang Soo Do, he got it thru the lineage of Gichen Funakoshi. When Funakoshi put it all together and passed it along in both his classes and his books, he didn’t have anything more than the shell of the system. Hence, without going back further in the lineage to those who understood (if you will) the “sentence structuring” that the Okinawan’s had grown up with and used in their systems you will forever be staring at these techniques and wondering what they really are. Without learning the language that the hyung/kata were conceived in you may as well do what they do in open forms divisions at tournaments and just make up your own…

Very well said, Master Penfil! I'm always perplexed by anyone rejecting available knowledge that could better inform their own understanding of what they're doing... but clearly, it happens, for whatever reason. I think the important thing is that others who are thinking about this question, in connection with this thread and maybe some others pertaining to kata, realize the value in seeking out the historical source of these forms and the associated technical analysis that went into their construction. The knowledge is there, and available; why turn your back on it?

 

[Chizikunbo]

Exactly. TSD incorporates, in its teaching, things from many other martial arts. I respect that and admire that about my art. But the fact remains that I can learn these without having to study or cross-train with another martial art.

JT, the statement in bold if flat out untrue. I could not teach you another language if I did not speak it. To expand on Master Penfil's post, learning martial arts and bunkai is like learning a new language, we can use English as an example. The English language is a composite of many different languages, latin for one plays a huge role, in being the root of many of our modern words. Now if we look at a word, Psychology for instance. I live in a somewhat rural area of Missouri, outside of Kansas City, I have heard many people use the word Psychology in conversational speech, and I know that many of those people could not tell me exactly what Psychology is actually all about, they sort of know, and can reference it in speech, but without an actual study of the word you cannot know exactly what it is. If we research and know the roots of the word, we get psycho and logos. psycho is a latin word meaning "mind" and logos is a latin word meaning "the study of", so this would define Psychology as "the study of the mind". We dont use the word PSYCHOLOGOS of course, as that would be Latin, we speak English, and we use our modern English counterpart PSYCHOLOGY, but with an understanding of the root word it means the same thing.
This is similar to Tang Soo Do and Karate, Tang Soo Do is our martial art, Karate is the root. Many people can show me "Tang Soo Do" (use the word Psychology), many fewer people could actually show me Tang Soo Do bunseok properly (what exactly Psychology is with an understanding of its roots) We do not have to speak Latin to apply the knowledge of the root words to better our understanding of our current language, but we do have to study it, and apply it.
I practice Tang Soo Do, I have also practiced Okinawan Karate, I apply the principles of the root to better understand my current variation, and how we got there.
The problem is, and this is a big problem, to begin most Tangsoodoin do not understand the root, they can perform their hyung, but that can not break it down in accordance with its root principles. The reasoning is twofold, first the knowledge was not there initially, as most Tang Soo Do and Tae Kwon Do trace back to Funakoshi, so the teacher could not teach the student the original intent and so on and so forth.
Rivers Sensei and Master Penfil have described this more eloquently than I. I really liked both examples of the student working with something he did not understand (Karate) [and from here the vicious cycle continues in that if they did not know it we can not pass it on]and making his own (Tae Kwon Do and Tang Soo Do). You do not have to change your style, but you do have to gain accurate knowledge of the root, and apply it...Its the difference between being a general practicioner and an excellent practicioner, likewise you dont have to speak Latin to speak English. Likewise you can ignore Latin, and just speak English with a conceptual understanding, or you can delve deeper, understand the roots, and apply them to your knowledge, and become an excellent linguist. I hope this weird example gets my points across ;-)

JT, it is important to note this is NOT a debate, it is simply other practicioners trying the share their accumulated knowledge after many years of practice. Many of us went down the same road you are on now (I know I did, until after some convincing I was pointed down a different path), but somewhere along the line looked at the bigger picture.

Best Wishes In Your Training,
--Josh

 

[Victor Smith]

Hi Rob,

Nice to meet you. I read your comment with interest, "As an example, how many people start self defense one- steps from the forward stance-down block-hand chambered on the hip position? This is the prime example of how someone saw the kata and interpreted this move incorrectly. Nobody would start a fight in this position or use this as a fighting stance at ANY point in a fight..."

Of course I beg to differ with you, but that's what makes life interesting.

The use of the formal low block position for begining two person drills of course is a device to warn your partner your attack is coming. Initial training is to build technique and confidence against a standard attack, a beginning building block.

On the other hand, depending on the attack being offered I would very much use the low block as my response and in very traditional stances. If you're ever in the area I'd be welcome to share how the chamber of the low block alongside the ear is a slicing strike into an arm offered by an attacker and how the low strike that follows adjusts lower ribs, and other choice targets as well as the option of the stance destablizing the attackers lead leg with a knees strike into the thigh. Of course my intention of using this technique to start is to immediately finish so there is no fight.

We must have very different expriences. In the same light the same technique is a counter for a suprise bear hug from behind, but in that case the opening movement is the chambering hand smashing it's elbow into their ribs for an opening.

pleasantly,

 

[exile]

On the other hand, depending on the attack being offered I would very much use the low block as my response and in very traditional stances. If you're ever in the area I'd be welcome to share how the chamber of the low block alongside the ear is a slicing strike into an arm offered by an attacker and how the low strike that follows adjusts lower ribs, and other choice targets as well as the option of the stance destablizing the attackers lead leg with a knees strike into the thigh. Of course my intention of using this technique to start is to immediately finish so there is no fight.

Victor—I'm very happy to see I'm not the only one who assumes this line of bunkai for, say, taikyoku shodan/TKD kicho Il Jang! See here for a very similar story (the discussion of (i)' and (ii)' specifically)...

 

[Makalakumu]

All of this has me wondering. Lets say that one really did decide to not look any deeper and just trained with their Korean (or Korean lineage) instructors their entire martial arts career. Would the "Korean way" of doing forms provide enough "meat" to sustain a person with a desire to study in depth and long term? Do KMA, ultimately, have the depth to really enrich their advance practice?

 

[exile]

All of this has me wondering. Lets say that one really did decide to not look any deeper and just trained with their Korean (or Korean lineage) instructors their entire martial arts career. Would the "Korean way" of doing forms provide enough "meat" to sustain a person with a desire to study in depth and long term? Do KMA, ultimately, have the depth to really enrich their advance practice?

Good question, UpN.

I'll defer to those of you who've been doing KMAs for a good deal longer than the measely five years I've been doing TKD. What's you folks' take on this question?

 

[JWLuiza]

Good question, UpN.

I'll defer to those of you who've been doing KMAs for a good deal longer than the measely five years I've been doing TKD. What's you folks' take on this question?

I've been at it for 16 years and I'd say around 10 years into it, most of our black belts start researching other arts to fill in the gaps. The shotokan tapes that show bunkai are more for technique than application. The Korean applications are simple, but there is sooooo much more. For my friends third degree, he created a form using Chin na, Long Fist, Tang Soo Do, and Goju principles and he created a traditional form. I think doing this is a great way to start thinking about the traditional forms... Since he worked from applications to Form for his own, it added depth to the knowledge for working from form to application.

BTW, Master Penfil, I'm working on getting you a copy of this advanced exam...

 

[Master Jay S. Penfil]

All of this has me wondering. Lets say that one really did decide to not look any deeper and just trained with their Korean (or Korean lineage) instructors their entire martial arts career. Would the "Korean way" of doing forms provide enough "meat" to sustain a person with a desire to study in depth and long term? Do KMA, ultimately, have the depth to really enrich their advance practice?

Good question John...

I'll answer it with a couple of questions;
(A) When is the last time you saw a KMA practitioner spar with the techniques that came out of their hyung?

(B) Why spend so many years learning the hyung, training them to death, but never using the contents to fight with (in or out of the dojang)?


There are thousands of practitioners out there just like JT that feel (based on their relatively short-lived experience), following those who have "not much more extensive knowledge than their own", that believe that they are learning from the pinnacle of excellence and will never need to venture elsewhere. Again, it goes back to having a need to defend that which we are familiar with and have come to trust. If you have a solid relationship with your instructor, trust him/her and have come to believe that they are as good as it gets and someone comes along and exposes you to something that makes more sense, it is natural to want to defend your “family” and the way they do thing.

SIDE NOTE:​

What did I mean by; (based on their relatively short-lived experience)?

JT, you are an Eedan. How many years have you been training… 4,5,6?
This statement is in no way intended as a put-down. We have all been beginners, and many of us still see ourselves as such, but in comparison, you have relatively "short-lived experience".

What did I mean by; "not much more extensive knowledge than their own"?
JT, In the ITF structure (as well as most TSD associations), what I have experienced by training all over is that these association don’t ever get past the principles of “Block, Kick, Strike”. In the progression up the rank ladder the practitioners learn/memorize new hyung, Il Soo Sik, Ho Sin Sul, etc., but it all becomes a matter of compounding memorization on top of more memorization of the same techniques over and over again.

Your up-line instructors have memorized more material at this time than you have, and they have perfected the basics that make up the material better than you as a result of there extended years of training, but ultimately, you will catch up with them because the “system”, as it is being passed down to you is superficial in comparison to the earlier variants.

Your instructors are further along than you, but you are closer to them than you realize…



Unfortunately, this mind-set is damaging to long-term growth. I have worked with many TSD associations. In every situation I have seen the same material as I get to know what each association does, and I get the same “my eyes have been opened” response. When a practitioner is exposed to the concepts, principles and philosophies that Sensei Rob Rivers, Sensei Victor Smith and I have been introducing to others for decades, they have a similar feeling come over them that is demonstrated in the V-8 juice commercials;

“WOW, I COULD HAVE HAD A V-8”​

What we discuss isn’t “Rocket Science”, but initially it seems like it is. The more you are exposed to it, and the more you work with it, the more you realize that unless someone took the time to share it with you, you would never have figured it out for yourself. This is why I am so persistent when it comes to traveling and doing seminars. Until you are there, first-hand, and experience it, it won’t have an impact on you, and you will continue to fight the inroads of good knowledge.


JT,
Gene Garabowsky spent 22 years directly under Chun Jae Nim C.S. Kim. SBN Garabowsky earned from 9th Guep to 4th Dan directly under Chun Jae Nim C.S. Kim. He knows Chun Jae Nim C.S. Kim and the ITF system of training as well as anyone could. SBN Garabowsky is in awesome physical condition and is the example that everyone should strive to be in martial training. SBN Garabowsky traveled to Michigan in April for the grand opening of my dojang and spent an hour being introduced to the concepts, principles and philosophies that we discuss here. After “ONE HOUR” with me and several of my students SBN Garabowsky was able to access the importance of the material that I teach and engaged me in a number of discussions to better understand what it is all about. We will get together as often as time and finances allow to continue sharing of good material and great training.


I am not in any way suggesting that you leave ITF, as that would be wrong, but as you stated in you posting; “Do you think ITF instructors only go to ITF seminars?”. If it is permissible with Chun Jae Nim’s “will” to participate in “non-ITF” seminars, contact SBN Garabowsky at: 412-418-3688 to arrange to participate in the upcoming seminars that he has in the planning stages. He is right there in your home town, and enjoys working with serious minded people like you.


Ask SBN Garabowsky about his personal experience with me, and how his vision of what TSD is all about has expanded in a positive way. You will find that, like all others who have chosen to be exposed, they ALL continue to teach “Tang Soo Do”. None of them are changing systems or instructors. They have simply been given a different vantage point to see into their system and have walked away feeling better about their training, and their teaching.





PS: This weekend SBN Garabowsky is hosting a seminar with Grandmaster Andy Ah Po. GM Ah Po is among the finest TSD practitioners in the world. GM Ah Po was the closest person on earth to KJN Hwang Kee right up until his passing (outside of his immediate family).

If you are truly a serious Tang Soo Do practitioner and you have an opportunity to meet and train with GM Ah Po, you won’t pass it up, even if you have to beg for or borrow the funds to attend. This man hold more knowledge in his left pinky than I have in my entire body (and he is right handed).

PSS: For anyone that is in driving distance of Pittsburgh or can fly, contact SBN Garabowsky and make the investment in your own martial life.

Every time I have been exposed to GM Ah Po there have been lessons learned that have positively enhanced me, and all who were in attendance!!!

Take the time, make the investment,
learn from one of the worlds best…
TANG SOO!!!​

 

[MBuzzy]

All of this has me wondering. Lets say that one really did decide to not look any deeper and just trained with their Korean (or Korean lineage) instructors their entire martial arts career. Would the "Korean way" of doing forms provide enough "meat" to sustain a person with a desire to study in depth and long term? Do KMA, ultimately, have the depth to really enrich their advance practice?

I definately know people who have. My instructor has studied the same KMA for 35 years and has not cross trained AT ALL. He is EXCELLENT at his style and is completely happy. I think it just depends on the person and what they are looking for.

 

[Makalakumu]

I definately know people who have. My instructor has studied the same KMA for 35 years and has not cross trained AT ALL. He is EXCELLENT at his style and is completely happy. I think it just depends on the person and what they are looking for.

And that's what I'm trying to figure out. I know so many people who are like that. What is the draw? How are people able to sustain themselves intellectually on something that so obviously has much more depth? Or am I missing the actual depth of the korean syncreticism of these forms?

Maybe the fact that I cross trained for ten years before I got into TSD just gives me a different perspective. I've been doing TSD for 10 years now, martial arts for 20 years, and I feel like a lot of what I do and call TSD wouldn't even be recognized by most tangsoodoin unless they looked at our forms.

Further, all of this makes me wonder about the next rank I've been working so hard for. In many ways, my teacher and I have diverged. As my understanding of TSD has deepened, I've taken this knowledged and actually radically altered some of the "traditional" ways of teaching. He definitely has not done this to the extent that I have.

Even though he has no problem with this, I'm left to wonder how long it will take for us to be practicing totally different arts.

upnorthkyosa

ps - knowing my teacher, he would be proud to be reading this conversation...btw.

Ryu-pa.

 

[MBuzzy]

And that's what I'm trying to figure out. I know so many people who are like that. What is the draw? How are people able to sustain themselves intellectually on something that so obviously has much more depth? Or am I missing the actual depth of the korean syncreticism of these forms?

Maybe the fact that I cross trained for ten years before I got into TSD just gives me a different perspective. I've been doing TSD for 10 years now, martial arts for 20 years, and I feel like a lot of what I do and call TSD wouldn't even be recognized by most tangsoodoin unless they looked at our forms.

Further, all of this makes me wonder about the next rank I've been working so hard for. In many ways, my teacher and I have diverged. As my understanding of TSD has deepened, I've taken this knowledged and actually radically altered some of the "traditional" ways of teaching. He definitely has not done this to the extent that I have.

Even though he has no problem with this, I'm left to wonder how long it will take for us to be practicing totally different arts.

upnorthkyosa

ps - knowing my teacher, he would be proud to be reading this conversation...btw.

Ryu-pa.

Seems like psychology to me....Everyone is different. There are people who don't see the need to look outside their art. There are people who are perfectly happy with doing the way that they have always done things without any more analyzing or depth. There are people who are capable to take that and create their own depth. Even advancing the understanding of what they do know helps. I will personally always look deeper and try to find more meaning and get more out of things. But not everyone needs or wants that.

I have spoken to many people in many styles who are happy with the style that they are in and have no desire or need to go outside of it. I've even talked to some that don't even care about applications, they're perfectly happy to just learn the motions. Everyone is different and everyone is looking for different things. Its like a Martial Arts heirarchy of needs....some people never make it to the top of the pyramid - some people don't want to......and I feel personally that if they are happy with that, that is great.

(and that isn't meant to offend or be condescending to anyone who feels that way.....different people are happy with different things, that is what makes people interesting)

 

[exile]

OK, so here's what I've been thinking as I read this development of the thread...

I think there is a very powerful resonance of the original Okinawan techniques in the ancestral arts, the ones that were forged out of necessity, in the KMA hyungs. The technical depth is there, frozen and latent, so to speak, in the TSD and TKD hyungs, which in many cases are literally karate kata, and in other cases are rearranged and permuted versions of those kata, with the `minimal combat subsequences' themselves preserved intact. The problem is getting at that.

This is where some people have, I believe, may have come to the needlessly extreme conclusion that they are being pressured to cross-train in other arts, in order to obtain the `skeleton' keys that would enable to them to gain access to these deeper layers. Definitely, exposure to the older related arts is necessary to derive the subtle but often crucial information about what this or that sequence in a hyung is `really' about. But the key, I think, is the limit implicit in the word `exposure'—not that you abandon your own (K)MA, but that you learn the right methods of analyzing the formal patterns of your art, methods which a bit of contact with the `source arts' can give you. Go to seminars, seek out experts, get their take, integrate it with your own. I believe that that's what Masters Penfil, Rivers and others who've posted on this thread have been urging us to do. Don't abandon your art, but enrich it with information from the outside. And if you do this...

...then I think that the KMAs do have the depth we're all looking for, because they are, when you get down to it, the local (Korean) variant of a a very deep MA, karate. I think I'm trying to say that the KMAs suffer from is not a lack of depth in their technical resources, but rather in their training of those resources, in the literalness of the kind of training that we've inherited from the Kwan founders. I'm now convinced that UpN is right in a remark he made long ago, in a post quite early in my MT `career', where he said that he had grave doubts about the Kwan founders' knoweldge of form analysis. Since then, all of the research I've pursued has tended to confirm that doubt. The Kwan founders may have learned what Mater Penfil called the `shell' of Shotokan and certain other karate styles, but they almost certainly did not learn form applications that were much deeper than the simplified, stripped-down versions that Funakoshi and his senior students taught to their mass classes in Tokyo and elsewhere. Gennosuke Higaki, in his remarkable new book Hidden Karate: the True Bunkai for the Heian Katas and Naihanchi, reports that is was a well-understood rule amongst the Okinawan expats teaching karate to the Japanese that the deepest applications would not be taught to the citizens of the oppressive occupier nation. And if Choki Motubu is to be believed—a delicate question!—Funakoshi himself had not been inducted into the elite group of Okinawan karateka to whom the great masters had shown the deepest bunkai. So the Kwan founders were probably three degrees of separation (at least) removed from the original applications that guided the formation of the kata which became their curriculum. It shouldn't be surprising that a serious disconnect exists between the modern practitioners in the schools they founded, on the one hand, and that most profound, advanced interpretation of the hyungs which the Kwan-era kata sets became.

So the answer to UpN's question might well be, yes, the KMAs potentially have the technical depth, because their material preserves, even in rearranged form (as in much of TKD) the deep discoveries of the Okinawan masters. What they don't have is the pedagogical/analytic tradition of analysis, and experimental practice geared at recovering that deep level, that the Okinawan, and to a more limited extent the Japanase, karate traditions preserve. That's why the rediscovery of the `decoding' principles, by people like Iain Abernethy, Rick Clark and other karateka, and the explicit application of those methods to the KMAs, particularly TKD, by people like Simon O'Neil and Stuart Anslow, is so encouraging and important. If those valid methods of bunkai are recovered, and applied to the KMA hyungs, why should not the KMAs have the same technical depth as other karate-based styles?

 

[Master Jay S. Penfil]

Exile,
Again, I like your thinking…

Many KMA practitioners have read my postings and heard me speak on this subject and have accused me of disrespecting the KMA’s and their founders. Such is a complete misunderstanding of what I state. To further answer the question at hand regarding KMA’s vs JMA’s and OMA’s with regard to their individual values in the area of application, they all have the value locked away deep within.

The question should not be about the national origin of the kwan/ryu, it should be directed to the individual instructors of the given kwan/ryu. Just like in many of the KMA’s, I have met many of the others who in truth, had no more depth than those of the KMA’s.

When we ask a practitioner; are you happy and content with the system you train in, and that individual has never been elsewhere, what else is he/she going to say? How many times have you visited a martial arts school where the head instructor stands before the class and in a loud booming voice asks; “WHAT IS THE BEST MARTIAL ARTS SYSTEM ON THE PLANET???” , only to have the entire class respond with the name of the system taught in that school?

When a practitioner doesn’t have the exposure to other systems or even to other schools in the same system that have the depth of understanding that others have, they (the individual practitioner) has nothing to compare his/her training to and will always side with his/her own instructor. As stated earlier; this is simple human nature.

Almost every time I have worked with practitioners that had only been taught the shell system I have watched their eyes open wide as they experienced the deeper understanding of the techniques, and thru partner training on the individual sections of the hyung/kata, came to realize what was missing. On rare occasions I have been told by individual practitioners that; while what I was showing them was cool, or interesting, they liked what they were already doing better.

You have to realize that when someone comes to understand that what they have been working on for 10, 20, 30+ years is missing important pieces of the puzzle, and they have, in their specific system, attained a given rank and have students numbering in the hundreds and or thousands doing what they have been taught and teach, it is hard to turn around and do something that contradicts what they have paid to learn from those who they have great respect for, and charge for teaching to those who respect and trust them.

This is why even those with high rank and large associations are reluctant to adopt new (to them) information to incorporate into their curriculum. Many fear that by making changes they will find disgruntled members that will up and leave them all together. This is to me, a bad thing.

I have always moved forward with an open mind in my training. I believe that, as I have stated in other posting in other threads that;

(A) If I am exposed to material that can make be better tomorrow than I was yesterday, and I choose to incorporate it into my curriculum, this is a demonstration of the integrity that I have in all that I do, as the students that respect, trust and look up to me expect me to deliver to them the very best material that I know exists. This is in my mind, being responsible and true to my students and to myself.

(B) If I am exposed to something that can make me better tomorrow than I was yesterday and I choose to ignore it and continue to teach what has been the standard in my curriculum as passed down by my instructor because he would frown on me if I don’t; I see that as being false to myself, and more importantly, to those who look up to me and expect me to pass down to them the best material that I know exists.

If I raise my students to always look for the “UP-GRADE”, and guide them with the understanding that we are in a system that is; “a work in progress”, it is always easier to introduce new material without the backlash of rebellion.

One of my long-term students comes to class for a couple of month and than takes off for a year or two at a time because of work obligations. When ever he comes back after a long time away he is confused because we continue to shape and reshape our way of doing things on a consistent basis. The students that have, over the years maintained their training, are right there with me, and are able to apply every technique that I teach to an extremely high level. He always looks at what we are doing and says; “that isn’t what you showed me two years ago". I generally respond with; and if you leave again today and return a couple of years from now, what I will show you at that point in the future may be different than what I am showing you today.

A work in progress…

If you train in a system, or with an association, federation, etc. that has a curriculum that is and has been written in stone, your technique will at some point become obsolete. If you are simply training for a fun, extra curricular activity and your goals do not include the learning of and honing of true tactical defense skill, than I can see you being satisfied training in a school that only teaches the shell of the system.


However, for many of today’s martial arts practitioners, among the initial reasons they walked into a martial arts school in the first place (whether they will admit it or not) was to some degree defensive tactical education.

If they had the knowledge of what to look for in the first place and went to many schools in search of an instructor that had the deeper understanding to pass on to them I will bet just about anything that, given a choice of starting from “DAY #1” with:


(A) a school with only the shell system, or
(B) a school with the deeper knowledge base;


they would choose (A) every time.

How many practitioners that had no previous
experience actually knew what to look for? ​

A layperson walks into a martial arts school, meets an instructor who presents him/her self in a friendly and professional manor and lays a sales pitch on them. This professional may be a great person with great interpersonal skill. They may be a member of any one of or even several “Professional Martial Arts Management” associations/companies with access to great marketing materials and training on sales and “student retention”.

Presented with such a great front-line presentation this “Newbe” signs up, gets involved in his/her training and over a period of time establishes great relationships with the instructor(s), other members, and is hooked. It doesn’t matter what great level of knowledge another instructor brings to the table; that student has become a serious practitioner of “whatever that school teaches”, and that is where they will stay.

Again, all things being equal, if the prospective student had guidance in advance of “DAY #1”, and came to understand that for their time and money they could have either invest in learning a system (from an instructor) that:

(A) is nothing more than a shell, and may at a time when they are physically attacked in real life cause them or their loved ones to be compromised, or

(B) learn a system that is rich and deep in its understanding and ability to truly prepare him/her for that real life assault in a way that will seriously give them a fighting chance to survive and be able to continue to be there for those who rely on them.

(I have used the word “SYSTEM” in this example,
but my intent is to bring attention to the instructor
and his/her understanding and ability to teach)​