Thanks for the post! Yeah that sounds like a crazy story what a heck of a battle! I don't know how true this is but I was reading about the tiger division in Vietnam and some people said they would use tkd in combat and report back to Korea on what worked and didn't work and kind of tested out things to find what was the best techniques. I don't know how true that is and from having family in the military I know hand to hand fighting is minimal moat of the time. But I looked at an old us army manual labeled hand to hand combat karate/tae kwon do, and it looks like it was from the Vietnam Era, it barely looks like what I see being taught today. For 1 it was all basic techniques just drilled over and over. I'm curious what techniques the Korean military used though like what they used vs what we see in modern tkd like what was used vs what is now just for flash.I know some of Han Cha Kyo's progeny and they discussed with him why there did not seem to be contact sparring in the Military. Of course this was before TKD actually existed. Hs response was to the effect that any any moment they might have to go out and fight for real and couldn't risk being injured ahead of that readiness. Then of course there is the story of Nam Tae Hi.
""In the dark, Nam heard a noise, ran into somebody, and tried to grab the man's hair during the scuffle. The Chinese soldier was trying to do the same. With no light, the only way to distinguish friend from foe was by grabbing at a head, because communists had crew cuts and South Koreans had slightly longer hair. In that trench, Nam felt short hair — almost bald — and he struck. His enemy fell."He heard another soldier. He punched, flailed. Ran on. As the two armies fought in the dark trenches, Nam tapped men's heads when he could. Crew cut meant attack; long hair, pull back. He could not use a bayonet and fought with his hands all night, thinking of nothing — no mind — stumbling through the dark, striking , kneeing, moving. When he fell, he would stand again. The next day, the communists retreated from the trenches and the fighting continued with guns... The next day's battle ended as night fell, but Nam kept fighting. Most of his thirty-one men were dead, and he had not slept for three nights. He had not eaten in how many days? He worked out that he had missed nine meals. He collapsed from exhaustion..."That day, during the retreat, Nam wandered to a spot where he had fought during the night before. He found many dead bodies and counted more than two dozen with no bullet or knife wounds. They were the ones he had hit during the night, the ones with broken faces and bones,"
I read part of "a killing art" alot of interesting info in that book, like the personality and lifestyle of one of the creators of tkd. I need to get a copy so I can finish reading it. One thing that surprised me was finding out the creator trained in shotokan but modified what he learned. Shotokan is like 60-40 hands to foot ratio, tkd is like 60-40 kicks to punches ratio. Although some sub types of tkd focus more on hand strikes, my school tries to get closer to 50-50 but kicking is still favored.FWIW the story of GM Nam above is what he told me and to my knowledge first appeared in print in English in the article I had published in TKD Times (Jan . 2000) Alex Gillis gives me credit in his Bibliography "A Killing Art" Sadly, since that time it has appeared in various forms on the net without attribution. I have called out a few people for not referencing my article as the source . Some have claimed they "Somehow" got it independently (Perhaps from some other source that failed to cite their source) but have never provided any independent reference.
As you indicate this might vary by whatever system uses the T K D Tkd. TK-D or whatever variation Moniker. When it comes to Tk-D General Choi was fond of saying the system had (about) 1200 Foot Techniques and 2000 hand techniques . Now of course this also depends on how you categorize differences vis a vis stance etc............... tkd is like 60-40 kicks to punches ratio. Although some sub types of tkd focus more on hand strikes, my school tries to get closer to 50-50 but kicking is still favored.
