Sure, there are lots of important skills for a martial artist to have, but that doesn't mean they necessarily belong in forms. We don't see any running laps or jump rope in forms to show endurance. We don't do the splits in forms to show static flexibility.We don't kick targets or boards in forms to show accuracy.All these (and more) aspects are important to being a good martial artist, but traditionally that was not the purpose of forms. I guess it is just see the original reasoning behind them be thrown away to be more conducive to competition is what gets me.
**Edit: I should have read Exile's post first. He explains my above section much better than I!**
Re the stuff in bold: Lauren, c'mon, you put it beautifully. Those are great specific examples that nail down the fundamental idea of what the forms do well and what they do not. Look, for example, at breaking: if you want to train for efficient power delivery to a small area—a vital skill for MA use—breaking is terrific training, but we don't find it in forms, because there are much more effective ways to develop that skill (including dedicated training in breaking) than breaking a board as move 16 of some hypothetical hyung. That's a great point—please don't sell short your own very persuasive way of putting the matter, OK?
I've separated out your examples in color coding because I like the range of cases you cite. They add up to a very nice set of arguments about what hyungs are, and what they aren't, and why we shouldn't mess around with them in the way that the KKW seems be determined to do...
And I STILL don't understand why our current forms couldn't have been used in higher level competition. All WTF forms are supposed to be standardized and they are definitely not. Why not actually mandate a specific competition standard for current forms and then anyone choosing to compete must alter their forms to match this standard (any master who doesn't have his students compete can of course keep doing them the way he feels is best). I don't know. I guess as long as all TKD forms don't turn in to this new sport style it doesn't really matter if there are a couple of flash in the pan forms out there, but to me it just all seems like a slippery slope.
BEWARE THE SLIPPERY SLOPE!!!!!!
That's putting it as well as I think it can be put. And that's what worries me: once this kind of `hyung' becomes legitimized, there is absolutely nothing to keep the technical canon from becoming more and more overloaded with such forms. Even without an official mandate (the way first the Pinans were suppressed, then the Palgwes were marginalized), if these are the kind of forms that lead performers to higher scores, does anyone really think that most competitors will persist in the traditional forms simply because they
are traditional and incorporate combat content (content that many of the competitors themselves are unaware of)? Isn't the progressive adaptation of the new KKW canon far more likely? I mean, the judges are going to have the KKW looking over their shoulders at the higher competitive levels... look at the way judging in figure skating has become totally unprincipled and political in nature, for a glimpse into the near future!
As to the split that has happened and will continue.
Yup.
My take is simple, if you enjoy competing then complete. If you enjoy Tradition then find tradition, the problem is we have no tradition anymore every single Tom, Dick and Harry does there own thing. In the TKD world every single person has the hidden agenda and association, you rank me I'll rank you and so on and so on. We have lost what once was, to qoute a movie about King Authur. Never can it be found because to mant self rightous asses are in control of what once was.
Yup again.
I have been doing TKD for half my life, seen it all fake certs., GM never sending certificates over to the Kukkiwon and people never recieving them. The raise of the all mighty McDojaangs and the power they can produce in a city of such naive people.
Training has become a joke, SD principle are being re-invented everyday, Yea right and I'm the pope of the Cathelic Church for God sake. Remember what once was is a phase of people like me old and tired of the politics and seeing new people get some powers and change everything, I will always be a 4th for I feel there is nobody worthy to test me again, all these test are a joke if you pay enough money you have a new rank if you play the game you have a new rank and if you kiss those asses enough you wil be a GM in no time.
Terry, I think this is an inevitable byproduct of massive top-down organizational control taking precedence over the individual school. We all pay lip service to the Kwan era, but the great thing about the Kwan era was that those guys each went his own way, and didn't give up his vision of the right way to do things just to have a bigger piece of the pie. That changed in the late 1950s and set TKD on the road to state control, entanglement in the (frequently corrupt) politics and deal-brokering of the Olympic `movement', and led to a situation in which—as I see it, anyway—considerations of national prestige have led the TKD Central Directorate to dilute the martial content of TKD to the point where you really have to sympathize with all those nasty comments that people make about it on The Site Which Must Not Be Named and elsewhere....
But you know, no matter what happens, we're still gonna be around. The great thing is that this isn't Korea; no matter what the KKW decides, we can determine our own curricula.
Sorry things like this just upsets the living crap out of me and it will continue to do so. I am doomed to see what I love and have devoted my life to be destoyed by money hungry power tripping people that really do not give a damm about the Art or anybody that is evolved in the Arts.
No, it's not going to be destroyed. The WTF/KKW two-step, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, will go their merry way, but my guess is, in North America and the UK, a martial art version of TKD will continue and emerge as a separate component of the KMA universe, in the same way that TSD did. Eventually we may find ourselves—our part of the TKD story—reuniting with the TSDers. That's a private fantasy of mine, but I think the line of development the KKW seems set on pursuing is going to lead to that outcome, sooner or later... but in any case, nothing is going to be destroyed as long as we keep teaching TKD the way we see it and others do the same...
