Hey Folks,
I've been doing some research and a rather curious question popped up that never really crossed my mind. If you look at most karate certificates, including TSD, the border is comprised of two peacocks (or the mythical phoenixes) facing one another encasing the certificate with their elaborate tails. I have never questioned their significance until research brought me to question it...now. I have found little regarding what they actually are and close to no information about the significance of what they represent and why they're on our certificates.
My research regarding what they are went as follows:
I was looking up peacocks and karate certificates which led me to find out that these birds go by the name "Feng Huang" in Chinese and "Bong Hwang" in Korean. Upon investigating these names it turns our these peacocks are less like peacocks and more like mythical creatures similar to the dragon that could be roughly translated to that of the mythical Phoenix.
Within this research I came to realize these creatures symbolized good luck, charity, high virtue, grace, and the union of yin/yang. As you can imagine you can derive some simplistic reasons as to why these mythical birds are on our certificates, but I've found not specific reason as to why they're on our certificates or who started this tradition like Kano Jigoro with the ranking system.
So...does anyone have any information or stories passed on from instructors regarding these mythical birds represented on the certificates.
Tang Soo!
I've been doing some research and a rather curious question popped up that never really crossed my mind. If you look at most karate certificates, including TSD, the border is comprised of two peacocks (or the mythical phoenixes) facing one another encasing the certificate with their elaborate tails. I have never questioned their significance until research brought me to question it...now. I have found little regarding what they actually are and close to no information about the significance of what they represent and why they're on our certificates.
My research regarding what they are went as follows:
I was looking up peacocks and karate certificates which led me to find out that these birds go by the name "Feng Huang" in Chinese and "Bong Hwang" in Korean. Upon investigating these names it turns our these peacocks are less like peacocks and more like mythical creatures similar to the dragon that could be roughly translated to that of the mythical Phoenix.
Within this research I came to realize these creatures symbolized good luck, charity, high virtue, grace, and the union of yin/yang. As you can imagine you can derive some simplistic reasons as to why these mythical birds are on our certificates, but I've found not specific reason as to why they're on our certificates or who started this tradition like Kano Jigoro with the ranking system.
So...does anyone have any information or stories passed on from instructors regarding these mythical birds represented on the certificates.
Tang Soo!