Do you practice Palgwe Poomsae?

[Marchfly]

Hi all. *Charyot*

I'm just asking this question because i'm a member of a WTF affiliated club, and the WTF dosen't require Palgwe patterns for gradings. Yet i find myself interested in them very much. I find them graceful and a great help for myself, as i'm a beginner and appreciate the more advanced movements featured.

Truth is, i have a little dilemma. I'm left to research Palgwe Poomsae on my own and have found that various web sites all have differing idea's on the performance of the first Palgwe Il Jang.

Any help would be appreciated in assisting my to find the correct formulae.

Thank in advance.

 

[dancingalone]

Truth is, i have a little dilemma. I'm left to research Palgwe Poomsae on my own and have found that various web sites all have differing idea's on the performance of the first Palgwe Il Jang.

Any help would be appreciated in assisting my to find the correct formulae.

There is no such thing as a correct formula. I prefer smoothness and display of precision in my kata. Another person might prefer speed or power. It's all good, and good forms practice will mean you change around how you practice your forms to make sure you hit all the qualities needed to make them real for you. By the way, the choreography of the Palgwes are pretty simple. Does it really matter if one version states an outside block instead of a inside block? That's usually the variances I see in descriptions on the web. Or are you referring to something bigger?

 

[exile]

Hi all. *Charyot*

I'm just asking this question because i'm a member of a WTF affiliated club, and the WTF dosen't require Palgwe patterns for gradings. Yet i find myself interested in them very much. I find them graceful and a great help for myself, as i'm a beginner and appreciate the more advanced movements featured.

Truth is, i have a little dilemma. I'm left to research Palgwe Poomsae on my own and have found that various web sites all have differing idea's on the performance of the first Palgwe Il Jang.

Any help would be appreciated in assisting my to find the correct formulae.

Thank in advance.

Hi Marchfly—

we use only the Palgwes for colored belt ranking once we're past the Kichos. I agree, the Palgwes are wonderful forms—they actually contain a lot of mixmastered and recombined subsequences from the Okinawan Pinan katas, so they kind of have an almost archæological link to the era when TKD was just karate, before it acquired a distinctively Korean flavor.

It would help if you could be more specific about just what it is in the first Palgwe that you're unsure about.

There is no such thing as a correct formula. I prefer smoothness and display of precision in my kata. Another person might prefer speed or power. It's all good, and good forms practice will mean you change around how you practice your forms to make sure you hit all the qualities needed to make them real for you. By the way, the choreography of the Palgwes are pretty simple.

I agree with this, pretty much up until the last three. The asymmetries there are interesting and sometimes a bit tricky.

Does it really matter if one version states an outside block instead of a inside block? That's usually the variances I see in descriptions on the web. Or are you referring to something bigger?

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was wondering as well...

 

[Marchfly]

Thanks for your replies. The issues i found were as you said, one source might suggest an inside block, another will use an outside block.

And the sources i found seemed inconsistant also regarding stances and foot direction / position.

I guess the one i like most are the directives from Master Mac, performed by Renee West. The video's are a little noisy, but this was the first one i referenced when beginning my interest in Palgwe.

Here>>>

 

[exile]

Thanks for your replies. The issues i found were as you said, one source might suggest an inside block, another will use an outside block.

And the sources i found seemed inconsistant also regarding stances and foot direction / position.

I guess the one i like most are the directives from Master Mac, performed by Renee West. The video's are a little noisy, but this was the first one i referenced when beginning my interest in Palgwe.

Here>>>

I use a Mac so can't run wmv files. But I've seen the Renee West vids in the past, when I was using a linux-rigged Toshiba. One thing to bear in mind is that since certain stances are conventionally associated with certain blocks in the karate-based arts, it follows that variation between an inward vs. outward middle block will probably correlate with a front stance vs. back stance difference (since inward/front, outward/back are the usual associations). That kind of thing is pretty common.

 

[Kacey]

We don't - but our background is ITF, not WTF, so we do the Ch'ang H'on tuls.

 

[K31]

We are (almost) exclusively taught the Palgwe forms. The Master Mac videos are the closest I've seen to what we are taught. I bought a Master Kim Sang DVD that seems to be dead-on to what I am taught. It is also good because it gives you the names of each of the moves. I have trouble because even within are own school apparently people are taught differently and I'm not talking simple execution, I'm talking the moves themselves: blocks, punches, kicks stances. That is why I wish there was a standard written somewhere.

 

[terryl965]

Yes but for competition we do the Tae Gueks, I prefer the Palgwe

 

[YoungMan]

We've done the Palgwe forms since the beginning, including our tournament. Non-Korean students are, I believe, allowed to do Palgwe forms for competition.

 

[IcemanSK]

Back in my early training, we did both the Tae Geuk poomsae & Pal Gwe 6,7, & 8 as part of our training. I agree with K31 about the videos by GM Sang H. Kim being a great resource for these poomsae.

I originally used to use GM Kim Soo's books, but found that I needed to see the movement (rather than just photos) to get the depth of the forms.

 

[cali_tkdbruin]

I was trained in the Tae Geuks initially when I began my TKD study a while back, later on I started learning the Palgwes. I know the Tae Gueks blind folded, and in my dreams which is expected.

Now I mainly practice all of the Palgwes when none of my training parters are around to train with me. Both poomse are cool with all of their techniques and movements, but I find, IMHO, the Palgwes a little more challenging. Maybe because it was the 2nd set of forms I learned... :idunno:

Anyway, if they're done correctly any poomse/hyung/kata/form is great training if you put effort into it and not just go through the motions.

 

[tkd_Jaz]

We are taught Palgwes all 1 through 8. I've done them so many times that I don't even have to think about what I'm doing for each move, I just let my body do what it's been taught. Our black belt class has just started to learn Taeguks and so far I really like them and they are interesting! It's hard to get used to the walking stance since Palgwes don't use those at all.

 

[Laurentkd]

We learn the Pal Gwes if a student is interested at black belt or just before black (if a senior rank really knows all his stuff but hasn't yet met the time requirement to test). I really enjoy the Pal Gwes and definitely feel they are more technically difficult than the Tae Geuks.

 

[turtle]

I originally learned the Palgwes, all of them, and then when I was a brown belt the school switched to Taegeuks so I had to learn all 8 once to get up to speed for testing. I've always like the Palgwes better but that could be nostalgia.

In teaching, I like the Palgwes for higher gup ranks because they're a little more varied and complex than the Taegeuk forms.

 

[YoungMan]

The Tae Geuks, to me, just don't seem to have the power and stability of the Palgues. To me, the Taegeuks were created just to have forms that were more Korean-based, without really putting a lot of thought into them.
I do think it's time the Kukkiwon developed new forms, and the two recently created are a good start. However, sport technique should not be included, and I have a problem with the forms incorporating sport-style roundhouse kicks. I think the forms should retain the power of the older forms, while incorporating Korean kicking. This might be a tradeoff-how do you incorporate the higher level Korean kicks while still making powerful technique? I would like to see jumping front kicks, jumping side kicks, and jumping roundhouse kicks (not the semi jumping and half roundhouse kicks the forms use).

 

[Bret Hinds]

Yes,I teach the PalGwe's. There are eight palgwe's the moves will very to the Palgwe being done. Each school or dojang will have different little movements but most of the forms are standard.In the book Tae Kwon Do techniques & training by Kyong Myoung Lee the forms show mostly what I teach except for the wrap ups and the sudo movements. What parts of the palGwe are you having trouble with? All the best in the arts