General Choi

[chrispillertkd]

Chris,
when the term TKD was coined, they were teaching pure shotokan. I wish i didnt know the real history, I used to respect the art a lot more before i learned there was nothing NOT shotokan in it till the mid to late 60's

Again, you're simply ignoring pretty much everything I (and others) have said about the subject. You're free to do that, of course, but it makes discussing things a bit difficult.

Pax,

Chris

 

[Earl Weiss]

horse hockey

those guys were practicing something, and it had a name, SHOTOKAN

re-naming it TKD didnt change what it was

if ANYTHING, all Choi did was engage in copyright infringment

your Choi worship has gone a little too far.

Actulay your quote agrees with my point. We agree, he trained in Shotokan and or what the people learning Shotokan trained in - Shorin and Shorei.

If you believe he only engaged in "copyright infringement", do you also believe:
The Shotokan creator infinged on any "copyrights" of the Shorin & Shorei systems?
Do you believe it is "copyright infringement" when you also cite the source and state exactly what the reference is?

Please answer the above, and I will respond to the worship comment.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Chris,
Earl, and thats all he is, EARL, spent the better part of 6 pages telling me I was doing a kata wrong, and that I should tell my instructor they were wrong.

.

If I said "Wrong" then I apologize as this is a relative term. It is quite posssible that due to the nature of this type of communication I was not as diplomatic as i should have been.

If you perform as your instructor wishes, then it is not wrong.

I do not believe I ever said that you should TELL your instructor he was wrong. I did however reccomend that you ASK a question.

Since I have a mindset, experience and instructors who believed asking respectful questions was a good thing, I could not anticipate how my comment would be recieved by others who apparently do not share the mindset or experience. (Yes, I even asked General Choi about what I percieved to be an error in his book, as did others and rec'd confirmation from him that in some cases these things were errors. ) Having a good relationship with many old school practitioners, particularly those who trained with Han Cha Kyo, I can certainly appreciate that there are those out there who did / do not question what there instructor says.

I even got a response from He Il Cho's HQ, (I think it was signed off by Jasmin Cho) but it did not really address the issue. A follow up query trying to hone in on the issue went un answered.

FWIW students ask me stuff all the time. Sometimes I mess up, other times don't. I tink every instructor knows that for whatever reason once in a while smething comes out of their mouth that they did not mean to say. Often because they are thinking 2 or 3 items ahead. I feel a tremendous responsibility to "Teach correctly" because if i make a mistake for me it is only one person. But if i teach a mistake, it can be mutliplied many times.

So, I publicly apologize to Mr. Fist, for any comments percieved to be overly or unduly critical in response to his tread on the pattern and his video performance. I alos extend to him and his significnt other a dinner invite if they are ever near Chicago. As is my practice anyone can stop in and train and all I ask for visitors in return is that they teach a 15-20 minute segment.

 

[chrispillertkd]

1965 - First English Text of Taekwondo (w/ hyung through 1st Dan)

I do want to point out that the 1965 textbook already contains 20 of Gen. Choi's new hyungs, which cover more than those required for first dan. It also points out that even at this point Gen. Choi's system was quite a bit different from Shotokan, as opposed to TF's comment in your original post that it was by the early 70s.

Per the recorded time line, General Choi presented unique, written, historical proof of not only the hyung, but plenty of "new anything" prior to when "they", as you worded it "threw him out"!

I'm still very interested in who threw the General out of what. There were certainly political wranglings even as early as the mid-1950s in the movement to unify the Kwans, but I'm still not sure what Twinfist is referring to when he says "they threw [Gen. Choi] out." I'd be very interested in hearing specifically what he means especially if he means an organization vs the martial art of Taekwon-Do itself or, since he sees no difference between TKD and Shotokan, if he means Gen. Choi was thrown out of Shotokan. (If this is the case, I really don't see the problem since he was well on his way to establishing his own system pretty early on.)

Pax,

Chris

 

[Earl Weiss]

Chris,
Earl, and thats all he is, EARL, spent the better part of 6 pages telling me I was doing a kata wrong, and that I should tell my instructor they were wrong.

.

For those not familiar with Twin Fist reference please see

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74698

About of about 90 posts, about 15 were from me. Feel free to judge my courtesy or lack thereof.

 

[miguksaram]

Is that perhaps the part that Okinawa and China left out? You know, the "Japanese Arts" which came from Okinawa to the school system of Japan. I mean dont forget how Japan got the Te~!

TAEKWON!
Spookey

But what was taught in Japan is not the same as it was in Okinawa. By the time they started learning it, the curriculum changed significantly.

 

[miguksaram]

Probably almost as much as I get a kick out of the above statements which seem to forget that the Japanese systems derived from Okinawa. General Choi specificaly lists the Okinawan Shorin and Shorei systems, and FWIW a common theory is that as Funakoshi lists in his text that Shorin was the Okinawan pronunciation of Shaolin (there is a contrary theory) which of curse was from China. So, limting the reference or roots to Japan while correct, is unneccessarily limited.

As I mentioned already, what was taught in Japan was different than what was learned in Okinawa. Funakoshi changed the system in order to teach to the Japanese. Choi can list Shorin and Shorei, but he learned Shotokan which began to shift away from its Okinawan roots.

It is Shorin's kanji which links it to Shaolin. The Kanji can be also be pronounced Small Forest School, which is the kanji for the Shaolin.

 

[miguksaram]

Originally Posted by miguksaram
IGen. Choi had a second degree from studying in Japan. As a General, he did not teach the soldiers, that was left to the other officers and NCO's. It wasn't until he was an Ambassador to Malaysia that he started teaching TKD himself. When he returned to Korea, he taught his instructors at his House.

To avoid more confusion, I didn't right that.

 

[miguksaram]

A Valid question. Yet you have to review certain things in historical context.

1. He was promoted without any real training in TKD.
Well, TKD did not exist until he named it so it would have been impossible for him to have trained in it. It is like saying Funakoshi or Kano rec'd a certain rank in Shotokan or Judo without training in it. The situation was not unlike other Ryo or Kwan founders. Few had reached high ranks (3 -4 degree) in other systems before founding their systems. I do not know, but it would be interesting to know Lee won Kuk's HSotokan rank before founding the CDK, or for that matter Funakoshi;s before founding Shotokan.

To be more specific in my original statement, Gen. Choi was promoted to an honorary 4th dan in Chungdokwan by GM Son. GM Son revoked this appointment. Now there is controversy about revoking that promotion, but regardless if with was officially revoked or not, it was still honorary. As for the ranks of others, I believe, Funakoshi was a 5th dan and GM Lee, Won-kuk was 3rd dan in Shotokan.

 

[dancingalone]

Actulay your quote agrees with my point. We agree, he trained in Shotokan and or what the people learning Shotokan trained in - Shorin and Shorei.

By the time, the "Shotokan" name came in use, I would argue that much of the Okinawan influence had been stripped away from Funakoshi's teachings. Moreover, although he discusses "Shorei" in his books, it's pretty clear that Gichin Funakoshi practiced very little of it, given the relative dearth of Naha forms he taught. Given that he seemed to be somewhat of a form collector, the evidence showing probably that bulk of what he knew came from Shuri-te.

I won't repeat what I said above in detail, but Koreans that trained in karate in Japan likely learned Shotokan, a different animal entirely than Shuri-te/shorin-ryu although the link lineage-wise is there.

No one denies Gen. Choi's training in Shotokan. Or Won Kuk Lee's. Or Byung In Yoon's training in Shudokan. Or ... well you get the picture, I think. But you might as well say the otehr Kwan heads were practicing Shotokan, too, or that there's no difference between what their Kwans do now and what Funakoshi was doing then. You simply ignore the fact that the style was already changing. You might disagree on when it changed into something that was no longer Shotokan, of course, but you can't deny that it at least had started to change. Well, I mean, you can deny that but it would be odd.

My opinion is that the Korean karate phase of TKD differed very slightly from the Shotokan karate taught at the time. I do agree that General Choi changed the Japanese system he learned sufficiently, especially by the eighties, that it really should be regarded as a distinct system at this point. Still, this evolution was a gradual process and the ITF forms still owe a huge amount to the Japanese Heian forms. Perhaps it would be a good idea for the ITF to embark on their own Korean hyung creation project?

 

[Twin Fist]

So, I publicly apologize to Mr. Fist, for any comments percieved to be overly or unduly critical in response to his tread on the pattern and his video performance. I alos extend to him and his significnt other a dinner invite if they are ever near Chicago. As is my practice anyone can stop in and train and all I ask for visitors in return is that they teach a 15-20 minute segment.

eh, it's all good, no blood no foul. But thanks Mr Weiss

 

[Twin Fist]

I do agree that General Choi changed the Japanese system he learned sufficiently, especially by the eighties, that it really should be regarded as a distinct system at this point. Still, this evolution was a gradual process and the ITF forms still owe a huge amount to the Japanese Heian forms. Perhaps it would be a good idea for the ITF to embark on their own Korean hyung creation project?

i agree with this. But i would say that by the mid 70's, TKD was it's own beast, but not before then.

 

[dancingalone]

To be more specific in my original statement, Gen. Choi was promoted to an honorary 4th dan in Chungdokwan by GM Son. GM Son revoked this appointment. Now there is controversy about revoking that promotion, but regardless if with was officially revoked or not, it was still honorary. As for the ranks of others, I believe, Funakoshi was a 5th dan and GM Lee, Won-kuk was 3rd dan in Shotokan.

Gichin Funakoshi took a 5th dan rank when he began assigning dank ranks to his students. Later after the formation of the JKA, higher ranks than 5th dan began to be given. I have come across several accounts that mention Won Kuk Lee as a third or second dan in Shotokan karate, but none with a definitive date of certicate. This may or may not be one of those cases where one source states something as a fact, and multiple websites and essays follow suit. Certainly Won Kuk Lee learned Shotokan somewhere as early Chung Do Kwan mirrored Shotokan to a great degree.

 

[tkd1964]

To avoid confusion it should be noted that he did not teach the solders directly. Per my converstions with GM Nam, this just was not done. Have a Gneral Teach the enlisted men. Instead he spent time teaching the curriculum / reviewing technique with officers such as Nam who taught the enlistem men.

Master Weiss, I was mistaken. He did teach Tang Soo when he first became an officer. It wasn't until he set up the 29th infantry that he picked GM Nam and GM Han to teach.

 

[tkd1964]

. , I have spoken to 1st gen students of the 1st gen kwan BB's. what was being taught was Shotokan, nothing more.

[/quote]
I would have to say you are part right. Aside from Gen. Choi, most of the Kwans were, or still are, teaching Karate(tang Soo). I believe GM Nam said he was reluctant to change his techniques to what Gen. Choi was teaching. There were some instructors who just learned the patterns but still used their Tang Soo techniques. That is not Taekwon-Do. You might as well have a Kung Fu artist do the patterns.:barf:

 

[dancingalone]

There were some instructors who just learned the patterns but still used their Tang Soo techniques. That is not Taekwon-Do.

It may not be Taekwon-Do but it is Tae Kwon Do.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I would have to say you are part right. Aside from Gen. Choi, most of the Kwans were, or still are, teaching Karate(tang Soo). I believe GM Nam said he was reluctant to change his techniques to what Gen. Choi was teaching. There were some instructors who just learned the patterns but still used their Tang Soo techniques. That is not Taekwon-Do. You might as well have a Kung Fu artist do the patterns.:barf:[/quote]

I never heard GM Nam express a reluctance. It is certainly clear that old habits were hard to change. Further, Gneral Choi explained that the need to develop and dispatch instructors outweighed the need for technical uniformity.

Whe I hosted GM Nam he occasionaly used Japanese names for techniques and that was in the late 1990s. Old Habit I guess.

 

[tkd1964]

It may not be Taekwon-Do but it is Tae Kwon Do.

This is the problem I have with Changing the name of the Korea Tae soo do Association back to the Korea Taekwon-do Association. Gen Choi should have just let them be and continue with developing Taekwon-Do.
JMO:soapbox:

 

[tkd1964]

I would have to say you are part right. Aside from Gen. Choi, most of the Kwans were, or still are, teaching Karate(tang Soo). I believe GM Nam said he was reluctant to change his techniques to what Gen. Choi was teaching. There were some instructors who just learned the patterns but still used their Tang Soo techniques. That is not Taekwon-Do. You might as well have a Kung Fu artist do the patterns.:barf:

I never heard GM Nam express a reluctance. It is certainly clear that old habits were hard to change. Further, Gneral Choi explained that the need to develop and dispatch instructors outweighed the need for technical uniformity.

Whe I hosted GM Nam he occasionaly used Japanese names for techniques and that was in the late 1990s. Old Habit I guess.[/quote]

I'm sorry, this was from Gen. Choi's biography,not from GM Nam. Here is the quote; " As Taekwon-do spread fast even to the civilian front, a textbook of Taekwon-do was needed to support it. Therefore in 1959 we hurriedly published a manual of taekwon-do in Korean. major Tae-hee nam, who assisted me, was insistent on moves taken from karate at the time, so i had to make him compromise on his stubbornness,saying that there was another way of doing it."

Now this may have been only about the book, Idon't know. Maybe, as you said, old habits.