Hell has actually frozen over—an accurate, well-founded dojang website TKD history!

exile

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I wouldn't have thought it possible. Read the following account of the history and development of TKD at this dojang website, for an account that pays attention to the last decade and a half of careful historical scholarship and new discoveries about the where, when and whys of TKD's emergence, independent of the fabricated history devised by the ROK and its TKD institutional puppets (largely under the heavy hand of the Park regime's propaganda works and, latterly, the entrepreneurship of the disgraced Um Yong Kim, booted out of his position as head of the WTF on charges of embezzlement and bribery and sentenced to a prison term on multiple corruption counts (as reported here). This is the guy who relentlessly attempted to purge TKD of its combat content and convert it into a purely sport/spectacle activity).

The author, Dr. Robert Dohrenwend, is on the editorial board of Journal of Asian Martial Arts and one of the leading academic scholars of the Korean martial arts. There is a huge documentary base, rooted in primary sources, for Dohrenwend's claims here. Since he wrote his article, some powerful new support has emerged on the history of TKD (by Eric Madis, in Martial Arts in the Modern World), and the marginal historical (as vs. ideological) role of taekyon (by Michael Pederson, in the Encyclopædia of Martial Arts of the World). But this very well written, well researched article already stands on an extremely impressive documentary foundation...
 

arnisador

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Ah, a good find! It's good to see the truth finally being acknowledged. Perhaps the nationalism stage ws one that the TKD community needed for a time to help cement the art as a national pasttime, but the time is surely here for an honest examination of the roots of the art.
 
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exile

exile

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Ah, a good find! It's good to see the truth finally being acknowledged. Perhaps the nationalism stage ws one that the TKD community needed for a time to help cement the art as a national pasttime, but the time is surely here for an honest examination of the roots of the art.

I agree, and I think more of this will start coming out as people confront the increasingly evident connection between, on the one hand, the 'party line' fabricated histories and deliberate revisionism sponsored by the ROK and its sports-agency mouthpieces, and on the other hand, the movement to drive TKD to Olympic status.

Some recently emerging evidence, including Son Duk Ki's own book, and work by the Korean Taekyon people themselves, provide strong new support for Dohrenwend's conclusions about the factors affecting the development of TKD. I'm going to try to circulate some of this material as soon as I get some time, because it has important lessons about the way in which romantic yearnings and heroic aspirations can be recruited by cynical realists on behalf of their own agendas—something that goes on not just in other MAs, but in many other reals of life as well...

What a lot of people need to hear, I think, is that TKD is fine as a combat-effective MA, if it's taught from that angle and trained from that angle. Yes, it may be new... but honest histories of karate and many other 'traditional' empty-hand martial arts will tell you the same thing about those arts! We don't need a technical lineage that recedes into the mists of legend in order to have thoroughly effective fighting systems. The people who push these spurious histories are, I think, trading on people's insecurities about this particular point.
 

Dave Leverich

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"In 1954, General Choi Hong Hi became “director” (Kwan Jang Nim) of Chung Do Kwan, then the largest civilian kwan in Korea (45) and held that position for several years (46) ."

Um... this goes against anything I've heard, perhaps the author mistyped and intended 'Oh Do Kwan'? General Choi was a 4th dan ONLY as a honory rank which was granted by Lee Won Kuk, later rescinded... I don't see him being KJN of CDK at any time with that low of a rank.
 

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"In 1954, General Choi Hong Hi became “director” (Kwan Jang Nim) of Chung Do Kwan, then the largest civilian kwan in Korea (45) and held that position for several years (46) ."

Um... this goes against anything I've heard, perhaps the author mistyped and intended 'Oh Do Kwan'? General Choi was a 4th dan ONLY as a honory rank which was granted by Lee Won Kuk, later rescinded... I don't see him being KJN of CDK at any time with that low of a rank.

Not a mistype, as the Oh Do Kwan was military. I know something about this, unfortunately I cant remember I'm afraid :duh: Very distressing.

Exile, is there not a quite convincing argument that Un Yong Kim was set up, to further Korean aims within the Olympic movement?
 
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exile

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Not a mistype, as the Oh Do Kwan was military. I know something about this, unfortunately I cant remember I'm afraid :duh: Very distressing.

Exile, is there not a quite convincing argument that Un Yong Kim was set up, to further Korean aims within the Olympic movement?

I hadn't heard this... but how would it have worked? My impression was that UYK's conviction jeopardized the Olympic status of TKD—I seem to recall reading something about that in TKD Times, as the whole thing was playing out. Will check further... and also check on the CDK thing...

OK, Burdick (1997) in his JAMA paper 'People and events of Taekwondo's formative years' comments that

Hong-Hi Choi founded the Odokwan in 1953, supported by Tae-Hi Nam. The new kwan was based upon the principles used by the Ch'ongdokwan (which Choi also commanded in late 1954)

So that seems to corroborate Dohrenwend's remark. Still trying to find more about UYK...

OK, turned up this interesting bit from Reuters:

Kim has always denied the charges against him. His resignation means the affair is closed as far as the IOC is concerned and all action against him has been stopped...

In March, Kim had still been determined to clear his name within the IOC. He had hoped to attend July’s meeting or, if he had not been released from prison in time, have the vote postponed.

When he was sentenced last June, his lawyer said his actions and business conduct were rooted in South Korea’s dictatorship period of the 1970s and 1980s and it was unfair to judge him by present-day values.

There seems to be an acknowledgement of some impropriety there, along with a kind of at least implicit tu quoque attempt at justification...

And this from the Daily Telegraph from quite some time ago (2001):


[UYK] came close to being expelled from the IOC along with six other members after a series of corruption scandals 2.5 years ago but was let off with a severe warning. One charge against him, relating to alleged favours for his son, is still pending and his son is being sought by the US Justice Department. A court case against two of the officials implicated in the controversy surrounding the Salt Lake City bid for the 2002 winter Games is due to start on July 30.

So it seems there was a long trail, going way back...
 

FieldDiscipline

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Right, let me think. I still cant remember the circumstances surrounding Choi 'commanding' CDK. He did have an honourary KJN certificate, I wonder if this is it?

I had a video once that I taped fom Sky Tv around the year 2000/1 about TKD history that was very good but I have been unable to find for some years. Very annoying.

Regarding Un Yong Kim, I have trawled google to no avail. I read an article suggesting that he was sacrificed to somehow enable either the next vice-president or president of the IOC to be a Korean IIRC. I know nothing about the IOC unfortunately which doesnt help in my recount of this. His lawyer's comments seem pretty damning/unwise though.

I sound like a very confused old man today dont I? I'm very sorry! I may be the first but not the second!
 
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exile

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Right, let me think. I still cant remember the circumstances surrounding Choi 'commanding' CDK. He did have an honourary KJN certificate, I wonder if this is it?

I had a video once that I taped fom Sky Tv around the year 2000/1 about TKD history that was very good but I have been unable to find for some years. Very annoying.

Regarding Un Yong Kim, I have trawled google to no avail. I read an article suggesting that he was sacrificed to somehow enable either the next vice-president or president of the IOC to be a Korean IIRC. I know nothing about the IOC unfortunately which doesnt help in my recount of this.

I sound like a very confused old man today dont I? I'm very sorry! I may be the first but not the second!

No, it was a very confusing era back then in that 'formative period' that Burdick writes about. All the different KTA-abbreviated organizations, the intrigues amongst the Kwans and the granting (and withdrawing) of rank... The cooperation and later hostility between Nam Tae-hi and Gen. Choi itself is one sign of how people's alliances and affiliations shifted so radically. I didn't know till quite recently, for example, that at one point, my own lineage Kwanjangnim, Byung Pik Ro, actually replaced the traditional (Shotokan) forms of the Song Moo Kwan with Choi and Nam's Ch'ang Hong patterns (and then unreplaced them)! It was, as they say, a bit of a mess...

The thing is, according to that Telegraph story, UYK was at one point the front runner for the IOC headship, before the scandal broke full force.
 

crushing

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Thanks for the link exile, I look forward to reading this. I did a quick check of the website and found it was hosted at Michigan Tech. In keeping with your thread title, people familiar with this college will tell you that, "It is not unusual for Hell to freeze over in Houghton, MI."
 
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exile

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Thanks for the link exile, I look forward to reading this. I did a quick check of the website and found it was hosted at Michigan Tech. In keeping with your thread title, people familiar with this college will tell you that, "It is not unusual for Hell to freeze over in Houghton, MI."

:lol:... good one, C!
 

terryl965

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I hadn't heard this... but how would it have worked? My impression was that UYK's conviction jeopardized the Olympic status of TKD—I seem to recall reading something about that in TKD Times, as the whole thing was playing out. Will check further... and also check on the CDK thing...

OK, Burdick (1997) in his JAMA paper 'People and events of Taekwondo's formative years' comments that

Hong-Hi Choi founded the Odokwan in 1953, supported by Tae-Hi Nam. The new kwan was based upon the principles used by the Ch'ongdokwan (which Choi also commanded in late 1954)
So that seems to corroborate Dohrenwend's remark. Still trying to find more about UYK...

OK, turned up this interesting bit from Reuters:

Kim has always denied the charges against him. His resignation means the affair is closed as far as the IOC is concerned and all action against him has been stopped...


In March, Kim had still been determined to clear his name within the IOC. He had hoped to attend July’s meeting or, if he had not been released from prison in time, have the vote postponed.


When he was sentenced last June, his lawyer said his actions and business conduct were rooted in South Korea’s dictatorship period of the 1970s and 1980s and it was unfair to judge him by present-day values.
There seems to be an acknowledgement of some impropriety there, along with a kind of at least implicit tu quoque attempt at justification...

And this from the Daily Telegraph from quite some time ago (2001):


[UYK] came close to being expelled from the IOC along with six other members after a series of corruption scandals 2.5 years ago but was let off with a severe warning. One charge against him, relating to alleged favours for his son, is still pending and his son is being sought by the US Justice Department. A court case against two of the officials implicated in the controversy surrounding the Salt Lake City bid for the 2002 winter Games is due to start on July 30.
So it seems there was a long trail, going way back...


Yes I remember reading all of this and going though it. I also remember Choi being part of CDK but everything has been tangled round so much that you would need the world supply of conditionao to get it straighten out.
 
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exile

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Yes I remember reading all of this and going though it. I also remember Choi being part of CDK but everything has been tangled round so much that you would need the world supply of conditionao to get it straighten out.[

... and the world's biggest, longest-toothed comb...

Some stuff we'll eventually get straightened out, but some of it, the part that lives only in people's memories, is never going to be clear, at this point. I suspect it wasn't even clear to the people involved, at the time.
 

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I can not see General Choi as a student of GM Lee and this is why. First, when Gen. Choi returned to Korea he became an officer in the Army. As Master Lee had said, he kept having to move his school from place to place. Being an officer in the new Korean Army would not allow him the time to train at the school. Two, GM Son was one of the first students of GM Lee and he did not know Gen. Choi.
As to being the Kwang Jang, Gen. Choi said that being in the Army did not allow him to run a civilian school. He did say that all the certificates that were awarded had his stamp on it. Would he have been considered KJN, I don't know.
I've thought that maybe GM Lee new Gen. Choi in Japan. But this has never been suggested by any of the parties.

Mike
 

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One of the sentences in the article (which I've previously) specifically calls GGM Lee a Tae Kyon student. Yet no one believes me when I stated that. Interesting how some people won't believe unless an American or British writer states it.
 
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One of the sentences in the article (which I've previously) specifically calls GGM Lee a Tae Kyon student. Yet no one believes me when I stated that. Interesting how some people won't believe unless an American or British writer states it.

Lee described himself that way. Dohrenwend is just, in effect, reporting what Lee claimed; if you want to see what his actual assessment of that claim is, read the footnotes, where you'll find his evaluation of that claim:

[28] I am unaware of any early Tae Kwon Do master with an instructional lineage in Tae Kyon. It would appear that Tae Kyon and Tae Kwon Do are entirely separate with little technical relationship between them.

I don't see how much plainer that could be.

In theEncyclopæeia of Martial Arts of the World(ed. Thomas Green, Prager, 2001), the current state-of-knowledge on Taekyon is the entry by Mark Pederson, who notes that

In Korea, the leaders of the present t'aek'kyon associations disavow any direct connection with taekwondo. Experiential knowledge of t'aek'kyon can be conclusively traced to a very few individuals, and none were linked to those who later went on to establish taekwondo.
.

(p.606) The point is, YM, that taekkyon school records themselves do not support the claims of the various Kwan founders who claimed to have 'studied' it in the apparently unverifiable past prior to their documented karate training. As Pederson points out, there is no independently documented connection between any of the Kwan founders having actually learned taekyon. And given that there is no technical connection whatever between the striking kicks of TKD and the strictly pushing kicks of the taekyon that Son Duk Ki and the one or two other surviving practitioners of taekyon practiced at the time the later Kwan founders were still young, it's not surprising that when people, well after the fact, try to link their MA training to this fundamentally different kind of activity, in spite of the lack of any well-supported connections to known taekyon practitioners, people are very skeptical, and are right to be so. Real taekyon looked nothing at all like taekwondo&#8212;and yes, there are photos of SDK himself performing taekyon techniques against an opponent which make it clear just how different real taekyon (as vs. the spinoff, nouveau martial activity performed on video by people who weren't even born when SDK himself was already old) was from the art that the Kwan founders practiced and taught.

I can not see General Choi as a student of GM Lee and this is why. First, when Gen. Choi returned to Korea he became an officer in the Army. As Master Lee had said, he kept having to move his school from place to place. Being an officer in the new Korean Army would not allow him the time to train at the school. Two, GM Son was one of the first students of GM Lee and he did not know Gen. Choi.
As to being the Kwang Jang, Gen. Choi said that being in the Army did not allow him to run a civilian school. He did say that all the certificates that were awarded had his stamp on it. Would he have been considered KJN, I don't know.
I've thought that maybe GM Lee new Gen. Choi in Japan. But this has never been suggested by any of the parties.

This is a vexed point. Eric Madis, in his 2003 article 'The evolution of Taekwondo from Japanese Karate' (in the Green Martial Arts in the Modern World collection of essays) just says that 'in 1953, Choi... assigned Nam Tae-hi and Han Cha-kyo (students of Lee Won-kuk) as senior tangsoodo instrutors [in the ROK Army's 29th Division]'; previously, in 1950, LWK had appointed Choi as 'honorary leader' of the CDK. Dohrenwend may be assuming on this basis that Choi had been a student of LWK. Burdick, who is unusually thorough, doesn't say anything about Choi having studied with Lee.
 

FieldDiscipline

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Lee described himself that way. Dohrenwend is just, in effect, reporting what Lee claimed; if you want to see what his actual assessment of that claim is, read the footnotes, where you'll find his evaluation of that claim:

[28] I am unaware of any early Tae Kwon Do master with an instructional lineage in Tae Kyon. It would appear that Tae Kyon and Tae Kwon Do are entirely separate with little technical relationship between them.

I don't see how much plainer that could be.

Who is this Dohrenwend? I am curious as to what makes him qualified to make this assertion. Just because he is unaware seems a pretty poor basis for such an assertion.

In theEncyclopæeia of Martial Arts of the World(ed. Thomas Green, Prager, 2001), the current state-of-knowledge on Taekyon is the entry by Mark Pederson, who notes that

In Korea, the leaders of the present t'aek'kyon associations disavow any direct connection with taekwondo. Experiential knowledge of t'aek'kyon can be conclusively traced to a very few individuals, and none were linked to those who later went on to establish taekwondo.
.

(p.606) The point is, YM, that taekkyon school records themselves do not support the claims of the various Kwan founders who claimed to have 'studied' it in the apparently unverifiable past prior to their documented karate training. As Pederson points out, there is no independently documented connection between any of the Kwan founders having actually learned taekyon. And given that there is no technical connection whatever between the striking kicks of TKD and the strictly pushing kicks of the taekyon that Son Duk Ki and the one or two other surviving practitioners of taekyon practiced at the time the later Kwan founders were still young, it's not surprising that when people, well after the fact, try to link their MA training to this fundamentally different kind of activity, in spite of the lack of any well-supported connections to known taekyon practitioners, people are very skeptical, and are right to be so. Real taekyon looked nothing at all like taekwondo&#8212;and yes, there are photos of SDK himself performing taekyon techniques against an opponent which make it clear just how different real taekyon (as vs. the spinoff, nouveau martial activity performed on video by people who weren't even born when SDK himself was already old) was from the art that the Kwan founders practiced and taught.

During the occupation native martial arts and the like were forbidden on pain of death. I certainly wouldn't deem lack of documentary evidence to be much use in proving (or disproving) anything.

Surely I'm not the only one who practices pushing kicks?
 
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exile

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Who is this Dohrenwend? I am curious as to what makes him qualified to make this assertion. Just because he is unaware seems a pretty poor basis for such an assertion.

Dohrenwend is a historian who has studied Asian and Native American combat and weapons systems. I don't have his bio; I'll try to get it from Journal of Asian Martial Arts, where's he's on the editorial board (he's also the editor of Classical Fighting Arts, another very high quality MA journal). When he, or any academic historian specializing in an area, says he's unaware evidence supporting a particular point, he's saying, I have studied the source material carefully and there is no documentation I've ever come across that supports that point. It means, basically, that in his detailed examination of the evidence, nothing has ever been emerged that supports the point at issue. If someone persists in that claim, the burden of proof is on them to supply the evidence which establishes the claim. And in an ideologically charged context, self-reports are just starting places to look for evidence; they aren't sufficient. More on the dearth of evidence below...

During the occupation native martial arts and the like were forbidden on pain of death. I certainly wouldn't deem lack of documentary evidence to be much use in proving (or disproving) anything.

Not so. This is a point that seems to have been continuously overstated. There are actually detailed dojang records for taekyon practioners during the occupation; Robert Young, in his 1993 Journal of Asian Martial Arts paper 'The history and development of Taekkyon', gives the names of a number of leading practitioners of the game, and their students' names. And the death-threat aspect has been exaggerated a good deal: Pederson (p.605) notes that

Although the Japanese discouraged the practice of taekkyon, for several years Song still managed to practice with smaller groups, but pressure from both his family and the police finally compelled him to quit. Though there was some surreptitious practice during the occupation, it was rare and involved very few people. It would seem, however, that though its practice was formally prohibited, it was not actively surppressed. It did not disappear so much because of harsh repression as because its practitioners needed to look after themselves during a harsh time and hence had neither the leisure nor the inclination to practice their skills.​

It wasn't like you were a marked man if you were a known taekkyonist. The Taekkyon Research Association has published lineage charts of teachers and students of the game linking the later 19th century with the 21st&#8212;just as Madis states, there were a very, very few teachers and no more than a handful of students, but they existed and their names were known, at least to each other&#8212;and there is no connection that anyone has been able to document between any of the Kwan founders on the one hand and any of the people in the taekkyon lineages that have been established. So it's not just Dohrenwend who is 'not aware' of any well-documented connection. The fact is that while documentation for student/teacher connections does exist, none exists that anyone knows about that links taekkyon instruction to the Kwan-era founders of TKD, including the Taekyon historical researchers themselves (Young's 1993 JAMA paper gives a nice survey of this aspect of the history).

Surely I'm not the only one who practices pushing kicks?

Well, we sure never learned them in SMK TKD! So I don't know... anyone? The kick inventory of taekkyon appears, from Culin's description and the photographic records of people actually practicing taekkyon that I've seen, to involve mostly whole-sole attack designed to push the opponent over, onto the grounds, as a result of leg traps, and stomping kicks again designed to damage the opponent's balance. Taekkyon means, literally, 'push-shoulders' (as both Young and Henning describe in their JAMA papers, analyzing the Korean characters used to write the name of the sport), and the central idea was to push the oppo's upper body while unbalancing him, by one means or another, in the lower half.
 

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It's a great article, no doubt, but I'm frankly surprised at the number of spelling mistakes? You would have thought someone would spell check a document like that before posting it up on a University website ;)
 

terryl965

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Who is this Dohrenwend? I am curious as to what makes him qualified to make this assertion. Just because he is unaware seems a pretty poor basis for such an assertion.



During the occupation native martial arts and the like were forbidden on pain of death. I certainly wouldn't deem lack of documentary evidence to be much use in proving (or disproving) anything.

Surely I'm not the only one who practices pushing kicks?

No we practice them as well.
 

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