In the book

[terryl965]

Palgue 1-2-3 by Kim Pyung Soo on page 12 it states that at kyongu in southeast Korea, a stone buddha sits in meditation gaurded by two statues in Tae Kwon Do stances. The figures are located in sokkuram, a ruin of the silla dynasty.

My ques tion is not to dis-respect GMKim Pyung Soo in anyway but I understand the name Tae Kwon Do was brought together in the fifties so how can they call the stances TKD, should it not be called what the silla dynasty kwan called there style of self defense. I was just wondering and not trying to start a war on this subject. I find his books on poomsae so enlighting.

By the way thank you Master Mc Lain for the copys.

 

[FieldDiscipline]

My ques tion is not to dis-respect GMKim Pyung Soo in anyway but I understand the name Tae Kwon Do was brought together in the fifties so how can they call the stances TKD

They're still stances used in TKD though.

 

[terryl965]

They're still stances used in TKD though.

I agree with that statement but what kwan was credited for those stances and how was it brought to the forefront of TKD. Since most of the older GM study in Okinawa or Japanese under Karate?

 

[Flying Crane]

Hmm... perhaps the author should have stated a bit differently: the buddha is guarded by two statues in MARTIAL stances, similar to what is used today in Tae Kwon Do...

 

[FieldDiscipline]

I would imagine they were brought through shotokan from okinawan-japanese roots. I suspect as such they were common to most of the kwans (the main kwans having been founded by the time this book was written).

 

[terryl965]

Hmm... perhaps the author should have stated a bit differently: the buddha is guarded by two statues in MARTIAL stances, similar to what is used today in Tae Kwon Do...

I guess so, was wondering what type of kwan was teaching during that time frame. I was just wondering and thought some one would have that info.

 

[WMKS Shogun]

I think Michael (Flying Crane) put it best. This could also be a case of the wonderful: "Taekwondo is a 2000 year old martial art dating back to the Silla dynasty and the Hwarang Warriors..." propaganda that many TKD instructors spout.

 

[rmclain]

I think Michael (Flying Crane) put it best. This could also be a case of the wonderful: "Taekwondo is a 2000 year old martial art dating back to the Silla dynasty and the Hwarang Warriors..." propaganda that many TKD instructors spout.

I think you've got the wrong Korean spouting 2000 yr-old propaganda if you refer to Grandmaster Kim Pyung-soo: http://www.kimsookarate.com/articles/closed-arts.html

But, you can find re-prints from his 1966-68 articles in Black Belt Magazine from time-to-time. Some of those mention the 2000 year-old-type connection. But understand, when he wrote those he was still living in Korea and under the tremendous scrutiny of other martial art peers and organizations. Korea was not really free like you have in America. He heard cries of "you're not a Korean, you're a traitor" for publishing information about some of the kwans at other times that linked their lineage to Japan. This is the primary reason he immigrated to the US in 1968 - to have the freedom to express his knowledge without fear of censure.

The Palgue 1-2-3 book was written in 1973 when he was already in America. Probably he wrote about the statue in a "Taekwondo stance" because the stance is used in TKD (also in many other arts) and the book was a "TKD form book." He dedicated the book to Kim Um-yong, to help show the English-speaking world the new forms (Palgue) from the KTA. He certainly didn't believe in the 2000 yr-old story - he lived through the Japanese occupation and witnessed the martial art school development during those years and following the Korean War. If any of you have read a detailed history book on the kwan development in Korea, you know how much paper that can take up. I think he just tried to save time by publishing a history version he wrote for Black Belt Magazine and focus on the forms. I'll ask him when I see him in a few weeks when I visit with him why he did that.

Terry,

Already the kwans weren't even allowed to use their kwan name anymore by 1967. They (the kwans) were all assigned roll call numbers during KTA events and weren't supposed to use a kwan name - due to the attempt to unify under the KTA TKD banner. They created the new forms to have a unified list of forms in which to grade students from the various schools. This is the whole reason for the new black belt form creations (1967) and the the gup-grade Palgue forms in the 1970's.

The Black Belt forms in 1967 were a collective effort of some heads of various organization, not just one kwan - though I am sure one may have had instructors with more influence.

FYI: Before their creation, Grandmaster Kim Pyung-soo (as with any kwan not associated with Choi Hong-hi) knew zero TKD forms (they weren't created yet). He knew karate, chuan-fa and bong-sul forms.

Please let me know if you have any questions you would like to pass along to Grandmaster Kim Pyung-soo. Any of you could contact him directly as well.

R. McLain

 

[exile]

Folks—just as a followup to Rob's post, you might take a look at two articles by Dakin Burdick, one in a 1997 issue of Journal of Asian Martial Arts, the other a somewhat different but partially overlapping 2000 paper available here, as well as Stanley Henning's 2000 Journal of Asian Martial Arts article `Traditional Korean Martial Arts'. They jointly establish that the sculptures in question were not only not specifically TKD (or TSD or HKD!), but not even specifically martial, and not only that, not even specifically Korean. It turns out that they are faithful examples of guardian figures common throughout the vast Eastern Han (Chinese) empire, which apparently predate even the Three Kingdoms era by quite a bit. There is nothing to connect them with any specific fighting technique, posture or activity, other than that it is implicit in being a guardian that you might strike an intimidating or threatening physical posture to make it clear that you mean business. But like so much else of traditional `ancient' KMA lore, the content here seems to be entirely due to Chinese cultural traditions practiced over a huge territory, and predating anything we know about ancient Korean culture.

It's worth noting also that Gm. Kim, in Rob's interview with him here, specifically notes that Gen. Choi started going on about `ancient' KMA technical lineage only quite late in his career, long the Kwan era, during which he was apparently quite candid about the Shotokan (and other Japanese karate) sources of the fighting systems that grew out of the Kwan founders' prewar training. Gm. Kim does not sound to me at all like a man to push patriotic pseudohistory for the MAs—look at his acerbic comments in that interview about how so many members of the Korean MA were so were so wrapped up in their hatred for the occupiers that they simply refused to believe the abundantly documented fact that the techniques they had learned, and were teaching, had come from Japan. I think Rob's explanation of what Gm. Kim had written is probably 100% correct.

This is a man who was apparently persecuted in his own country for not being what is now called politically correct. That's what happens when people decide to elevate legend to the status of history in order to serve a political objective, no matter how justified that objective (in this case, the assertion of Korean national identify) might be (and let's remember that Gm. Kim is probably just as patriotic as any of the witch-hunters who sought to root out any `collaborators' who dared to assert that their art owed its technical origins to the training in Japan, or with Japanese senior karateka, that is documented for every one of the original kwan founders). He came here, to us, in order to be able to say openly what he knew, and what is moreover abundantly documented by the highest-quality professional MA history available, without having to fear retaliation. That's something well worth thinking about.

 

[FieldDiscipline]

It's worth noting also that Gm. Kim, in Rob's interview with him here, specifically notes that Gen. Choi started going on about `ancient' KMA technical lineage only quite late in his career, long the Kwan era, during which he was apparently quite candid about the Shotokan (and other Japanese karate) sources of the fighting systems that grew out of the Kwan founders' prewar training.

I remember reading that Gen. Choi went from stating (in the beginning) that 'without karate there would be no Taekwon-Do' to (later on) 'Karate techniques were an influence' to (in the end) 'Taekwon-Do has an extensive history and is nothing to do with karate'.

The first edition Encyclopedia published by Gen. Choi ironically includes shotokan kata.

I'm sure you know this but thought I'd say it anyway...

 

[rmclain]

Another interesting piece of information:

I've been told by Grandmaster Kim that nobody knew the history/lineage of what the arts they were learning after the start of the Korean War. The first generation of Korean martial artist really didn't discuss it or disappeared upon the onset of the Korean War.

He told me that in the 1950's Master Lee Nam-sok (Changmoo-Kwan) published an article in Korea linking the Tangsoo-do/Kongsoo-Do/TKD studies to the Korguryo Dynasty, pushing the 2000 yr old history version...as most people believed it. Master Lee Nam-sok later (1960's) joined up with Choi Hong-hi to promote his Oh Do Kwan/ITF. So, perhaps Choi Hong-hi used Master Lee Nam-sok's history article for the foundation of his 2000 yr history claims.

R. McLain

 

[aplonis]

Just about every culture tries to claim for itself a uniqueness and originality which no culture, no race, no art anywhere possesses. MA is not immune to this egoistic behavior.

Research Buddhism, and particularly Buddhist art. You will find that guardian entities in martial poses flank Buddhist deities and saints in other cultures even earlier than those earliest Korean ones. Often they will be even more elaborate and threatening of aspect, sporting various weapons, sometimes with many arms to hold many weapons. It is all just symbolic iconography and not necessarily historical.

You will find the most elaborate such in the, admittedly more recent, examples of iconographic art of Tibet which has no native MA at all. I have met some Tibetan monks who know their history very well. I know one of those monks quite well indeed. All of them deny that there is any such thing as a native Tibetan MA and deny also that such art depicts any one specific, historical representation of an MA. Most such iconographic paintings are attributable to the "conversion" of a local site-specific god, or a Bon (Tibetan animism) deity to Buddhist ideals such that their symbolic wrath is turned from petty, egoistic ends toward higher more noble ones...that is to say, defending the truth from their fellow demonic types not yet converted. That would be the most base and ordinary interpretation. Higher levels of study give more esoteric interpretations.

India and other countries with equally or even more ancient Buddhist pasts than Korea's own likewise have such MA-like art forms. None of this has anything whatever to do with a specific MA in modern times. It should not be implied to lend glamor to one MA over another. This would be absolutely contrary to the Buddhist ideal itself.

Know that I am equally a 30-year buddhist and a 1st dan in TKD with a 30-year off-and-on practice in MA generally. One and all should practice and study their martial tradition as both an art and a science for its own sake and their own individual sake. No recourse to imagined historical glamor is in any way required to make it better than it is, whichever art that may be.

WMTKD

 

[terryl965]

I think you've got the wrong Korean spouting 2000 yr-old propaganda if you refer to Grandmaster Kim Pyung-soo: http://www.kimsookarate.com/articles/closed-arts.html

But, you can find re-prints from his 1966-68 articles in Black Belt Magazine from time-to-time. Some of those mention the 2000 year-old-type connection. But understand, when he wrote those he was still living in Korea and under the tremendous scrutiny of other martial art peers and organizations. Korea was not really free like you have in America. He heard cries of "you're not a Korean, you're a traitor" for publishing information about some of the kwans at other times that linked their lineage to Japan. This is the primary reason he immigrated to the US in 1968 - to have the freedom to express his knowledge without fear of censure.

The Palgue 1-2-3 book was written in 1973 when he was already in America. Probably he wrote about the statue in a "Taekwondo stance" because the stance is used in TKD (also in many other arts) and the book was a "TKD form book." He dedicated the book to Kim Um-yong, to help show the English-speaking world the new forms (Palgue) from the KTA. He certainly didn't believe in the 2000 yr-old story - he lived through the Japanese occupation and witnessed the martial art school development during those years and following the Korean War. If any of you have read a detailed history book on the kwan development in Korea, you know how much paper that can take up. I think he just tried to save time by publishing a history version he wrote for Black Belt Magazine and focus on the forms. I'll ask him when I see him in a few weeks when I visit with him why he did that.

Terry,

Already the kwans weren't even allowed to use their kwan name anymore by 1967. They (the kwans) were all assigned roll call numbers during KTA events and weren't supposed to use a kwan name - due to the attempt to unify under the KTA TKD banner. They created the new forms to have a unified list of forms in which to grade students from the various schools. This is the whole reason for the new black belt form creations (1967) and the the gup-grade Palgue forms in the 1970's.

The Black Belt forms in 1967 were a collective effort of some heads of various organization, not just one kwan - though I am sure one may have had instructors with more influence.

FYI: Before their creation, Grandmaster Kim Pyung-soo (as with any kwan not associated with Choi Hong-hi) knew zero TKD forms (they weren't created yet). He knew karate, chuan-fa and bong-sul forms.

Please let me know if you have any questions you would like to pass along to Grandmaster Kim Pyung-soo. Any of you could contact him directly as well.

R. McLain

I just want to make this point I'm in no way trying to dis-credit the man. He is very brillant and has alot of great info. To tell you the truth my Zachary was reading the book and ask me this question and since I had no right answers to give him, I thought I would ask here and get yours and other people take so I could give him a much better answer than I could give.

Master McLain so you would say it was just kinda of a typo in one aspect or another or do you believe there was some type of underline with the picture itself.

Yhank you again for the book.
Terry