J. Pickard2
Black Belt
Cross posting from the TKD page. Hoping to get some clarity.
I was reading an old interview from the founder of my Kwan, Won-kuk Lee, and in the interview he says "Of course, in the days of occupation, it was forbidden by the Japanese to teach or study any martial arts including Tang Soo Do, a Korean style. When I went to university in Japan seventy years ago Tang Soo Do training was very popular there...Outside Korea, I was allowed to study Japanese and Chinese martial arts."
The way this is worded makes it seem like he is saying there was a Korean TSD that already existed in Korea before he went to Japan. He calls the first TSD a "korean style" but then goes on to explain that the TSD he trained in Japan was Japanese. So was there a form of Karate in Korea pre annexation or is this just an odd phrasing of him comparing Korean martial arts pre-japan annexation to the more known TSD of the time?
I was reading an old interview from the founder of my Kwan, Won-kuk Lee, and in the interview he says "Of course, in the days of occupation, it was forbidden by the Japanese to teach or study any martial arts including Tang Soo Do, a Korean style. When I went to university in Japan seventy years ago Tang Soo Do training was very popular there...Outside Korea, I was allowed to study Japanese and Chinese martial arts."
The way this is worded makes it seem like he is saying there was a Korean TSD that already existed in Korea before he went to Japan. He calls the first TSD a "korean style" but then goes on to explain that the TSD he trained in Japan was Japanese. So was there a form of Karate in Korea pre annexation or is this just an odd phrasing of him comparing Korean martial arts pre-japan annexation to the more known TSD of the time?
