Karate shools that teach Taekwondo Forms on the side

[MasterWright]

A few weeks ago I sent some of my students to an Open Karate tournament which had a Korean Forms division. They asked me to be one of the judges for this event, which was fine.

However, I found out later that the center Judge had no Taekwondo Certification and was an owner of a Karate school that taught TKD forms as they interpret, them. I know that some of the competitors were from his school. Oh.... they came out with lots of hardware.

I was unimpressed with the interpretation. Screaming out the name of the form at the top of their lungs. Really low stance in WTF anf ITF forms. For instance in Gae Bek the "W" shaped block in sitting stance, I could have kicked them in the face with an Ap Chagi that was only as high as your solar plexes.

Has anyone ever come across this Bastardisation of the Korean forms that we hold dear ?

Maybe it's just me.

 

[terryl965]

I have had the same problem with little local Karate tournaments or they use the term as modified in front of the name. They mave so fast you would think they was in a race or something.

 

[exile]

I'm totally baffled. Why on earth would a Karate school teach TKD forms? Especially when you consider the fact that the older hyungs are either direct adaptations of, or recombinations of subsequences within, Okinawan/Japanese kata... what's the thinking here???

 

[clfsean]

Kettle.... black... ?????

 

[exile]

Kettle.... black... ?????

:lol:

But whole thing strikes me as crazy... Even if you were trying to cash in on the popularity (or, increasingly, notoriety) of TKD... if you're advertising yourself as a karate school, you've already got your customer base. I can't see what kind of business model makes sense of teaching TKD forms in a karate class (let alone what kind of theory of the martial curriculum would tell you to do something like that).

 

[miguksaram]

A few weeks ago I sent some of my students to an Open Karate tournament which had a Korean Forms division. They asked me to be one of the judges for this event, which was fine.

However, I found out later that the center Judge had no Taekwondo Certification and was an owner of a Karate school that taught TKD forms as they interpret, them. I know that some of the competitors were from his school. Oh.... they came out with lots of hardware.

I was unimpressed with the interpretation. Screaming out the name of the form at the top of their lungs. Really low stance in WTF anf ITF forms. For instance in Gae Bek the "W" shaped block in sitting stance, I could have kicked them in the face with an Ap Chagi that was only as high as your solar plexes.

Has anyone ever come across this Bastardisation of the Korean forms that we hold dear ?

Maybe it's just me.

This is not an uncommon incident. Open karate tournaments, aka open martial art tournaments, are not meant to be traditional tournaments in the same sense as the Hanmadang or JKA tournament. They do not adhere to the same rule structures as in traditional "closed" tournaments. I have seen Koryo done so many different ways that as I have seen Gaebek done numerous ways as well. All this from acutal TKD schools not just karate schools teaching TKD forms. In open tournaments they are not looking for KKW/ITF standards. What they are looking for are consistency in stances, power and focus. With that in mind they can get a karate person to center on a Korean forms division based on the criteria that I mentioned.

So unless the rules in the tournament say "All Korean forms must adhere to KKW/IT standards" then it is open for interpretation.

 

[Grenadier]

It's not entirely unusual.

The USA-NKF actually has a separate "Korean forms" division, and some schools enter their students into that division. Quality of performance varies, as usual...

 

[clfsean]

:lol:

But whole thing strikes me as crazy... Even if you were trying to cash in on the popularity (or, increasingly, notoriety) of TKD... if you're advertising yourself as a karate school, you've already got your customer base. I can't see what kind of business model makes sense of teaching TKD forms in a karate class (let alone what kind of theory of the martial curriculum would tell you to do something like that).

Same here much as when a school will teach something that there's no correlation to the root art. I've seen schools teaching ?MA weapons that...
a) there's no relation to ?MA for the weaponry, and
b) there's no ?MA training going on to learn the foundations for the weaponry...
that's a peeve of mine.

Same kind of deal though...

 

[bluekey88]

Sounds to me like a tyoe of "form" vcollecting. along the lines of more forms memorized = better MA...like Pokemon, ya gotta cathc 'em all.

It's BS...but hey, whatever floats yer dobok up.

Peace,
Erik

I'm totally baffled. Why on earth would a Karate school teach TKD forms? Especially when you consider the fact that the older hyungs are either direct adaptations of, or recombinations of subsequences within, Okinawan/Japanese kata... what's the thinking here???

 

[JadeDragon3]

A few weeks ago I sent some of my students to an Open Karate tournament which had a Korean Forms division. They asked me to be one of the judges for this event, which was fine.

However, I found out later that the center Judge had no Taekwondo Certification and was an owner of a Karate school that taught TKD forms as they interpret, them. I know that some of the competitors were from his school. Oh.... they came out with lots of hardware.

I was unimpressed with the interpretation. Screaming out the name of the form at the top of their lungs. Really low stance in WTF anf ITF forms. For instance in Gae Bek the "W" shaped block in sitting stance, I could have kicked them in the face with an Ap Chagi that was only as high as your solar plexes.

Has anyone ever come across this Bastardisation of the Korean forms that we hold dear ?

Maybe it's just me.

This is common on the open circuit (especially the NASKA circuit). You'll have judges from all styles judging your forms. I do Chinese kung fu and I've had judges that did TKD, Shotokan, Shaolin Do, Tang Soo Do, etc.... that have judged my performance. When judging your looking for things such as balance, power, coordination, proper hand/wrist formation when striking, stances, etc....

 

[Earl Weiss]

>>

I'm totally baffled. Why on earth would a Karate school teach TKD forms? Especially when you consider the fact that the older hyungs are either direct adaptations of, or recombinations of subsequences within, Okinawan/Japanese kata... what's the thinking here??? <<

Not so much pattern collection as trophy collection. The more divisions they enter, the more trophies they can collect.

 

[Earl Weiss]

>>Has anyone ever come across this Bastardisation of the Korean forms that we hold dear ?<<

From the posts, at least some seem to know they modified the forms.

I think that is less of a problem than those thinking they perform according to some worldwide standard and have no idea how off they are.

 

[Omar B]

Do they modify the katas to fit karate form and movement? Because I could see that playing havoc on your form learning punches and kicks one way then doing forms with a whole other set.

Edit: Just noticed somebody already answered my question.

 

[JadeDragon3]

>>
Not so much pattern collection as trophy collection. The more divisions they enter, the more trophies they can collect.

So why use forms/kata from other styles or systems. Just enter creative division, musical division, X-treme division, etc....if you just want to rack in trophies. There's enough divisions that you don't have to use forms/kata from other styles.

 

[searcher]

I can tell you the reason why they teach the forms at a karate school, it is so the students can compete in more divisions.

I competed for several years and I would notice some guys competing in Hard Okinawan/Japanese kata, Korean forms, Soft style forms, Open forms, Musical fomrs, extreme forms and this is just the empty hand portion. The weapons had the same divisions. I knew guys who would learn just one form for each division or possibly two, in case of a tie, and they would let it rip. I have seen many competitors alter traditional forms to make them more crowd pleasing or more judge pleasing. That is the reason why I quit competing in NASKA and NBL when I did.

I can top the forms thing. I had a brown belt judging my division, 4th dan & up, at one of these tourneys. These guys are frigging wacked out.

 

[JadeDragon3]

That's why I never thought it was fair for a hard stylist to judge traditional style divisions that had traditional kung fu stylists in it but it happens all the time. Not only do they not know the soft styles but they are going to be biased and judge the traditional karate styles higher than the trad. kf styles. I had a TKD person judging my div one time. whats he know about kung fu???

 

[exile]

That's why I never thought it was fair for a hard stylist to judge traditional style divisions that had traditional kung fu stylists in it but it happens all the time. Not only do they not know the soft styles but they are going to be biased and judge the traditional karate styles higher than the trad. kf styles. I had a TKD person judging my div one time. whats he know about kung fu???

Sort of like having a speed skater as a figure skating judge....

I see now why these outfits are doing this kind of thing... and it just adds a little more confirmation to my view of the culture of tournament-competitive MA practices. Me, I'll stick to the British Combat Association version!

 

[clfsean]

That's why I never thought it was fair for a hard stylist to judge traditional style divisions that had traditional kung fu stylists in it but it happens all the time. Not only do they not know the soft styles but they are going to be biased and judge the traditional karate styles higher than the trad. kf styles. I had a TKD person judging my div one time. whats he know about kung fu???

Then why bother with a tournament that you know going in that you're not going to be judged "fairly" based on MA skills???

That's kinda like bringing a knife to a gun fight...

 

[jks9199]

>>

I'm totally baffled. Why on earth would a Karate school teach TKD forms? Especially when you consider the fact that the older hyungs are either direct adaptations of, or recombinations of subsequences within, Okinawan/Japanese kata... what's the thinking here??? <<

Not so much pattern collection as trophy collection. The more divisions they enter, the more trophies they can collect.

That's what I'd say, too.

I bet the school in question brags about its "champion" programs, too.

I recall one time when a sponsoring school threw a bunch of events into a tournament that nobody knew about but them... Wanna guess which school walked away with most of the trophies?

 

[Miles]

This is not an uncommon incident. Open karate tournaments, aka open martial art tournaments, are not meant to be traditional tournaments in the same sense as the Hanmadang or JKA tournament. They do not adhere to the same rule structures as in traditional "closed" tournaments. I have seen Koryo done so many different ways that as I have seen Gaebek done numerous ways as well. All this from acutal TKD schools not just karate schools teaching TKD forms. In open tournaments they are not looking for KKW/ITF standards. What they are looking for are consistency in stances, power and focus. With that in mind they can get a karate person to center on a Korean forms division based on the criteria that I mentioned.

So unless the rules in the tournament say "All Korean forms must adhere to KKW/IT standards" then it is open for interpretation.

This is so true. This past weekend I was a referee at a tournament at which a very talented open circuit TKD student performed Koryo. Well, that's what he called it though it bore little resemblance to the KKW standard. He was clearly more athletically-talented than the other competitors in his division but he lost because his poomsae was not the standard and the tournament was a qualifier for the USAT.

After the competition, I told this young man that it would be easy for him to essentially dial-down his poomsae and do Koryo according to the KKW standard. I told him if he got permission from his instructor, I'd be happy to teach him.