Korean for "Stance" Seogi &/or Kubi?

[IcemanSK]

In the 2006 Kukkiwon textbook (& in the dvd) the word for "Stance" is Seogi. But then, they go on to say that the terms for front & back stance is "Kubi". Can anyone help me with the distinction here? What is the translation of Kubi if the term for stance is Seogi?

I expect that this thread will be moved eventually into the Hangul thread in KMA.

 

[ATC]

They just shortened the term.

Ahp sohgi = Walking stance
Ahpkubi sohgi = Forward stance.

So they just dropped the sohgi and call it Ahp kubi. This is the same for the Dwi Kubi as well. It is really Dwikubi Sohgi.

Hope this helps.

 

[MBuzzy]

Iceman,

This looks to me like a bit of mis-translation. Many times, english speakers confuse the way Koreans write words. Since they write in syllables, many english speakers think that each syllable is a separate word. This is not true. You can't always break down a word into its syllables and get new words. Now, I assume that the Kukkiwon references were done by a native Korean speaker, so I will assume that something was either 1) lost in translation or 2) done in Korean slang and misunderstood in the translation. There are plenty of Korean slang words that we really don't recognize.

SO, the actual word for stance is Jaseh -자세
But, if you look in a Korean dictionary, you will find these translations...
Forward stance - apgubi seogi - 앞굽이 서기
Back stance - dwisgubi seogi - 뒷굽이 서기
Horse riding stance - juchum seogi - 주춤 서기
Tiger stance - beomseogi - 범서기

First, let's look at the word seogi, this is actually a conjugation for the word stand - seoda. So each of the different stances are really ways of standing. The word jaseh is actually the word stance. The two are just used differently in english than they are in Korean.

Notice the "gubi" part of front stance and back stance. Gubi by itself is a word, but in the Korean dictionary, the word means "bend" or "winding." I don't see how that relates to stance. So I am assuming that the two syllable part of those words, 굽이 (gubi) was actually misunderstood as a separate word.

I will take a look at the Hanmun translations too and see if I can find anything there.

 

[MBuzzy]

Oh one thing that I forgot to mention - I'm sure that you know this part though...the word "ahp" means front and "dwi" means turning or rear. But the gobi part....just another part of the word to the best of my knowledge.

 

[IcemanSK]

ATC's answer seems to make sense in this instance (sorry MBuzzy). A shortened version of the word seems to have been what they've done. Is there some key to discover why/how a name is either Kubi or Seogi?

Since the KKW has now come up with "official" terminology, they have chosen these. (eg. DwiKubi= back stance. Ap kubi= front stance. Ap Soegi = walking stance). Much like judo seems to have done years ago by making a term in the original language the "official" term of the techniques. The intent, I assume, is unification of techniques & terminology. It does make sense. I like idea better than 3 Americans from 3 different dojangs calling the same technique 3 different things.

 

[Dusty]

i'm gonna through my two cents in here and make it even more confusing!!
I had the pleasure of being able to sit down and have lunch with Grandmaster Hwang (formerly of the itf, now of the unified tkd federation)
i train in itf tkd, wtf tkd and kuk sool hapkido. Each style has a different name for the same flippin technique. so i asked him why that is and his explanation made a lot of sense. he said that a lot of terms used in the older curriculums use korean terms that are direct translations of japanese words into korean words. the newer curriculums are using true korean words. does that make sense? it did to me when he told me but there was also a lot of soju involved too.

 

[MSUTKD]

Basically 굽이 means curve or bend. I think the terminology used is "inflection" in training now; front inflection stance. The curve is the bend in your front leg.

 

[IcemanSK]

Basically 굽이 means curve or bend. I think the terminology used is "inflection" in training now; front inflection stance. The curve is the bend in your front leg.

Ok, I think understand that logic. A walking stance is Ap Soegi because one doesn't bend the legs. A front stance is Ap Kubi, because of the inflection of the front leg. I hope I can keep them all straight

 

[MBuzzy]

ATC's answer seems to make sense in this instance (sorry MBuzzy). A shortened version of the word seems to have been what they've done. Is there some key to discover why/how a name is either Kubi or Seogi?

Since the KKW has now come up with "official" terminology, they have chosen these. (eg. DwiKubi= back stance. Ap kubi= front stance. Ap Soegi = walking stance). Much like judo seems to have done years ago by making a term in the original language the "official" term of the techniques. The intent, I assume, is unification of techniques & terminology. It does make sense. I like idea better than 3 Americans from 3 different dojangs calling the same technique 3 different things.

No problem, I would agree with that. The word was probably shortened as some sort of slang as opposed to a mistranslation.

 

[MBuzzy]

i'm gonna through my two cents in here and make it even more confusing!!
I had the pleasure of being able to sit down and have lunch with Grandmaster Hwang (formerly of the itf, now of the unified tkd federation)
i train in itf tkd, wtf tkd and kuk sool hapkido. Each style has a different name for the same flippin technique. so i asked him why that is and his explanation made a lot of sense. he said that a lot of terms used in the older curriculums use korean terms that are direct translations of japanese words into korean words. the newer curriculums are using true korean words. does that make sense? it did to me when he told me but there was also a lot of soju involved too.

That is very true! There are a lot of newer curricula that are using strictly Korean words.

One things though - it may have been the soju - but the older words are kind of translations of Japanese, but not exactly. They are translations of Chinese words. Many of those Chinese words imported into Japanese, THEN into Korean. So kind of Japanese....but originally Chinese. Both Japanese and Koreans use many many chinese characters in their written language. In fact, the average Korean high school student has to learn 12,000 chinese or Hanmun characters before graduation. I assume it is similar in Japan. In fact, many academic (medical, engineering, etc) text are written entirely in hanmun (Chinese characters).