'Korean karate': candor and denial

[exile]

I've been wondering about this for quite a while: while it's not unusual for Tang Soo Do people to refer to their art as Korean karate, anyone who does that within Taekwondo is almost certainly going to get a line of flak from representatives of the Korean TKD directorate, or what Lenin would have referred to as their 'useful idiots' in the West, that TKD is a purely Korean art, has no substantial debt to Shotokan or other Japanese karate styles, and represents a significantly different fighting system from karate.

Now here's what I find very strange about this: Hwang Kee was the one and only founder of one of the original five kwans who did not learn his martial arts as a Korean visitor to a Japanese karate dojo in the 1930s. Lee Won Kuk (Chung Do Kwan), Byung Jik Ro (Song Moo Kwan) and Choi Hong Hi (Oh Do Kwan) earned dan belts in Shotokan, and Yoon Pyung In (Chang Moo Kwan) earned a 5th Dan from Toyama Kanken in Shudokan. Hwang Kee alone did not study in Japan, and denied all his life—until his very last book, The History of Moo Doo Kwan, published in 1995—that the Pyung Ahn hyungs were borrowed karate forms; as it turned out, by his own admission, they were nothing but the Pinan katas (in their Heian avatar), learned secondhand from a library book belonging to a Seoul train station where he worked (see here for some unpleasant documentation).

You'd think, given HK's own clear, conscious rejection of what he knew to be true—the Japanese origins of his own 'core' hyungs—that TSD culture would have developed the nationalist mythology of TKD's 'ancient Korean' origins to a much greater degree than TKD (after all, Song Moo Kwan is an almost literal translation of Shotokan—how much more candid can you get??) Yet it seems to be the TSD people who practice Okinawan/Japanese kata under barely transliterated Korean names, and who talk about, and compare, karate and TSD bunkai, and who (for the most part) acknowledge the authority of the Okinawan karate masters who have preserved the bunkai for these forms for the last half-dozen or so generations. Much of the TKD world, on the other hand—including the American branch plants of the Korean TKD directorate—are engaged in promoting the same revisionist legendary fantasies (as per the bit of fraudulent mythmongering here) that began with General Choi, and which one hears in all kinds of venues—even, occasionally, in the otherwise cold- and clear-eyed annals of MartialTalk.

Does anyone have an explanation for why TSD people seem so much more comfortable with the sources of their art in O/J karate, even though the founder was the odd man out in never having studied karate formally in Japan? I have to say, the longer I've thought about it, the more perplexing it seems to me...

 

[JWLuiza]

I've been wondering about this for quite a while: while it's not unusual for Tang Soo Do people to refer to their art as Korean karate, anyone who does that within Taekwondo is almost certainly going to get a line of flak from representatives of the Korean TKD directorate, or what Lenin would have referred to as their 'useful idiots' in the West, that TKD is a purely Korean art, has no substantial debt to Shotokan or other Japanese karate styles, and represents a significantly different fighting system from karate.

Now here's what I find very strange about this: Hwang Kee was the one and only founder of one of the original five kwans who did not learn his martial arts as a Korean visitor to a Japanese karate dojo in the 1930s. Lee Won Kuk (Chung Do Kwan), Byung Jik Ro (Song Moo Kwan) and Choi Hong Hi (Oh Do Kwan) earned dan belts in Shotokan, and Yoon Pyung In (Chang Moo Kwan) earned a 5th Dan from Toyama Kanken in Shudokan. Hwang Kee alone did not study in Japan, and denied all his life—until his very last book, The History of Moo Doo Kwan, published in 1995—that the Pyung Ahn hyungs were borrowed karate forms; as it turned out, by his own admission, they were nothing but the Pinan katas (in their Heian avatar), learned secondhand from a library book belonging to a Seoul train station where he worked (see here for some unpleasant documentation).

You'd think, given HK's own clear, conscious rejection of what he knew to be true—the Japanese origins of his own 'core' hyungs—that TSD culture would have developed the nationalist mythology of TKD's 'ancient Korean' origins to a much greater degree than TKD (after all, Song Moo Kwan is an almost literal translation of Shotokan—how much more candid can you get??) Yet it seems to be the TSD people who practice Okinawan/Japanese kata under barely transliterated Korean names, and who talk about, and compare, karate and TSD bunkai, and who (for the most part) acknowledge the authority of the Okinawan karate masters who have preserved the bunkai for these forms for the last half-dozen or so generations. Much of the TKD world, on the other hand—including the American branch plants of the Korean TKD directorate—are engaged in promoting the same revisionist legendary fantasies (as per the bit of fraudulent mythmongering here) that began with General Choi, and which one hears in all kinds of venues—even, occasionally, in the otherwise cold- and clear-eyed annals of MartialTalk.

Does anyone have an explanation for why TSD people seem so much more comfortable with the sources of their art in O/J karate, even though the founder was the odd man out in never having studied karate formally in Japan? I have to say, the longer I've thought about it, the more perplexing it seems to me...

The internet.

This process really changed when we all realized Ship Soo was Jutte and Wansu was Enpi and Oh Sip Sa Bo was etc etc... And the story that we didn't know who created this form was too obviously hogwash. What was so interesting was the speed with which the TSD world quickly embraced the truth... to the point that it didn't really matter. Out of sight out of mind.

There is a TSD old school practitioner, John Hancock, he can tell you a great story about what happened when he tried to broach this subject with H.C. Hwang in the 1980s.

 

[SageGhost83]

Interesting, and I find it to be extremely ironic given the circumstances of the the two arts (TKD and TSD). I don't do TSD, but I would venture to guess that since TSD was never used as an ultra-nationalist tool to spread Korean identity, then the need to separate it from its Japanese roots was never anywhere near as strong as TKD's need to do so. So much stock was put into TKD by its founders to make it the national art of Korea and to give it a Korean identity that to suggest and/or reveal that the art actually had roots in another country, a hated country in their eyes too, was very offensive to them. Whereas, TSD was never built up to be something that it was not, therefore their practitioners have no problem admitting the truth about their art. I guess that admitting that their national art actually came from another country and not their own would cause them to lose an ungodly amount of face. TSD was never made out to be something that it actually isn't, so it is no big deal to reveal what it actually is. Hwang Kee denied the origins of the Hyungs, but it was more of an omission than a revision on his part. He never called his art "The Korean Martial Art", and he never claimed that the art was practiced by ancient Korean warriors. Furthermore, he never made such claims one of the major cornerstones and/or selling points of his art. So TSD has nothing to lose and never had anything to lose when it came to reavealing the truth. It is okay for a Tang So Doin to openly admit the truth, whereas a Taekwandoin is forced to accept revisionist history and wild claims lest he be frowned upon by his own martial arts establishment for revealing the uncomfortable truth that nobody within the style seems to want to accept.

 

[e ship yuk]

Marketing.

Several instructors I've spoken with, who trained with Koreans back when they first started coming over, say they called it karate because that's the word everyone knew. If you said "tangsoodo" or "taekwondo", people would have no idea what you were talking about, but if you said "karate," they'd say, "Oh! Hi-YAH!" and understand.

Why are the TSD guys okay with acknowledging their roots? Likely because they show. Who can't look at those forms and notice the similarities? Even if they denied it before, once GM Hwang acknowledged the ancestry in his book in 1995, the cat was out. No use denying it after that. But... he did this after starting the introduction of the Chil Sung and Yuk-ro forms.

(after all, Song Moo Kwan is an almost literal translation of Shotokan—how much more candid can you get??)

I believe both Lee Won-kuk and Byung Jik-ro were open in naming their schools after the Shotokan. There's an anecdote about GM Lee saying something to the effect of "You do not name the child after the father." True? Your guess is as good as mine.

There is a TSD old school practitioner, John Hancock, he can tell you a great story about what happened when he tried to broach this subject with H.C. Hwang in the 1980s.

Heh... exile actually linked to that article.

 

[SageGhost83]

Also, a friend of mine told me this story:

There is a swimming pool outside next to the neighbor's house and it is ice cold outside because it is deep in the winter. TSD dipped its big toe into the pool but pulled it out very quickly and decided to stay away from it. However, TKD not only dove head first into the pool, but started swimming in it and doing the back stroke. Now TKD is in the hospital and being treated for hypothermia. The doctors ask how she caught hypothermia in the first place and she says that she was outside working in the brutal winter and doing something noble because she is too ashamed to admit that she dove into a swimming pool during the winter in the first place. The doctors initially buy her story, but upon further study of her condition learn that it doesnt' quite add up. Her clothes are too wet and her hair is soaked, as well. They call her parents, and upon their questioning of the neighbor who was actually watching the whole thing without either TSD or TKD being aware of him, they find out that TSD dipped her big toe into the pool and that TKD has actually dove into the pool and gone swimming in it. TSD has no problem admitting to the parents that she stuck her big toe into the swimming pool but quickly pulled it out after realizing that it was a bad idea. However, TKD denied and still continues to deny, to both her parents and the doctors, that she dove into the swimming pool even though all of the evidence and eyewitness stories prove otherwise. Now why does TSD have no problem admitting its mistake? it is because it was a minor mistake that is easily forgotten. TKD hasn't and still won't admit its mistake because it was a very stupid one to make and she would be a total laughing stock if she were to admit it.

 

[exile]

Also, a friend of mine told me this story:

There is a swimming pool outside next to the neighbor's house and it is ice cold outside because it is deep in the winter. TSD dipped its big toe into the pool but pulled it out very quickly and decided to stay away from it. However, TKD not only dove head first into the pool, but started swimming in it and doing the back stroke. Now TKD is in the hospital and being treated for hypothermia. The doctors ask how she caught hypothermia in the first place and she says that she was outside working in the brutal winter and doing something noble because she is too ashamed to admit that she dove into a swimming pool during the winter in the first place. The doctors initially buy her story, but upon further study of her condition learn that it doesnt' quite add up. Her clothes are too wet and her hair is soaked, as well. They call her parents, and upon their questioning of the neighbor who was actually watching the whole thing without either TSD or TKD being aware of him, they find out that TSD dipped her big toe into the pool and that TKD has actually dove into the pool and gone swimming in it. TSD has no problem admitting to the parents that she stuck her big toe into the swimming pool but quickly pulled it out after realizing that it was a bad idea. However, TKD denied and still continues to deny, to both her parents and the doctors, that she dove into the swimming pool even though all of the evidence and eyewitness stories prove otherwise. Now why does TSD have no problem admitting its mistake? it is because it was a minor mistake that is easily forgotten. TKD hasn't and still won't admit its mistake because it was a very stupid one to make and she would be a total laughing stock if she were to admit it.

Heavens above, that is a very funny image... :lol:

 

[MBuzzy]

As E Ship Yuk said.....I agree, it is all marketing. My Korean instructor in Korea always called it Korean Karate. But he taught on a military base. The average American knows exactly what TKD is, but has never heard of TSD. Karate is just the generic word anyway! Tang Soo Do is a translation of the characters for Karate, so we're basically just calling it what it is in a different language.

Plus, it is too cumbersome to say "Japanese Karate with some chinese influence, brought together by a Korean and practiced in Korea."

 

[e ship yuk]

Tang Soo Do is a translation of the characters for Karate, so we're basically just calling it what it is in a different language.

You know, I just recalled an older book on Taekwondo, I think by S. Henry Cho, that said very clearly it was called karate in public... I wonder if he meant Karate, or one of the Korean variants, Tang/Kongsoodo...

Can't seem to find the quote online, but he did write a book called "Taekwondo: The Secrets of Korean Karate." My instructor had that book, so it may be in there somewhere...

Son Duk-song of the Chung Do Kwan also wrote a couple of books that have Korean Karate in the title: "Korean Karate" and "Black Belt Korean Karate." The former is pretty common, but the latter is pretty rare; hey, there's actually a couple of copies up on Half.com for about $100, with shipping... good price for them. Cheapest on Amazon is around $180.

Plus, it is too cumbersome to say "Japanese Karate with some chinese influence, brought together by a Korean and practiced in Korea."

Tangsoodo sums that one up pretty nicely, when you think about it: the Korean pronunciation of a Japanese art whose name refers to China. You'd almost think they did that on purpose.

 

[JWLuiza]

You know, I just recalled an older book on Taekwondo, I think by S. Henry Cho, that said very clearly it was called karate in public... I wonder if he meant Karate, or one of the Korean variants, Tang/Kongsoodo...

Can't seem to find the quote online, but he did write a book called "Taekwondo: The Secrets of Korean Karate." My instructor had that book, so it may be in there somewhere...

Son Duk-song of the Chung Do Kwan also wrote a couple of books that have Korean Karate in the title: "Korean Karate" and "Black Belt Korean Karate." The former is pretty common, but the latter is pretty rare; hey, there's actually a couple of copies up on Half.com for about $100, with shipping... good price for them. Cheapest on Amazon is around $180.



Tangsoodo sums that one up pretty nicely, when you think about it: the Korean pronunciation of a Japanese art whose name refers to China. You'd almost think they did that on purpose.

First, Exile: Sorry I didn't click all the links, still good post!

Second, I'm wondering how much chinese influence that TSD groups have that broke off pre-Chil Sun, Yuk Rho, and Hwa Sun... My school falls roughly into that category and we have almost nil chinese influence. It would be interesting to compare.

 

[foot2face]

...it's not unusual for Tang Soo Do people to refer to their art as Korean karate, anyone who does that within Taekwondo is almost certainly going to get a line of flak from representatives of the Korean TKD directorate, or what Lenin would have referred to as their 'useful idiots' in the West, that TKD is a purely Korean art, has no substantial debt to Shotokan or other Japanese karate styles, and represents a significantly different fighting system from karate.

...acknowledge the authority of the Okinawan karate masters who have preserved the bunkai for these forms for the last half-dozen or so generations. Much of the TKD world, on the other hand—including the American branch plants of the Korean TKD directorate—are engaged in promoting the same revisionist legendary fantasies (as per the bit of fraudulent mythmongering here) that began with General Choi, and which one hears in all kinds of venues—even, occasionally, in the otherwise cold- and clear-eyed annals of MartialTalk.

You see Exile, these are precisely the kinds of comments you continually make that attract the ire of other TKDist. You may practice a variant of TKD that has remained very close to its JMA roots but many others do not. For some reason you refuse to acknowledge the fact that many TKDist practice a MA that has evolved far from its JMA roots. A system that is governed by different philosophies, employs different tactics, make use of different training methods and relies on a different skill set. How much more needs to be changed before you accept that its no longer karate? Implying that those who don’t bow down to the superiority of the Okinawan masters and their bunkai are “useful idiots” myth mongering Korean propaganda, a sentiment you’ve expressed numerous times, is perhaps not the most productive manner by to engage others in a debate.
Be Well -F2F

 

[shesulsa]

Goodness.

I think I'll try Judo.

Aloha!

 

[terryl965]

Goodness.

I think I'll try Judo.

Aloha!

I'm with you Judo it is. Can I buy a round of Judo for everybody, Judo on me

 

[IcemanSK]

I'm with you Judo it is. Can I buy a round of Judo for everybody, Judo on me

I'm in!

 

[exile]

You see Exile, these are precisely the kinds of comments you continually make that attract the ire of other TKDist. You may practice a variant of TKD that has remained very close to its JMA roots but many others do not. For some reason you refuse to acknowledge the fact that many TKDist practice a MA that has evolved far from its JMA roots. A system that is governed by different philosophies, employs different tactics, make use of different training methods and relies on a different skill set. How much more needs to be changed before you accept that its no longer karate? Implying that those who don’t bow down to the superiority of the Okinawan masters and their bunkai are “useful idiots” myth mongering Korean propaganda, a sentiment you’ve expressed numerous times, is perhaps not the most productive manner by to engage others in a debate.
Be Well -F2F

Reread my comments about 'useful idiots', f2f, and what you will see is that it specifically picks out those in the West who echo the Korean nationalist propaganda about the historical sources of TKD. It has nothing to do with what has happened in the technique set of TKD in the last forty years. Just to refresh readers' memories, the passage in question is this:

...anyone who does that within Taekwondo is almost certainly going to get a line of flak from representatives of the Korean TKD directorate, or what Lenin would have referred to as their 'useful idiots' in the West, that TKD is a purely Korean art, has no substantial debt to Shotokan or other Japanese karate styles, and represents a significantly different fighting system from karate. ...Much of the TKD world, on the other hand—including the American branch plants of the Korean TKD directorate—are engaged in promoting the same revisionist legendary fantasies (as per the bit of fraudulent mythmongering here) that began with General Choi....​

There are three conditions, as per my color coding, and the people I'm referring to are the ones who insist on all three conditions without the slightest effort to support them, as per the site given as the illustration. Follow that link, and this is what you will read:

Taekwondo is purely Korean in origin as the beginnings of true Korean culture are believed to have developed in 2332 B.C. with the establishment of the Ancient Korean State. ​

The issue is where TKD came from, what its combat roots are, and what that says about the underlying unity of the two sets of fighting systems. Why conflate this issue with that of bunkai, or the post-Kwan evolution of TKD, or anything else, other than the color-coded three conditions that are specified in my OP?? I was specifically talking about 'revisionist legendary fantasies', as per the site I linked to. In my OP, isn't it clear that I was talking about the sources in O/J martial arts for the MA that became TKD, accepted with no question by TSDists but denied by the Korean orgs and their Western apologists? Who is asking anyone to bow to the superiority of anyone? The 'Western apologists' in question, who I was referring to as the analogue of Lenin's useful idiots, do three particular things, the things I mentioned in the first paragraph, none of which has anything to do with bunkai, or the superiority of one or another system... ah, hell, what's the bloody point, if you aren't going to even read what I've written?!

 

[JWLuiza]

I'm in!

Wait,

the Korean's call it Yudo.

I don't see the attack or the issue here though. The politics behind a MA don't dictate the quality of the practitioners. Maybe I don't see it since I don't have a dog in this fight. Overall the argument doesn't really matter except from an academic point of view.

 

[foot2face]

Reread my comments about 'useful idiots', f2f, and what you will see is that it specifically picks out those in the West who echo the Korean nationalist propaganda about the historical sources of TKD. It has nothing to do with what has happened in the technique set of TKD in the last forty years. Just to refresh readers' memories, the passage in question is this:

...anyone who does that within Taekwondo is almost certainly going to get a line of flak from representatives of the Korean TKD directorate, or what Lenin would have referred to as their 'useful idiots' in the West, that TKD is a purely Korean art, has no substantial debt to Shotokan or other Japanese karate styles, and represents a significantly different fighting system from karate. ...Much of the TKD world, on the other hand—including the American branch plants of the Korean TKD directorate—are engaged in promoting the same revisionist legendary fantasies (as per the bit of fraudulent mythmongering here) that began with General Choi....​

There are three conditions, as per my color coding, and the people I'm referring to are the ones who insist on all three conditions without the slightest effort to support them, as per the site given as the illustration. Follow that link, and this is what you will read:

Taekwondo is purely Korean in origin as the beginnings of true Korean culture are believed to have developed in 2332 B.C. with the establishment of the Ancient Korean State. ​

The issue is where TKD came from, what its combat roots are, and what that says about the underlying unity of the two sets of fighting systems. Why conflate this issue with that of bunkai, or the post-Kwan evolution of TKD, or anything else, other than the color-coded three conditions that are specified in my OP?? I was specifically talking about 'revisionist legendary fantasies', as per the site I linked to. In my OP, isn't it clear that I was talking about the sources in O/J martial arts for the MA that became TKD, accepted with no question by TSDists but denied by the Korean orgs and their Western apologists? Who is asking anyone to bow to the superiority of anyone? The 'Western apologists' in question, who I was referring to as the analogue of Lenin's useful idiots, do three particular things, the things I mentioned in the first paragraph, none of which has anything to do with bunkai, or the superiority of one or another system... ah, hell, what's the bloody point, if you aren't going to even read what I've written?!

No, no Exile, I did read your post. Again, I fear I was unclear and you misunderstood me. My comment was directed more towards your manner of expression rather than the exact content of your post. Your comments sometimes read as being a bit, well…Elitist, it just rubs some the wrong way. Many others have a perspective on the art that is completely different than your own and not necessarily an invalid one. Perhaps if you dial it back a bit and soften your approach others who were once hostile to you might become more receptive to your message and we all can have a productive conversation.

 

[arnisador]

I've always believed it must be that TSD people wanted to distinguish themselves from TKD people in clear and unambiguous ways. If the TKD people admitted that TKD is SHotokan, the TSD people might well be claiming that TSD is directly passed from the Hwa Rang warriors.

 

[exile]

No, no Exile, I did read your post. Again, I fear I was unclear and you misunderstood me. My comment was directed more towards your manner of expression rather than the exact content of your post. Your comments sometimes read as being a bit, well…Elitist, it just rubs some the wrong way.

Sorry about that, really—I'm not elitist at all, I don't think, at least in this domain; I claim no superiority for my take, or my school's take, on TKD. My sole concern in all this is the distortion of history that has become almost a disease in many parts of the MA world. I'm not really concerned with how people chose to develop TKD after the Kwan era—to each their own, and experimentation in different directions is good. But what I hate is the way mythology and nationalist sentiment—no matter how much the latter is justified by conditions under a hated occupation!—can be combined by self-serving state level agencies to erase the past. I believe very much in the truth of the German epigram that The past is not past, and the dead are not dead—that there is a living aspect to the forces which created something that still persists in the created object, or social arrangement, or whatever. In the case of the MAs, one of those enduring elements is the combat knowledge and experience of those who created the kata and forms which—spliced, diced and recombined, as they are—continue to live in discrete subsequences of movements in our hyungs. The strategic and tactical possibilities that were the whole reason those subsequences were constructed by the early karate masters represent a valuable combat resource, if we learn, through bunkai/boonhae, to decode them.

But we both know, I think, that the Japanese, along with their Korean guests, received a relatively quite diluted understanding of the most effective bunkai for the kata that Funakoshi taught, in part because, as Higaki details, the Okinawans did not want to teach the Japanese their best techs. So it is very important to at least understand the original versions of these forms before they were Koreanized, in order to extract what information we can (even if we decide, as you've attempted, to work out practical applications on the basis of these revised forms). Revise away, but don't lose the information that's implicit in them from their original construction. And that's what I see in great danger of happening as the current Korean sport regime emphasizes a more and more spectacle-based, wushu-like interpetation of TKD performance, and as the sparring rules of Olympic TKD become more and more artificial and athletic-spectacular in nature—a tendency which is accompanied by this propaganda I was pointing out, echoed in that link I posted to USA Taekwondo. I find it angering and depressing that American TKD organizations act as cat's-paws for the Korean sport TKD's efforts to deracinate TKD and erase its past by asserting, with no proof or support or rationale—as though we were a bunch of gullible nitwits eager to line up to buy bridges over major rivers—the kind of rubbish that that site I linked to is putting out. I don't think that's elitist; it's just a sense that the historical truth is recoverable, and needs to be recovered and preserved, so that we know what happened, whatever we choose to do with that knowledge downstream. I like the kind of TKD I do, but I'd certainly never apply a predicate like better to it (though I definitely believe that certain combat techs in any given situation may well be better than others; but that's not what you're talking about, I don't think).

What I hate are lies on behalf of special interests, which is what things like the text in that site I linked to represents disgustingly clearly. I can at least understand it in the case of the Koreans themselves, though I don't believe anything justifies suppressing the true story of the past to create a more comfortable storyline for the present. But seeing American organizations, and individuals, collaborating in this kind of activity really sickens me. And what I find so striking is that so little of that seems to happen in the TSD community, compared to what happens in the TKD world, and I've just been wondering why...

 

[Kacey]

But seeing American organizations, and individuals, collaborating in this kind of activity really sickens me. And what I find so striking is that so little of that seems to happen in the TSD community, compared to what happens in the TKD world, and I've just been wondering why...

Dunno... when I first started in 1987, such things happened, more because people passed down half-remembered tidbits than out of any desire to pass on misinformation. As I spend more time in TKD, and have more opportunity to talk to my seniors - they don't do that. My seniors - especially Master Arnold, and his sahbum, GM Lang, but also the seniors, masters, and GMs I have met in multiple other TKD organizations, have a wealth of information about TKD and Korean history that they love to share - in fact, that they desperately want to share, lest it be lost. From the time I became senior enough to really care, I have been provided with information that is correct to the best of my seniors' steadily increasing knowledge.

I understand the desire for correct information, and I understand that you are speaking from your experiences - but my experiences are different than yours, and cover a longer time frame with a different group of people. And, while many of those people knew little about the history of TKD specifically and Korea in general, most did not pass on misinformation - some of the information was distorted by the filters of the people providing it, but none of it was wrong. So when you state, as in the bolded part of your post above, that you see much greater willingness to look for "truth" in TSD than TKD, I have to disagree from my own experiences - and when you speak for the TKD community as if everyone had the same experiences you have, I tend to tune out, because my experience was radically different than yours, and, in fact, in direct opposition to what you see as representing the "group" that is TKD practitioners.

 

[exile]

Dunno... when I first started in 1987, such things happened, more because people passed down half-remembered tidbits than out of any desire to pass on misinformation. As I spend more time in TKD, and have more opportunity to talk to my seniors - they don't do that. My seniors - especially Master Arnold, and his sahbum, GM Lang, but also the seniors, masters, and GMs I have met in multiple other TKD organizations, have a wealth of information about TKD and Korean history that they love to share - in fact, that they desperately want to share, lest it be lost. From the time I became senior enough to really care, I have been provided with information that is correct to the best of my seniors' steadily increasing knowledge.

I understand the desire for correct information, and I understand that you are speaking from your experiences - but my experiences are different than yours, and cover a longer time frame with a different group of people. And, while many of those people knew little about the history of TKD specifically and Korea in general, most did not pass on misinformation - some of the information was distorted by the filters of the people providing it, but none of it was wrong. So when you state, as in the bolded part of your post above, that you see much greater willingness to look for "truth" in TSD than TKD, I have to disagree from my own experiences - and when you speak for the TKD community as if everyone had the same experiences you have, I tend to tune out, because my experience was radically different than yours, and, in fact, in direct opposition to what you see as representing the "group" that is TKD practitioners.

Well, I think that the way things work in the ITF-connected TKD world may be quite a bit different than in the WTF/KKW-connected world (where sites such as the one I posted that link to, the TKD America site, are legion). And that also suggests a commonality with TSD: both Hwang Kee and General Choi wound up leaving Korea and disconnecting themselves from the national institutions of Korean martial art/martial sport. And even though Gen. Choi was probably the major initiatior of this official line on lack of relationship between TKD and its karate origins, it could well be that that disconnection from the Korean political scene made a major difference in both the TSD and the ITF cultures, in their attitudes toward history. For a long time, the Korean sport TKD world has been taking this same line, the one eched in the TKD America site, for reasons probably deeply connected with their desire to link a vast martial competition empire with an exclusively Korean identity—for any number of profitable reasons. Neither TSD nor ITF TKD have that incentive, so there wouldn't be anything like the same kind of pressure of the kind I was referring to...