No I simply pointed you to the words of GM Lee Chong Woo who said he made it up. So who is lying? Did GM Lee lie, because he stole this idea from Gen Choi?
Here is the translation is that you are talking about:
*
[ReporterÂ’s Question]: Many Taekwondo textbooks set the time of TaekwondoÂ’s
beginnings as the pre- Three-Kingdoms Period. Even with all the historical assumptions,
it seems somewhat extreme.
[Chong Woo Lee’s Response]: “I am one of those who wrote that in a book. To
be frank, we did not have much to come out with. At an early stage in the course of our
introducing Taekwondo to foreign countries, when we said ‘Taekwondo was a Korean
traditional martial artÂ’, it was well justified and accepted. However, although there was a
resemblance, it is in fact different. Should we consult [TaekwondoÂ’s] historical origins, it
could be persuasive to say that Japan adopted their martial arts form from the Chinese
martial arts, and it flowed into Korea later. Japanese people scientifically developed
them by making many modifications from the Chinese martial arts. It seems that there
remained a problem. Japanese people put emphasis on muscle strength rather than on
flexibility in the course of developing the form of exercise. Accordingly, you cannot
avoid the body movement being stiff.”
“With this, we started competitions in order to make Taekwondo a combative
sport. On the other hand, the Japanese kept Karate as an exercise form to be done by
oneself without competition. The Chinese developed a flexible exercise with interacting
[with a partner] hand movements. In this context, Taekwondo is not inclined to either
side, but lies somewhere in the middle. To make it easy to understand, it is neither right
nor left. Neither this nor that. Meanwhile, because we held competitions, we were able
to improve drastically. As a result, China and Japan are learning from us now.
Furthermore, their martial arts did not gain popularity, whereas in Taekwondo, young
children enjoy hitting and getting hit rather than fighting by themselves.”
***
"I am one of those that wrote that in a book." I was looking through my older english Taekwondo and Tang Soo Do books and they all have that same one or two page blurb in the introduction of their 500 or 700 page book. If you have a problem with that, then your problem isn't with the pioneers, or with GM LEE Chong Woo, it's with everyone who wrote a book, because they all do it. And frankly, no one takes that stuff seriously. I know I don't. But if you wish to give credit for this "lie", then credit General Choi. Afterall, you did tell us repeatedly that he wrote the first Taekwondo book in english, right?
Gen Choi attempted to link TKD to Taek Kyon, as that would save face for Koreans as the biggest influence on TKD was karate from Japan. Or at least the 7 Koreans that learned martial arts abroad & took it back to Korea starting the 6 early kwans all studied karate, with some Chinese influnce as well. Linking his TKD to Taek Kyon simply shows that Korea had some form a indigenous martial art at some point in time prior to the occupation. Well then I guess this is another contribution by Gen Choi, no?
So if General Choi does it, it's ok, but if others do it, it's not. Got it.
Gen Choi always made clear that he came up with his system from karate. He never hide those roots at all.
He didn't do that in his 1965 book.
