I think there are some fundamental issues that are tied up with the history of TKD and its relevance to the
practice of TKD. The contrast Last Fearner drew in his post was between influence on the one hand and origin on the other. The opposition I'm concerned with is a little different, but it possibly comes down to the same thing: my take on the question is that the history of a MA may be
relevant to its technical interpretation, but doesn't necessarily exhaust its technical content. In simple cases, yes, the MA has inherited from the practitioners of the past an overall strategy, a set of tactics, and a repertoire of techs that implement those tactics; so if you had a complete technical history of the MA, it would match up perfectly with what people do, or
can do, with that art. But in complicated cases—and I think KMAs have very tangled histories—that's not the case in any straightforward way. The role of hyungs is a striking example of this in TKD for reasons that I'll get to later on.
But because the history of an MA may offer clues about that technical content, I'm anxious to get the best possible sense of just how plausible this or that given interpretation of a particular story about the development of that MA is—how much credence, regardless of our own preferences, can we give that story, based on the existence (or not) of evidence which should lead us to favor that story as vs. many others for which we have no analogous evidence. This is what historians worry about all the time, but I'm not interested in the history of TKD for academic reasons; I want to know certain specific things about its past because of very practical concerns—what light will that knowledge shed on how I train TKD, how I identify the resources of that art so I can take advantage of them?
Some of what appeared to be an issue between me and LF involved the way I interpreted his use of quotation marks around the word
proof; I now understand that he was using them to indicate emphasis, to highlight the somewhat problematic status of the notion of proof when applied to real-world events, as opposed say to a logical or mathematical proof which, if reasoned correctly, is final and admits no uncertainty. And I heartily agree! In science, and that much more in history, there is no absolute proof, just relative degrees of plausibility. So amount of evidence can prove that something did or did not happen; there are always `escape hatch' scenarios that none of the available evidence rules out, though they may not seem very likely. So no issue here, and I thank LF for taking my concerns seriously and clarifying his intentions so courteously, and I'm on the same page with him here.
The substantive issues that we seem to go keep circling on this and other threads has to do with the following issues:
(i) what were people using to defend themselves on the Korean peninsula in deeply ancient times? How much do we know, and what can we confidently infer from all of the evidence we have—documentary, archaeological, whatever?
(ii) how much of the practice we're trying to discover in (i) came down to modern times, in anything like its ancient form?
(iii) how much of the `relic knowledge' alluded to in (ii) was incorporated into the modern form of the MA, as reflected in the teachings and training methods of the people who we can identify as the modern sources of that art?
(iv) what is the relationship between the inventory of resources that are present in the modern form of the MA (including any relic knowledge as per (iii)) and the available technical content of that MA?
The last of these questions, (iv), is in some way the trickiest, because there is an implicit `should' implied in it: it could be paraphrased, `Given what we have now, and what we are reliably sure we had in the past, what should we regard as the available content of this art? What should we be doing such that we can say, we do just this art?'. This is an issue that arises in a very practical way when it comes time to judge what the role of the hyungs is in our overall take on TKD.
LF has a number of suggestions about the best answers to at least several of these questions:
A. I believe that unarmed combat skills have been established as being present in the Chosen Peninsula during the three kingdoms period. I believe that these skills were used effectively by average citizens for self defense, and as a form of resistance to military aggression. These skills were likely reproduced in sport games, which became more popular as the demand for combat usage declined.
B. I accept the inference that these unarmed combat skills were most likely handed down in various forms from those who migrated into the peninsula and became a part of the unique culture of these indigenous people during the 1st century AD. I further believe that these combat skills were handed down from one generation to the next creating a teacher/student relationship.
C. Lastly, I believe that the moral culture, perseverance, and integrity of these early Korean ancestors was unique, and their efforts to unify the three kingdoms and repel attacks from foreign armies using their unarmed combat skills as part of their arsenal qualifies what they did as the true essence of a "Martial Art." I believe that the unique characteristics displayed among these early inhabitants were later recorded within the Hwarang-do, and exemplify the true Martial Spirit and tenets which are the bedrock of today's Taekwondo.
All of these three things combined, convince me that the reports of early skills of unarmed combat in Korea is genuine, and qualifies as a Martial Art. I believe that these skills have been called many things over the centuries, and have evolved in their overall development. In 1955, the Korean Government supported the efforts to unify what existed at that time, and give a name to the national Art. This means, first and foremost, that the reality of the ancient skills which existed before, was being recognized and renamed. The name they chose was "Taekwondo" thus this is the name of the ancient skills, regardless of what those skills were. This new name was also used and applies to the modern application, and development of Korean Martial Art for future use in self defense, sport, health and fitness.
It is a modern National Art as well as an ancient one. The name "Taekwondo" applies to both. The influence of Japanese Martial Art upon the Kwans is absolute, but the modern instruction of Taekwondo, as taught by Korean standards, is not a duplication of Japanese Martial Art, but a culmination of the ancient origin of Taekwondo in old Chosen, and the modern knowledge of current self defense skills.
So LF's view is that there is indeed certain plausibility to the idea that we already have a specific and robust set of skills unique to the Korean peoples of the Three Kingdoms era, and that these were preserved and transmitted, though we don't necessarily have a definitive picture of just what their technical content as combat arts was, in terms of striking, unbalancing, grappling and other relevant methods of self defense. LF, is this a responsible summary/paraphrase of your take on my questions (i)—(iii)? The crux of the problem, and some of the disagreement between us, is I think highlighted in LF's statement `This means, first and foremost, that the reality of the ancient skills which existed before, was being recognized and renamed. The name they chose was "Taekwondo" thus this is the name of the ancient skills, regardless of what those skills were. This new name was also used and applies to the modern application, and development of Korean Martial Art for future use in self defense, sport, health and fitness.'
The difficulty I see is this, even granting the reality of these unique ancient arts: if their detailed technical content isn't known, then their is the danger of thinking that
because the name Taewondo was intended to apply to include these arts, we
therefore can assume that that ancient content still resides in the actual practice of TKD as determined, say, by the Kukkiwon curriculum. So LF's point really rests on the degree to which we can be reliably confident that these ancients skills persisted and were part of current practice at the time that TKD was named as such. I base my somewhat bleak judgment of this degree on the work of people like Stan Henning and other MA historians who have the language and philological skills to undertake research with the relevant ancient Korean, Chinese and Japanese documents that bear on the point; I've cited Henning's conclusions in earlier posts, and it seems to be that, based on the surviving evidence, he makes a convincing case. So that's the basis for my persistent doubt about our ability to reliably identify the actual content of ancient Korean MAs and chart their survival and incorporation in modern Korean MA practice. And that's one of the main reasons why I think the history of the early Kwans—which would give a snapshot of that practice at the time the name `Taekwondo' was officially introduced—is so important.
The issues raised in (iv) are touched on in the following part of LF's post:
This whole discussion of Shotokan forms and their similarity to Taekwondo tuls or poomsae, is not a new revelation (although I realize new students are just discovering this). It is no secret about where Gen. Choi and the other Kwan leaders trained during the occupation, nor where they got the idea for these patterns. The point that seems to be ignored is that these forms, while important as a tool, and a deep rooted philosophy in teaching Taekwondo, do not make up the core of what Taekwondo is, nor do they identify the origin of the art. To my understanding, the concept of forms such as the Shotokan patterns did not exist in Korean Martial Art prior to the occupation, thus they are clearly not part of what Taekwondo truly is.
The modern poomsae of Taekwondo are an add-on that can have as much meaning and purpose as it does in Japanese Karate, and the concept is clearly borrowed from the Japanese system, but this is just one method of teaching what is essentially either Japanese knowledge, or Korean knowledge using a similar methodology. I support the use of forms, and believe they are an invaluable tool in teaching, but I also know that if you strip away all of the forms from Taekwondo, I can still teach students every aspect of what Taekwondo truly is, in physical self defense, exercise, mental discipline, moral culture, and spiritual enlightenment.
If I'm reading this right, LF is saying that the techniques embodied in the Shotokan/Shudokan-derived hyung patterns (as revealed, say, by the sophisticated bunkai and oyo revealed in the work of the leading-edge kata analysts in the UK and elsewhere) are definitely part of the self-defense curriculum of TKD, and have a kind of intrinsic validity, in a way that the poomsae themselved
don't have. This is reminiscent of some of the views on the `kataless karate' thread: the techs are valid, but you don't need the kata to teach them. I've argued on that thread that you actually do, but I don't want to get into that at this point, we've got enough on our plate as it is! :wink1: What I mostly want to do is make sure that I understand LF correctly. So LF: when, say, Iain Abernethy shows that the double overhead `block' and `uppercut' movements early in Pinan Shodan are best interpreted, from a combat standpoint, as a rising block to a roundhouse-type punch with a simultaneous trap by the `middle blocking' arm, leading to a lock and throw taking down the assailant, and when I find almost that exact same sequence in Palgwe Sa Jang, am I allowed, under your view of things, to take that combat tech, and the more general principles it embodies, to be part of what you're calling the substance of TKD? My impression from what you say above, or the following, suggests that you would indeed allow that:
The substance of Taekwondo is not what comes from these forms, but rather the concept of forms are used to display the substance of whatever art they are applied to. The system and patterns of forms come from Shotokan, thus the obvious resemblance, but Taekwondo itself does not come from the Japanese Martial Art. The name "Taekwondo" applies to whatever the Korean people define it as since their history was originally independent and separate from the Japanese culture, and their ancient fighting skills lacked a nationally recognized name until 1955.
Further to this, though, my impression is that different subgroups of Korean MAists have somewhat different definitions of what is the core of TKD practice. I'm not sure there is actual consensus there...
I don't know if my meaning is clear, or understood by others, but it will never change the fact that some people are focused on recent events, and others view Taekwondo as belonging to a nation of people who survived for centuries through the power of a skill and philosophy that did not come from Japan. What happened during the occupation was a sharing of knowledge, and the ancient Korean Taekwondo of the past can absorb any or all of what it is exposed to to become the Taekwondo of the present and future. Yet the core and roots of Taekwondo are unique, and does come from Korea's history prior to 1910.
This is a `big tent' view of TKD, and one I heartily sympathize with and approve of. I'd just like to make sure that the technical content that I see implicit in the poomsae that have evolved in TKD has a place under that tent....
I'm also interested in what you think about the relationship between TKD and Tang Soo Do. This question seems somehow to have an important place in the discussion, since originally the two split off, institutionally, from a single set of related fighting systems, and TSD practitioners (as Master Penfil has observed in several posts) explicitly embrace the bunkai associated with the Okinawan kata that have become almost literally incorporated into the technical content of their system.
Well, I've done the best I can to explain this in a larger sense. I hope it does not confuse others as to the true meaning.
Thanks for your time
CM D.J. Eisenhart
And thank you, very much, sir, for
your time and care in explicating your thinking and analysis. As I said in my earlier post, that book would be a watershed contribution to our understanding of KMA. Sorry this is so long... but it's a
BIG topic, and I think a critically important one.
