Reason for all the high kicks and ariel techniques

[Gnarlie]

It was a question. It was just something I had heard from a friend who did Tae Kwon Do. I was just trying to verify the validity of it.

I have heard the myth before, but never from anyone with any experience in TKD, and certainly never from a Korean.

I have a copy of Muye Dobo Tongji, and there's certainly nothing in there about dismounting a rider with a kick.

Recently attended an evening of traditional Korean games, and it was surprising how many of them are based around use of the feet. Use of the foot for purposes other than walking does seem to be part of the culture outside of Taekwondo.

Take Jegi Chagi for example.

 

[PhotonGuy]

A brown belt in an art that doesn't traditionally include a brown belt. And that doesn't set off any alarms on your credibility meter?

Not everybody who trains in Tae Kwon Do trains in a traditional style. It goes without saying that Tae Kwon Do, along with most arts, has changed over the years and some places teach more modern versions and among the things that have changed, in some schools the ranking system might've changed and that can include adding and removing belt colors. You can find traditional schools that still teach TKD the old way and use the old system of rank but you will also find more modern TKD schools.

Now, I would put in one of your famous Star Trek pictures in this post but Im too polite.

And besides I don't consider Kreese a role model.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Rhee Taekwondo has a brown belt rank so his friend having one does not damage hie friend's credibility, his statement itself does.

There's at least one system of TKD that uses a camouflage belt. Systems are free to use whatever colors they like, of course. Doing so does immediately show that they're not following the traditions of the art but are instead establishing their own traditions. Training in a non-traditional art does make one less credible when discussing traditions and their origins. I wouldn't expect someone who practices Kendo to be familiar with the traditions of Shinto Ryu Kenjutsu.

 

[TrueJim]

The mongols did not traditionally have big horses. If I was going to jump kick a guy off a horse a mongol horse would be my choice.

That's a good point. If I did have a kick a person off a horse, I'd want it to be a small horse.

The Mongols made extensive use of the bow too though, if I'm not mistaken. In fact, I thought that's one of the things that made them so effective militarily: there were good archers in other parts of the world, and there were good horsemen in other parts of the world, but the Mongols were uniquely good at fighting specifically with bow from horseback.

I don't recall every seeing that ancient Korea had a tradition of fighting with bow from horseback, so I've always assumed the Korean archers who fought the Mongols were probably on-foot, like in this painting: File .jpg - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia .

In any case, back to the original post: if your opponent is not only on a horse (albeit a small horse) but also armed with a bow (or even a spear or sword!) I wouldn't think kicking would be that effective a tactic: by the time you're close enough to kick you've already been jabbed by something.

 

[Gnarlie]

If you attempted to kick a person off a horse, even a small one, at least one of the following two things would likely happen:

1) You would fall on your *** and get dangerously trampled post kick while the rider remained seated and stabbed you with a pike / turned you into a pincushion with arrows

2) You'd be getting a potentially lethal kick instead of doing the kicking.

Warhorses are trained to be part of the weaponry.

 

[TrueJim]

Systems are free to use whatever colors they like, of course. Doing so does immediately show that they're not following the traditions of the art but are instead establishing their own traditions.

On the other hand, looking at it another way though...

Like Choi Hong Hi, Rhee Chong Chul lived through the Japanese occupation of Korea, studied martial arts in his youth, and taught martial arts to the Korean military in the 1950s, before arriving in Australia in the 1960s. I think his schools could make a strong case for being as traditional as anybody's. I wouldn't think that Rhee taekwondo is any more or less traditional than Choi Hong Hi's taekwondo. Choi was older, but the two men were essentially contemporaries.

Same thing goes for Lee Haeng Ung: born during the Japanese occupation of Korea (though his family escaped to China to avoid the occupation), studied martial arts in his youth, and taught martial arts to the Korean military in the 1950s, before emigrating to the U.S. in 1962 and starting the ATA. I think the ATA school could also make a strong case that they're as traditional as any taekwondo.

Essentially, if the tradition started in the 1950s -- no matter which tradition it is -- it seems to me that that school could make a good case for being as traditional as taekwondo can get.

That having been said...ATA! Camouflage belts??? Gah!

Chong Chul Rhee - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Haeng Ung Lee - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[Manny]

I think TKD is a heavy kicking martial art because koreans wants to put a line beetwen tehm and japanese karate and they (the koreans) took taekyeon (an ancient korean martial art) as a model to develop TKD, may be I am going to writte something wrong but... could TKKD be the a modern version of taekyon?

Manny

 

[TrueJim]

could TKKD be the a modern version of taekyon? Manny

Even if it were, we would never know. So little record exists of taekyon that nobody really knows what it looked like. I know there's a modern martial art that calls itself taekyon, but from what I've read that style is -- at best -- just one style of taekyon, when taekyon presumably may have had may different styles. (At least, I've read conjectures that there may have been many different styles -- and when you think about it, it makes sense that there would have been -- middle-ages martial arts in other countries often had many distinct styles).

 

[jks9199]

Put this story in the same pile as the idea that karate was developed to fight unarmed against the samurai, punching through their armor. Or that kung fu was developed for out of shape monks who couldn't meditate.

 

[Drose427]

OK, so since you insist... let's pick this apart one bit of foolishness at a time...



You seem to have a lot of friends who spout off a lot of utter nonsense. And apparently you're foolish enough to give credence to their nonsense. Are they all really this stupid, or do they just know that you're gullible and take the opportunity to laugh at you for swallowing their crap?



Right. Because apparently the Koreans didn't also have horses. And apparently it never occurred to them that there are far easier ways to get someone off a horse than to leap up in the air and kick them. Or that the very notion of an unarmed walker attacking an armed horseman is, well, ludicrous from the start.



A brown belt in an art that doesn't traditionally include a brown belt. And that doesn't set off any alarms on your credibility meter?



Right. Because other Asian cultures didn't do any fine artwork or craftsmanship.

Quick question, as my school is TSD that calls ourselves TKD, I assume our belt colors follow the Okinawan or Japanese colors from where our lineage goes, (White, yellow, Green, Brown, Red, Blue, Black, with single colored tip until red) What is the usual belt colors for actual TKD? Because it's so vast I assume there are some differences, but is there a more common standard?

 

[Drose427]

Not everybody who trains in Tae Kwon Do trains in a traditional style. It goes without saying that Tae Kwon Do, along with most arts, has changed over the years and some places teach more modern versions and among the things that have changed, in some schools the ranking system might've changed and that can include adding and removing belt colors. You can find traditional schools that still teach TKD the old way and use the old system of rank but you will also find more modern TKD schools.

Now, I would put in one of your famous Star Trek pictures in this post but Im too polite.

And besides I don't consider Kreese a role model.

But If someone isn't traiing in a traditional style, I'd be vary cautious of any "traditions" or "origins" they're claiming to know. it just shows a disconnect

 

[Dirty Dog]

Quick question, as my school is TSD that calls ourselves TKD, I assume our belt colors follow the Okinawan or Japanese colors from where our lineage goes, (White, yellow, Green, Brown, Red, Blue, Black, with single colored tip until red) What is the usual belt colors for actual TKD? Because it's so vast I assume there are some differences, but is there a more common standard?

TKD belt ranks usually are white, yellow, green, blue, red, black. Intermediate ranks are generally "striped" in the color of the next rank. We do this by the simple expedient of wrapping a piece of colored electrical tape around the belt tip.
KKW schools that award baby black belts use a half red/half black belt for that rank.

 

[Drose427]

TKD belt ranks usually are white, yellow, green, blue, red, black. Intermediate ranks are generally "striped" in the color of the next rank. We do this by the simple expedient of wrapping a piece of colored electrical tape around the belt tip.
KKW schools that award baby black belts use a half red/half black belt for that rank.

We do 1 tip of the next belt color in between actual color belts. I've seen schools at tourneys with anywhere from 3-5 stripes though. Although we do blue then black, its nice to see we dont to things too differently

 

[TrueJim]

As previously mentioned, some Kukkiwon schools used the red-belt-with-a-black-stripe for "junior black belts" who are not yet of age. When the student turns 15 they can trade-in their red-belt-with-a-black-stripe for a conventional black belt.

Some other Kukkiwon-style schools insert a rank between 1st Gup and 1st Dan though, so you'll see even adult students wearing the "bo-black" red-belt-with-a-black-stripe. The school that my son and I attend is like that: the bo-black belt basically means you've learned all the Taegeuk forms but you haven't yet passed your 1st Dan test. Since dan testing happens only a couple of times a year at our school, it's not uncommon to spend 4-5-6 months wearing a bo-black belt. I've seen that at other schools as well. What purpose does this extra belt-level serve? At our school, there are some classes during the week that only the black belt students may attend; the bo-blacks are allowed to attend those classes as well.

The head of our school is a Kukkiwon 7th Dan from Korea who started studying taekwondo in 1979. Now what he told us just recently is that at the school he attended wa-a-a-ay back in '79 in Korea, they only had three belt colors: white, brown, and black. Then as time went on, he said, his school started adding more colors (to better mark the students' progress).


In the past I've looked at a lot of websites of a lot of taekwondo schools, curious about all the different variations of the color schemes. The school my son and I attend is a large school (hundreds of students - we had one class recently with 90 students in the class, but that was as special occasion) so we tend to not use tape-tips for belt colors, because it makes it hard for the instructors to see at-at-glance who should be working on what. I think that might actually be a trend at larger schools: using many different belt colors (i.e., without using tips) perhaps makes it a little easier to organize large classes.

From what I've been able to see here in the U.S. at least, there doesn't seem to be any "most common" color scheme. There appear to be many variations, and I haven't been able to note that any particular scheme is substantially more common than any other. At least, that's been my observation.

 

[WaterGal]

During one of the many Mongol invasions of Korea (~1237 C.E.) the Mongols destroyed many of the written records leading up to that time, so Korean history before that time is not well documented. That having been said, middle-ages Koreans did at least have some documents that described their martial arts. In 1608 they published the Muyejebo, "The Compendium of Several Martial Arts", the Muyesinbo "New Compendium or Martial Arts", and of course most taekwondo buffs know of the Muyedobotongji, "The Comprehensive Illustrated Manual of Martial Arts." As I understand it, each of these references builds-upon and adds-to its predecessor.

One would think that if kicking people off horses was a standard Korean technique during the middle-ages, it would have appeared in one of these references. To my knowledge, it doesn't. As I understand it, what these and other references do indicate is that knocking people off horses was indeed important to the Korean military, because of course that's how Mongols always invaded: on horseback. As I understand it, that's why the bow became the preeminent Korean weapon of choice during the middle-ages, over even the sword, the spear, and also presumably over all the other little batons and nunchuks and other hand-weapons common in other Asian countries: if you want to knock a Mongol off his horse, a bow is apparently your best choice, and small hand weapons aren't much use.

Muyejebotonji does have a bunch of different spear forms/techs in it, including at least one spear I've never heard of before (a spear with lots of branching spikes stuck all over it like a tree). It also has some strange ideas about Japanese swordwork, stating that they end their fights by throwing their swords down and wrestling each other.

But yeah, I think you're right that if the Koreans had actually been kicking people off horseback, the technique would've been mentioned in there or somewhere. I think it's one of those colorful tall tales people tell because it sounds cool. "Wow, ancient Korean dudes were so bad*** that they could jump-kick a guy off a horse!"

 

[Dirty Dog]

As previously mentioned, some Kukkiwon schools used the red-belt-with-a-black-stripe for "junior black belts" who are not yet of age. When the student turns 15 they can trade-in their red-belt-with-a-black-stripe for a conventional black belt.

Technically, any school that doesn't do this isn't following the KKW rules. Those of us that don't do baby black belts don't let this bother us.

Some other Kukkiwon-style schools insert a rank between 1st Gup and 1st Dan though, so you'll see even adult students wearing the "bo-black" red-belt-with-a-black-stripe. The school that my son and I attend is like that: the bo-black belt basically means you've learned all the Taegeuk forms but you haven't yet passed your 1st Dan test. Since dan testing happens only a couple of times a year at our school, it's not uncommon to spend 4-5-6 months wearing a bo-black belt. I've seen that at other schools as well. What purpose does this extra belt-level serve? At our school, there are some classes during the week that only the black belt students may attend; the bo-blacks are allowed to attend those classes as well.

I could tell you what goes on in those classes, but then I'd have to kill you...

The rank you're referring to is called "Chodanbo", which means, literally "half a 1st degree Black Belt" but the concept is one of "black belt candidate" or "trainee black belt".
We use that rank. Students typically spend 1-1.5 years as Chodanbo. In our Moo Duk Kwan school, this is the period during which they transition from student to teacher. Our 1st Dan test would be similar to the KKW 2nd Dan, in that we require 6 Kicho forms, 8 Palgwae and Koryo to test for Chodanbo. Those seeking KKW certification also learn the 8 Taegeuk forms.

The head of our school is a Kukkiwon 7th Dan from Korea who started studying taekwondo in 1979. Now what he told us just recently is that at the school he attended wa-a-a-ay back in '79 in Korea, they only had three belt colors: white, brown, and black. Then as time went on, he said, his school started adding more colors (to better mark the students' progress).

Interesting. Especially since by 1979 the unification movement was well established in South Korea, and the Kukkiwon was pretty much the only game in town.
It would be interesting to learn what school he attended, and with what Kwan it was affiliated.

 

[Dirty Dog]

It also has some strange ideas about Japanese swordwork, stating that they end their fights by throwing their swords down and wrestling each other.

That happens at the after party...

 

[RTKDCMB]

TKD belt ranks usually are white, yellow, green, blue, red, black. Intermediate ranks are generally "striped" in the color of the next rank. We do this by the simple expedient of wrapping a piece of colored electrical tape around the belt tip.
KKW schools that award baby black belts use a half red/half black belt for that rank.

We do the same instead our red belt is brown.

 

[RTKDCMB]

There's at least one system of TKD that uses a camouflage belt. Systems are free to use whatever colors they like, of course. Doing so does immediately show that they're not following the traditions of the art but are instead establishing their own traditions. Training in a non-traditional art does make one less credible when discussing traditions and their origins. I wouldn't expect someone who practices Kendo to be familiar with the traditions of Shinto Ryu Kenjutsu.

Changing the color of one belt is trivial. I think you will find that schools who have a camouflage belt usually have belt colors in stead of tips between other belt colors.

 

[Transk53]

A friend of mine who trained in Tae Kwon Do said that the reason for all the high kicks and jumping techniques in Tae Kwon Do was to knock people off horses. In ancient Korea they would often go up against enemies on horseback and the high kicks and jumping techniques were used to knock them off. Im not sure of the validity of that but that's what my friend who had a brown belt in Tae Kwon Do claimed.

He also said that the Koreans used their hands for lots of fine artwork and craftsmanship and as such did not want to damage their hands with training so that is why kicks were emphasized in Tae Kwon Do over hand techniques.

Really. Which web page do you source this nonsense from. Truly curious as it seems like a right laugh