In the wake of StuartA's book on applications for Chang Hon tul, I gotta ask: is there a resource detailing applications for Tae Guek poomsae? That too, would be invaluable to many.
Tae Guek applications text?
- Thread starter IcemanSK
- Start date
The Kukkiwon Tae Kwon Do textbook and a few other. I just cannot remember there names right now. Get back to you later today.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #3
I'll await your list of other resources. The KKW textbook's applications are sparse & inadequate. IMO
Iceman one of the books is Black Belt Tae Kwon Do by Yeo Hwan Park and Jon Gerrald, in this one he gives the like in koryo movement 2a: pivot on the left foot to execute a low side kick toward d with the right foot.Meaning counterattacking kickto the knee.
This ahs got to be one of the better books out there, but it still lacks alot of all the elements withen.
A quick search of Amazon shows this, does this appear to have what yo uneed (if you go to the Amazon page you can actually browse the contents fo the book itself! very cool, like going to the book store and browsing)
Complete Taekwondo Poomsae: The Official Taegeuk, Palgwae and Black Belt Forms of Taekwondo (Paperback)
"...The instructional text is supplemented with information about the meaning, movement line and symbol of each form as well as the correct execution of each new movement introduced in the form. In addition to the 25 official Poomsae, the authors explain Poomsae theory and principles to help you understand the underlying concepts of Poomsae practice..."
DVD to go with it
DVD - Taekwondo Taegeuk Poomse # 1-8
Complete Taekwondo Poomsae: The Official Taegeuk, Palgwae and Black Belt Forms of Taekwondo (Paperback)
"...The instructional text is supplemented with information about the meaning, movement line and symbol of each form as well as the correct execution of each new movement introduced in the form. In addition to the 25 official Poomsae, the authors explain Poomsae theory and principles to help you understand the underlying concepts of Poomsae practice..."
DVD to go with it
DVD - Taekwondo Taegeuk Poomse # 1-8
David while that is a great book, I beleive Iceman is looking for something more in they way the SD principle are broking down like some of the Chon-ji books are.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #7
You are correct, sir.
David,
Sang H. Kim's dvd's are great for demonstrating the forms. But his applications leave a lot to be desired. Which is odd because many of his resources have many great detailed applications in them.
Laurentkd
Master Black Belt
I thought Exile knew someone who was coming out with this type of book??
Yes Stuart Anderson but he only does the Chon-Ji set of Tuls and not the Tae Gueks. I may just have to write a book about it
Actually, the person I was thinking of is Simon John O'Neil, whose Combat TKD newsletters amount to a small book on TKD applications; he actually has a book coming out later this year primarily focused, as I understand from my communications with him, on Taegeuk applications. He has a very good article in TKD Times from January, 2006 as I recall, titled 'Recycling kicks for Self-defense' or something like that, which gives a kind of preview of his approach. A lot of my thinking about TKD hyungs has been shaped by what he's written in his newsletters, and I'm eagerly awaiting publication of his book.
The last I heard from him, the text was done, but the photos were still being shot. It's been a while... will check in with him soon and let you all know what I hear from him.
The last I heard from him, the text was done, but the photos were still being shot. It's been a while... will check in with him soon and let you all know what I hear from him.
Yes but I heard that book will not be ready until the end of this year, so are there any others that are out there. Because I own a freaky library and do not have one. That is a terrible thing.
End of the year? :wah:
Well, maybe it'll be ready in time to make a nice Christmas present to myself. Gotta look on the bright side...
What I'd really like to see as well is a text on applications for the Palgwes. SJO'N says that given the relatively marginal status of the Palgwes even now in most TKD dojang syllabi, it wasn't cost-effective for him to spend a huge amount of extra time including material from them as well in the book, which is a great pity, because both you and I and quite a few others would be interested in something like that... but the market isn't there, apparently (though from what I've heard, the Palgwes are enjoying something of a minor revival in tournament competition, at least—the judges have seen the Taegeuks so many times that something relatively spectacular like Palgwe Chil Jang sort of catches their eye and gives the competitor who can do them cleanly a real advantage).
I believe Simon O'neil has been working on such a project for a while. not sure where hes at with it though.
Stuart
Nothing to be sorry about, Sthese days, I can use every reality check on my own understanding of events that I can get! :erg:
newGuy12
Master of Arts
Well at least we have the book by StuartA about General Choi's forms (thank you Sir). We can of course try to get insight into the TaeGuk forms using that book.
As far as a book about TaeGuk forms' applications, we shall see if it happens. If it does, I am sure that this forum will light up about it.
I am still of the mind that it may never happen, but who knows? So little time, so much to do! The applications themselves open up a whole world full of learning. This is something completely unknown to many, myself included.
As far as a book about TaeGuk forms' applications, we shall see if it happens. If it does, I am sure that this forum will light up about it.
I am still of the mind that it may never happen, but who knows? So little time, so much to do! The applications themselves open up a whole world full of learning. This is something completely unknown to many, myself included.
The ones who really know (Hae Man Park and his generation) are most likely not going to write a book about proper forms interpretation. The Oriental way is to teach through direct contact.
In other words, if you want to learn what the forms are actually doing, you will have to train with these guys when you have a chance.
In other words, if you want to learn what the forms are actually doing, you will have to train with these guys when you have a chance.
This is a very great point and Thank you for pointing it out.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #19
I guess I'll have to figure out how to get one-on-one time with him & bring a translator with me when I see him next year.
I'm reluctant to attribute mystical knowledge or secret esoteric wisdom to the the Kwan founders or other MAists of their generation. There is plenty of evidence that even the first generation Kwan founders didn't learn the full range of interpretations of the forms, because their own Shotokan teachers either didn't (as Motobu commented critically about Funakoshi) or didn't transmit to the Japanese (as Gennosuke Higaki discusses in his book on the Pinan/Heian kata set and their bunkai, the Okinawans didn't really want to teach the Japanese the deeper applications, and had a kind of gentleman's agreement not to, and given the class structure that Funakoshi and the other Okinawan expats operated by, it's unlikely that they would have taught Koreans anything they were unwilling to teach their Japanese patrons). Rob Mclain, Upnorthkyosa, Kwan Jang and Stuart himself have a bunch of posts detailing their evidence that the Kwan founders weren't really trained in the deep bunkai for the forms they learned , which became recycled into the Palgwes, Chang Hon and Taegeuks by recombining/mixmastering the subparts of the kata the Kwan founders learned in their Japanese MA educations (see Part 2 of Stuart's pdf file here, for those who don't have his book).
What Stuart's work, Simon O'Neil's, and many other contemporary MAists have shown is that it is possible to recover extremely effective, sensible and realistic combat techs from the forms by the kind of 'reverse engineering' that Upnorthkyosa and others have explored in detail. There may be older applications that have been lost, but there is absolutely no reason why they can't be recovered, if we work hard and critically on bunkai/boon hae/hae sul analysis. Mystification of the past and its lost arcane knowledge is one of the curses of the MAs . These systems were created by hardworking professionals, and their 'lost secrets' can be recovered by careful analysis and serious stress-testing of the forms themselves.
Let me give you an example of the same thing from another domain I'm familiar with: manuscript illumination and mediæval calligraphy. The master scribes of that era had certain shop practices that they used to expedite their jobs, which were done under great time pressure and the need to reduce as much as possible to simple, practical rules of thumb. For a long time, it was suspected that the page layout formats of their manuscript creations were determined by a straightforward bag of tricks based on the dimensions of a double-page opening, but no one could see how it worked. But in the early 1960s, Jan Tschichold, a renowned Swiss calligrapher and type designer, cracked the code, after studying hundreds of ancient and mediæval mss. The lost 'Golden Rectangle', the ideally sized and place text area used universally in the scriptoria of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, could now be duplicated by novice calligraphers. The method, which Tschichold labelled 'The Canon', is based on the diagonals and other simply calculated distances of a double page opening. Not having access to the working scribal masters of a millenium ago, Tchichold set out to discover their secrets on the basis of their creations... and succeeded brilliantly. There's no reason whatever that we cannot do the same things ourselves, if we set our minds to it and learn as much as we can of past knowledge before setting out on our own. And I think that, when Simon O'N's book, and the others that are sure to follow, emerge, that we will see applications every bit as practical and effective as those envisioned by the masters of the past.
I'm hoping Terry's book, the one he suggested writing, will be one of the ones waiting there in the future for us...
What Stuart's work, Simon O'Neil's, and many other contemporary MAists have shown is that it is possible to recover extremely effective, sensible and realistic combat techs from the forms by the kind of 'reverse engineering' that Upnorthkyosa and others have explored in detail. There may be older applications that have been lost, but there is absolutely no reason why they can't be recovered, if we work hard and critically on bunkai/boon hae/hae sul analysis. Mystification of the past and its lost arcane knowledge is one of the curses of the MAs . These systems were created by hardworking professionals, and their 'lost secrets' can be recovered by careful analysis and serious stress-testing of the forms themselves.
Let me give you an example of the same thing from another domain I'm familiar with: manuscript illumination and mediæval calligraphy. The master scribes of that era had certain shop practices that they used to expedite their jobs, which were done under great time pressure and the need to reduce as much as possible to simple, practical rules of thumb. For a long time, it was suspected that the page layout formats of their manuscript creations were determined by a straightforward bag of tricks based on the dimensions of a double-page opening, but no one could see how it worked. But in the early 1960s, Jan Tschichold, a renowned Swiss calligrapher and type designer, cracked the code, after studying hundreds of ancient and mediæval mss. The lost 'Golden Rectangle', the ideally sized and place text area used universally in the scriptoria of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, could now be duplicated by novice calligraphers. The method, which Tschichold labelled 'The Canon', is based on the diagonals and other simply calculated distances of a double page opening. Not having access to the working scribal masters of a millenium ago, Tchichold set out to discover their secrets on the basis of their creations... and succeeded brilliantly. There's no reason whatever that we cannot do the same things ourselves, if we set our minds to it and learn as much as we can of past knowledge before setting out on our own. And I think that, when Simon O'N's book, and the others that are sure to follow, emerge, that we will see applications every bit as practical and effective as those envisioned by the masters of the past.
I'm hoping Terry's book, the one he suggested writing, will be one of the ones waiting there in the future for us...
