Taekwondo's core goes beyond technique

[Steel Tiger]

The original forms were replaced with new forms that were based more in Korean nationalism than anything else (Taeguk, Korean flag). If Korean syles survived and were handed down, and they were truly indigenous Korean martial arts, then why didn't the government snap them up and use them exclusively within the nationalist propaganda machine? Given the political climate within Korea, why didn't somebody come forth and say "yes, we do have our own arts, and here is X art that was practiced and passed down to me from X time in the past?

This is a very interesting point. It goes to the heart of Korea's martial arts dilema. Why didn't the government use the truly homegrown arts in this endeavour as did China and Japan? It would appear that it is because there were no practitioners of those arts around at the time. There is a disconnection between the past and the present, brought about by Japanese imperialism.

This is not to say that those ancient arts did not exist, just that circumstances led to a break of continuity. The attitudes of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) saw martial arts fade from importance and become sanctioned for the military only, and something of a half remembered folksy thing by the 19th century. Add to this the effect of 30-40 years of Japanese domination and determination to obliterate any possibility of revolt and you end up with, well, nothing. Nothing but old memories of old men about things they saw in their youth.

One thing I find intriguing in all this is the appearance of revival arts like Muye24ban and Muye24gi. These are based on the old manuals Muyejebo and Muyedobotongji. I know there is some contention over these manuals, and I have my own opinion, but they do represent an early stage of martial art development in Korea. The mere fact that these arts have started to appear indicates that people in Korea are questioning the official line on Korean martial arts continuity. Very interesting.

 

[SageGhost83]

... That pretty much sums it all up. No matter how much evidence you present, there are those who are still going to believe the lies. They have not only drank the Kool-Aid, they have pulled the Kool-Aid man into a back alley and had their way with him. It is a shame, really. The good thing is that the Koreans themselves have enough common sense to look at the facts and see that something isn't quite right with the propaganda stories, so there is some hope after all. It was called Korean Karate BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT IT WAS!!! IT USED THE SAME EXACT KATAS AS SHOTOKAN AND IT EVEN APED THE UNI'S!!! THE CHANGES WERE *MODERN* CHANGES THAT WERE MADE FOR NATIONALIST PURPOSES AND TO TRY TO FURTHER DISTANCE THE STYLE FROM ITS JAPANESE ROOTS. THE KICKS WERE ORGINALLY LOW - THEY WERE RAISED OVER TIME FOR DEMO AND COMPETITION PURPOSES!!! SPORT KARATE HAS ALSO UNDERGONE SUCH TYPES OF EVOLUTIONS TO REFLECT THE TRENDS IN ITS COMPETITIONS!!! WE HAVE THE EVIDENCE!!! IT IS PROVEN BY MEN FAR MORE QUALIFIED IN THE FEILD OF HISTORY THAN ALL OF US PUT TOGETHER!!! WE HAVE THE SMOKING GUN PEOPLE!!! WHY DO WE STILL INSIST ON BELIEVING IN THE NONSENSE AND THE LIES WHEN EVEN THE KOREAN PEOPLE THEMSELVES ARE DOUBTING THEM??? IT IS NO SHAME TO ADMIT THAT YOU DRANK THE KOOL-AID. I HAVE DONE IT, WE HAVE ALL DONE IT AT SOME POINT - IT IS PART OF THE LARGER LEARNING PROCESS!!!

 

[SageGhost83]

One thing I find intriguing in all this is the appearance of revival arts like Muye24ban and Muye24gi. These are based on the old manuals Muyejebo and Muyedobotongji. I know there is some contention over these manuals, and I have my own opinion, but they do represent an early stage of martial art development in Korea. The mere fact that these arts have started to appear indicates that people in Korea are questioning the official line on Korean martial arts continuity. Very interesting.

Yes, exactly! The Korean people are not stupid, eventually they will find out that the wool has been pulled over their eyes by nationalist agendas! It looks like it is already beginning to happen! I consider the MDT one of Korea's indigenous treasures as well as taekkyon. I believe there are sections in the MDT for Ssireum and Shippalgi too, if I am not mistaken. From reading the MDT, it seems that the Koreans were more of a weapons-first martial culture not too dissimilar from the Saxons or Japanese in that they had more weapons work than anything else. Of course, weapons have always ruled the battlefeild, so that thought may not hold much weight. Just food for discussion, I guess. The nerd in me is deeply interested in old Korean martial arts :lol:!

 

[exile]

The attitudes of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) saw martial arts fade from importance and become sanctioned for the military only, and something of a half remembered folksy thing by the 19th century. Add to this the effect of 30-40 years of Japanese domination and determination to obliterate any possibility of revolt and you end up with, well, nothing. Nothing but old memories of old men about things they saw in their youth.

This is so important... and so little known. Capener makes much of it in his essay, approvingly, because he actually disapproves of the way in which TKD arose, as the Korean development of karate. He argues that the whole culture of Korea was inhospitable to budo/justsu attitudes towards martial arts, that the superficial similarity between the Three Kingdoms warfare era and the Japanese castle era samurai culture has led people to believe that the two are basically expressions of the same kind of Asian feudal combat ethic, whereas, he argues, the combat psychology of the Japanese was never an important component of Korean culture, and therefore TKD is best construed culturally not as a combat system but as a martial sport. To me, this seems like a projection of Capener's own thinking; he's a technical advisor to the WTF and very committed to the Olympic definition of TKD. The Korean and Vietnamese war showed how tough and combat-effective both the RoK military and TKD were. But the fact is, at the time that the Japanese occupation began, civil combat systems had been moribund in Korea, under the stifling weight of Confucian atttudes, for something like half a millenium.

One thing I find intriguing in all this is the appearance of revival arts like Muye24ban and Muye24gi. These are based on the old manuals Muyejebo and Muyedobotongji. I know there is some contention over these manuals, and I have my own opinion, but they do represent an early stage of martial art development in Korea. The mere fact that these arts have started to appear indicates that people in Korea are questioning the official line on Korean martial arts continuity. Very interesting.

Stanley Henning and Manuel Adrogués, who did the definitive assessments of the key Korean martial ms., the Muyedobotongji, identify it as an essentially word for work copy of an earlier Chinese ms., written by a Han general 250 years earlier, The New Manual of Effective Discipline, and Androgués in particular notes that the empty-hand combat system illustrated (in the few pages devoted to it) can be fairly securely identified with Long Fist Chuan Fa. This reflects the enormous, probably almost suffocating influence of Chinese thinking on Korean thought (including military thought) over many centuries, and I think it's Henning who noted that in the early 19th century a kind of cultural reaction set in against Chinese influences in Korea. But in reaction to the horrible abuse the Koreans underwent at the hands of the Japanese, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were a serious revival of interest in the earlier Chinese combat systems that, as Androgués charts brilliantly in his 2003 JAMA article on ancient Korean military manuals, were essentially copied and presented as the content of Korean combat strategy and skill sets, culminating in the Muyedobotongji.

... That pretty much sums it all up. No matter how much evidence you present, there are those who are still going to believe the lies. They have not only drank the Kool-Aid, they have pulled the Kool-Aid man into a back alley and had their way with him. It is a shame, really. The good thing is that the Koreans themselves have enough common sense to look at the facts and see that something isn't quite right with the propaganda stories, so there is some hope after all. It was called Korean Karate BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT IT WAS!!! IT USED THE SAME EXACT KATAS AS SHOTOKAN AND IT EVEN APED THE UNI'S!!! THE CHANGES WERE *MODERN* CHANGES THAT WERE MADE FOR NATIONALIST PURPOSES AND TO TRY TO FURTHER DISTANCE THE STYLE FROM ITS JAPANESE ROOTS. THE KICKS WERE ORGINALLY LOW - THEY WERE RAISED OVER TIME FOR DEMO AND COMPETITION PURPOSES!!! SPORT KARATE HAS ALSO UNDERGONE SUCH TYPES OF EVOLUTIONS TO REFLECT THE TRENDS IN ITS COMPETITIONS!!! WE HAVE THE EVIDENCE!!! IT IS PROVEN BY MEN FAR MORE QUALIFIED IN THE FEILD OF HISTORY THAN ALL OF US PUT TOGETHER!!! WE HAVE THE SMOKING GUN PEOPLE!!! WHY DO WE STILL INSIST ON BELIEVING IN THE NONSENSE AND THE LIES WHEN EVEN THE KOREAN PEOPLE THEMSELVES ARE DOUBTING THEM??? IT IS NO SHAME TO ADMIT THAT YOU DRANK THE KOOL-AID. I HAVE DONE IT, WE HAVE ALL DONE IT AT SOME POINT - IT IS PART OF THE LARGER LEARNING PROCESS!!!

I think that the testimony of a number of eminent Korean grandmasters, cited in Robert Young's groundbreaking JAMA paper in 1993, breaking ranks with their partisan fellows (and acknowledging what was at the time regarded as a shameful secret—the Japanese sources of TKD) is particularly important. One of the lessons that Korean MAists have had to learn, in bitter resignation, during the past sixty years is that if you break ranks, you will be punished; just ask the shade of Hwang Kee, or the TKD kwan founders who resisted Gen. Choi early on, or people such as Gm. Kim Byung-Soo, who continued to resist; and Gen. Choi himself eventually got chewed up in the jaws of the Korean TKD directorate that he had been so important in creating. Nonetheless, what Gm. Kim suggest in his January Black Belt interview—

today the truth is coming out. Still some people try to make up some mysterious stories - claim their art is 2000 years old or from a monk in the mountains or something. But, if people are educated about history and lineage, they cannot be fooled. I believe Korea, like many other countries, had some type of martial arts being practiced before the 20th century. But after the Japanese occupation of Korea (1909-1945), indigenous martial arts were gone and influences from other places (Japan, Okinawa, China) were being taught.

This is the same as if someone’s father is a farmer, but tells everyone his father is a doctor. You should show respect for your father and let people know who he is, not make up some strange story. The same is for martial arts lineage. Your direct instructor is your martial arts father; his teacher is your grandfather, etc. This is your family line in the martial arts. It doesn’t matter where the art comes from. Martial art belongs to the people that practice and preserve it, not to “this country or that country.”​

Gm. Kim didn't wait to come to the U.S. before presenting this perspective on TKD; he was doing it even as a young student, comparing the techs he was learning to those he was able to read about and observe in Shotokan and Shudokan karate. He took on some serious risks in doing so, too. But I think, as time goes on, people will feel less pressure from this kind of 'political correctness' to defend these romantic fabrications that get passed off for MA history...

The thing is, you can understand Koreans doing something like that. But what I find really, really strange is when Westerners, coming out of cultures which do not have that institutionalized, accepted distinction between 'official truth' (tatemae in Japanese) and independently discovered, verified truth (honne) do the same thing. As Karel Van Wolferen, in The Enigma of Japanese Power (MacMillan 1989), observes in chapter 9 of his detailed study, in Japanese culture, individuals who go out of their way to ferret out facts and check official doctrine against these facts are referred to, contemptuously, as rikkutsuppoi, 'reason freaks', and there is a similar hostility in many echelons of Korean society as well. What's really bizarre is finding the same thing in the comparatively open world of martial arts in the U.S. Which brings us, of course, back to the thread OP here.... :wink1:

And speaking of the OP, I have to note that the pattern exhibited in that post, attacking the messenger with everything but a factual argument, and offering hostile but virtually completely undefended judgments of the individual reporting the data (as vs. challenging the data, or arguing with the interpretation in terms of counterevidence, or anything consistent with the simple basics of sound historical debate) is nothing new for the OP. If circumstances warrant, I would love to go back to a prior post of the OPer, here, responding to Steve Capener's extremely well-documented survey of the historical origins of TKD, arguments which already rested on a strong basis of support in Young's 1993 JAMA paper, subsequently strongly corroborated in the followup work of Burdick in 1997 and 2000, and note the same pattern as in the OP: lots and lots of attacks on the professional competence of the author, based on a fundamental confusion between MA rank on the one hand and control of historical data, with a conspicuous lack of anything resembling an actual counterargument based on either new empirical findings or plausible reassessment of older documentation—in other words, mistaking belt level for knowledge of history, who cannot offer a single even mildly plausible factual challenging to the emerging picture of modern TKD as the Korean development of Shotokan and Shudokan karate, plain and simple. The 'discussion' of Capener's findings about taekyon (including the devastating interview testimony and autobiographical writing of the last living practitioner of that 19th c. traditional folk foot game, Song-Duk Ki, that Capener uncovered) is particularly telling... oh yes, there's a lot to be said about the way in which the OPer approached the documented historical material in Capener's article! What's really interesting in this case is that that every single solitary careful investigation of TKD martial history has wound up coming to the same conclusion—one that's supremely embarrassing for the romantic nationalist fables that Gen. Choi and others in the Korean TKD directorate began pumping up the volume on the post-Korean-War era. The more you look at the evidence base, the more transparently weak these claims are now showing themselves to be. And yet we have people who enthusiastically champion those claims, without even making a pretense of constructing a serious response to the by now massive evidence that TKD originated as Korean karate, emerging out of a background which shows not even the faintest trait of an indigenous MA tradition. This lack of a continuous Korean tradition is something that demands explanation—there are some very interesting suggestions in the continuation of this thread below—but the kind of response, including a wholesale ducking of publically attested contemporary evidence, documentary information and all the rest of it (to the point of raising major doubts as to the responders' awareness that a serious historical critical literature on the KMAs actually exists) in favor of repeated assertions of personal convictions (as though the strength of those convictions carried any weight in and of itself)... this I find, well, fascinating... :EG:

 

[SageGhost83]

You can argue with me all you want, but I'm going by what my eyes saw. Those techniques were not just invented out of thin air, they were brought in from somewhere. If the Hapkido guys discovered them first, fine, but modern Tae Kwon Do is definitely descended from traditional Korean technique, despite what Exile and others say. I've seen too many similarities to believe otherwise.

No, we are not arguing - we are presenting the proven facts that are backed up by hard evidence. You are right, those techniques were not invented out of thin air - they didn't come from Taekkyon, either. They were brought in from Shotokan Karate and refined over time to reflect the tastes and preferences of their new home. Hapkido itself is a Korean version of Aikido - Ai and Hap even mean the same thing. Of course, Hapkido grew away from its original source and was changed over time, too. Taekwondo is descended from Japanese and Okinawan Karate - it has already been proven by *actual* historians, and many of the founders have come clean about the truth. You see, it is not just "What Exile and others say", it is the proven facts of those who have actually done the painstaking research in the feild and presented their nonbiased work for all to see. You are going by personal belief and observation, we are going by the hard evidence that has been gathered by people who are far more knowledgeable about the subject than all of us. There is a reason why they are called professionals, and their work is legit even if it doesn't fit in with Sanbunim's romantic fantasies. It is not our *opinion* of the matter, we are just reiterating the facts. We have no personal agenda to prove or force upon others, we are just putting the truth forward. I realize that truth is a bitter pill that never goes down easy, but that doesn't mean that we should avoid ingesting it. I believe integrity is one of the values that the arts are supposed to teach...

 

[SageGhost83]

Stanley Henning and Manuel Adrogués, who did the definitive assessments of the key Korean martial ms., the Muyedobotongji, identify it as an essentially word for work copy of an earlier Chinese ms., written by a Han general 250 years earlier, The New Manual of Effective Discipline, and Androgués in particular notes that the empty-hand combat system illustrated (in the few pages devoted to it) can be fairly securely identified with Long Fist Chuan Fa. This reflects the enormous, probably almost suffocating influence of Chinese thinking on Korean thought (including military thought) over many centuries, and I think it's Henning who noted that in the early 19th century a kind of cultural reaction set in against Chinese influences in Korea. But in reaction to the horrible abuse the Koreans underwent at the hands of the Japanese, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were a serious revival of interest in the earlier Chinese combat systems that, as Androgués charts brilliantly in his 2003 JAMA article on ancient Korean military manuals, were essentially copied and presented as the content of Korean combat strategy and skill sets, culminating in the Muyedobotongji.

I have heard many times that old Korean martial arts had a very Chinese flavor to them. It is nice to know that what I heard was not just hearsay, but there is actually a basis in fact concerning these claims. It makes sense, given that the two countries have been neighbors since forever. I find it peculiar that the Korean name for their home country is Hanguk - Han = the people we commonly think of when referring to "the Chinese", and Guk = People/Person. Do we have yet another smoking gun ?

 

[exile]

I have heard many times that old Korean martial arts had a very Chinese flavor to them. It is nice to know that what I heard was not just hearsay, but there is actually a basis in fact concerning these claims. It makes sense, given that the two countries have been neighbors since forever. I find it peculiar that the Korean name for their home country is Hanguk - Han = the people we commonly think of when referring to "the Chinese", and Guk = People/Person. Do we have yet another smoking gun ?

Nice point, SG! (see my addendum in my previous note on the point you made about the emergence of the truth about KMA origins against some very stubborn political resistance...)

The Chinese certainly messed around with the Korean political scene plenty in the ancient era, by all accounts. They regarded the whole shooting match—Manchuria, Tibet, Korea, etc.—as their tributaries and were really quite shocked on the several occasions when the Koreans appear to have held their own against them. And the Mongols got a rude shock from the Koreans as well. There was no lack of toughness or military shrewdness on their part. The problem the Koreans always had, I suspect, was geographical: they were backed against the wall on their peninsula, sitting ducks for the demographically overwhelming Chinese to the west and south, and the gung-ho military overdrive of the Japanese warrior culture to the east...

 

[Steel Tiger]

Stanley Henning and Manuel Adrogués, who did the definitive assessments of the key Korean martial ms., the Muyedobotongji, identify it as an essentially word for work copy of an earlier Chinese ms., written by a Han general 250 years earlier, The New Manual of Effective Discipline, and Androgués in particular notes that the empty-hand combat system illustrated (in the few pages devoted to it) can be fairly securely identified with Long Fist Chuan Fa. This reflects the enormous, probably almost suffocating influence of Chinese thinking on Korean thought (including military thought) over many centuries, and I think it's Henning who noted that in the early 19th century a kind of cultural reaction set in against Chinese influences in Korea. But in reaction to the horrible abuse the Koreans underwent at the hands of the Japanese, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were a serious revival of interest in the earlier Chinese combat systems that, as Androgués charts brilliantly in his 2003 JAMA article on ancient Korean military manuals, were essentially copied and presented as the content of Korean combat strategy and skill sets, culminating in the Muyedobotongji.

The interesting thing about the Muyejedobotongji, and it is important for any view of old Korean fighting arts, is that it is in effect a synthetic manual. The base material is that of the short (14 rather than 18 chapters) version of Ji Xiao Xin Shu to which, over some 200 years, were added Korean ideas about warfare and a Japanese martial arts manual. Even though its origins may have been in Ming Dynasty China, the text we know today is a Korean construction. It shines a light on Korean fighting arts from 200 years ago (last version appears to have been published in 1791), and perhaps earlier.

I suspect, however, given the Confucian influences and attitudes in Korea at the time, its publication may have been little more than an exercise in scholarship, as were seen in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and not indicative of any societal interest in fighting arts at the time.

 

[exile]

The interesting thing about the Muyejedobotongji, and it is important for any view of old Korean fighting arts, is that it is in effect a synthetic manual. The base material is that of the short (14 rather than 18 chapters) version of Ji Xiao Xin Shu to which, over some 200 years, were added Korean ideas about warfare and a Japanese martial arts manual. Even though its origins may have been in Ming Dynasty China, the text we know today is a Korean construction. It shines a light on Korean fighting arts from 200 years ago (last version appears to have been published in 1791), and perhaps earlier.

I suspect, however, given the Confucian influences and attitudes in Korea at the time, its publication may have been little more than an exercise in scholarship, as were seen in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and not indicative of any societal interest in fighting arts at the time.

This makes sense. It seems to have been a command performance by some scribes in the Royal Palace involving updating and pulling together some of the earlier mss. Adrogués discusses (as vs. a project undertaken by the military, for military purposes).

This is something that people who reason from the experience of other Asian societies to conclusions about Korea fail to take into account: Korea had a very unusual experience of systematic demilitarization, at least in terms of civil society. I see this as the precursor to the... I dunno, deracination of MAs in Korea, I suppose, which led to the loss of the local/family lineage or even school lineage traditions so important to the maintenance of MAs as 'locally owned' activities in China/Okinawa and Japan respectively. I had a thread running on this for a while, quite some time ago... here. This long, long era in which so much combat content was bleached from the local, village-level culture of Korea is probably a very big part of the reason for the ultimate state control and regulation of the MAs in Korea, as vs. the rest of Asia....

 

[granfire]

Well, geography might also play a role in it. Korea is a rather small country (compared to China anyhow) and unlike Japan a continuous landmass...once the country was unified there was no individual need for local MA...Okinawa has not been Japanese for more then 2 generations...

 

[Tez3]

I was on night shift last night and with it being a very quiet night had plenty of time to think about this thread. Excuse me if I ramble a bit to start with please!
I think the key to this thread and the OP is to ask yourself why you train martial arts, I train because I enjoy the physical exercise, I like to be able to defend myself and I rather enjoy fighting. it's also a business for me with teaching and promotng MMA fight nights. The reasons are all practical, I know the history of Wado Ryu, it's not a very old martial style. The history of MMA may well go back to Pankration in the original Greek Olympics but it has no bearing on my training. It's interesting nothing more. I have my own faith and beliefs outside martial arts that I'm happy with and I don't look for anything spiritual in MA.
Reading LF's OP and I mean no disrespect here it seems to me that TKD is his spiritual and entire life. he talks of it as if it were almost a religion, a quest for the Holy Grail. To me it's a very romantic view, not a wrong view but not worldly. There's Wise Men,warrior codes, ancient secrets and great faith which when exposed to the daylight and practical truths from practical men shows the truth to be actually something different, hence the howls of pain. No one wants to believe that something they have cherished, nourished and practised for years is not what it seems. I can imagine the hurt people feel when they perceive the TKD they have almost worshipped for years come under 'attack' from those who want to deal with the truth. I'm sorry for it but the truth while exposing the lie actually shows that TKD is the same art they love, they can still believe in the spiritual values and whatever else they get from the practice of it only facing the truth of it's history.
In England we have the myth of King Arthur, the Once and Future King who will come back to save us when England faces it's greatest peril. We cherish the idea of the golden time of Camelot, the Round Table and the Knights. We wish that was our history but we know it's not. The truth though is every bit as valid, interesting and heroic as is the real history of TKD.

 

[SageGhost83]

This makes sense. It seems to have been a command performance by some scribes in the Royal Palace involving updating and pulling together some of the earlier mss. Adrogués discusses (as vs. a project undertaken by the military, for military purposes).

This is something that people who reason from the experience of other Asian societies to conclusions about Korea fail to take into account: Korea had a very unusual experience of systematic demilitarization, at least in terms of civil society. I see this as the precursor to the... I dunno, deracination of MAs in Korea, I suppose, which led to the loss of the local/family lineage or even school lineage traditions so important to the maintenance of MAs as 'locally owned' activities in China/Okinawa and Japan respectively. I had a thread running on this for a while, quite some time ago... here. This long, long era in which so much combat content was bleached from the local, village-level culture of Korea is probably a very big part of the reason for the ultimate state control and regulation of the MAs in Korea, as vs. the rest of Asia....

I have always thought of the MDT as being indicative of indigenous Korean martial arts, but after being enlightened by the evidence that has been put forth, I stand corrected. I never considered the Confucian tradition, which is naive on my part. Thanks for clearing up my misconception, guys:asian:! You know, I recall reading some of Turnbull's work and coming across something to the effect of Korea pretty much abandoning the majority of its martial arts after the peninsula became unified because they felt that they no longer needed to practice them after the peace that was established. They instead focused on the arts and humanities while the military became more of an afterthought. The irony is that the Koreans seemed to erase their own traditional martial ways long before the Japanese ever occupied the peninsula. I am not saying that the Japanese didn't do their part in it, but that the bulk of KMA was probably already a forgotten memory and the Japanese just simply finished the very process that the Koreans themselves started centuries ago. Another thing that makes me extremely cynical regarding KMA is the push to "budo-ize" it. It has already been pointed out that the Koreans didn't really have a culture that was conducive to budo, so the attempts to "budo-ize" KMA is another giveaway that what we think of as being an ancient Korean art is really just an imported art that has been Koreanized. The appeals to the Hwarang and the attempts to make them out as the Korean Equivalent of Samurai is very cute, though. I am not even going to get started on the Sulsa...:lol:.

 

[SageGhost83]

I was on night shift last night and with it being a very quiet night had plenty of time to think about this thread. Excuse me if I ramble a bit to start with please!
I think the key to this thread and the OP is to ask yourself why you train martial arts, I train because I enjoy the physical exercise, I like to be able to defend myself and I rather enjoy fighting. it's also a business for me with teaching and promotng MMA fight nights. The reasons are all practical, I know the history of Wado Ryu, it's not a very old martial style. The history of MMA may well go back to Pankration in the original Greek Olympics but it has no bearing on my training. It's interesting nothing more. I have my own faith and beliefs outside martial arts that I'm happy with and I don't look for anything spiritual in MA.
Reading LF's OP and I mean no disrespect here it seems to me that TKD is his spiritual and entire life. he talks of it as if it were almost a religion, a quest for the Holy Grail. To me it's a very romantic view, not a wrong view but not worldly. There's Wise Men,warrior codes, ancient secrets and great faith which when exposed to the daylight and practical truths from practical men shows the truth to be actually something different, hence the howls of pain. No one wants to believe that something they have cherished, nourished and practised for years is not what it seems. I can imagine the hurt people feel when they perceive the TKD they have almost worshipped for years come under 'attack' from those who want to deal with the truth. I'm sorry for it but the truth while exposing the lie actually shows that TKD is the same art they love, they can still believe in the spiritual values and whatever else they get from the practice of it only facing the truth of it's history.
In England we have the myth of King Arthur, the Once and Future King who will come back to save us when England faces it's greatest peril. We cherish the idea of the golden time of Camelot, the Round Table and the Knights. We wish that was our history but we know it's not. The truth though is every bit as valid, interesting and heroic as is the real history of TKD.

That is a beautiful post, my friend. I couldn't agree more with what you said. We tend to take the folklore and romanticism behind what we practice and accept it as unquestionable fact, and then we are crushed when we find out that the folklore and romanticism is nothing more than.....folklore and romanticism. I think that sometimes people get so involved in it and take it, along with themselves, waaay too seriously. Don't get me wrong - there is nothing wrong with striving to live by the higher ideals presented within one's art. However, I think that we must all keep things in perspective and not let them go to our heads. As far as being hurt, I think that the biggest shame is that the practitioners come to an art in good faith and are fed lies upon lies by somebody who they trusted for so many years. They have been decieved and they have been used by a person that they look up to. This is why we must hold our instructors accountable for what they teach, and this is why we should seek out the history and truths to our styles from professional sources who are not biased to any agendas within our styles. My heart goes out to any and all who have been decieved by their sanbunim. You deserve better than that. As dedicated martial artists, you have payed blood, sweat, and tears - you have the right to know the truth.

 

[exile]

I have always thought of the MDT as being indicative of indigenous Korean martial arts, but after being enlightened by the evidence that has been put forth, I stand corrected. I never considered the Confucian tradition, which is naive on my part. Thanks for clearing up my misconception, guys:asian:!

SG, you have nothing to apologize for—the fact is, it's only recently that we've had a reliable English translation of the MDT; and notice that Sang Kim, in his introduction, manages to avoid virtually all mention of the fact that the volume itself is essentially a synthesis of the Han military work I mentioned with some material on the Japanese sword, as was mentioned earlier. He somewhat coyly points out that the manual 'included... Chinese fighting methods', which is roughly like saying that Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking 'includes French cooking methods'. Stan Henning's work, based on the original Korean text and informed by Henning's knowledge of Chinese and of philological methods of textual comparison, and Adrogués' subsequent work on the systematic importation of Chinese martial arts instructional texts into Korea and their translation and dissemination as Korean military manuals is something we've only learned about fairly recently; and that work hasn't been widely publicized. The information about the MDT and what it actually shows—the overwhelming influence of Chinese culture on its smaller, feisty but vulnerable and somewhat insecure peninsular neighbor and (in the Emperors' minds anyway) tributary state—is becoming better known as time goes on; but I have to say, what Henning and Adrogués were able to document in their work came as a real revelation to me when when I first encountered it a couple of years ago... not what I'd been expecting at all.

You know, I recall reading some of Turnbull's work and coming across something to the effect of Korea pretty much abandoning the majority of its martial arts after the peninsula became unified because they felt that they no longer needed to practice them after the peace that was established. They instead focused on the arts and humanities while the military became more of an afterthought. The irony is that the Koreans seemed to erase their own traditional martial ways long before the Japanese ever occupied the peninsula.

Yes—this is a very important aspect of the martial arts story in Korea, the impact of the Chosun/Yi aversion to combat arts outside the context of strictly professional military activity. In much of Europe, from the Renaissance on, combat skill with the rapier was considered the mark of a gentleman, and that certainly would have been true, to some extent, in the aftermath of the Japanese castle era as well; but it's as though, in Korea, the mark of a gentleman was precisely that you didn't receive training in civil combat skills. Very, very strange. And unlike China, and to some extent in Okinawa, where there seem to have been persistent family combat traditions, there is absolutely no shred of evidence whatever for that in Korea. I have to say, I really don't understand why Korea was so different in this respect from its Asian neighbors....

I am not saying that the Japanese didn't do their part in it, but that the bulk of KMA was probably already a forgotten memory and the Japanese just simply finished the very process that the Koreans themselves started centuries ago.

Yes, exactly.

Another thing that makes me extremely cynical regarding KMA is the push to "budo-ize" it. It has already been pointed out that the Koreans didn't really have a culture that was conducive to budo, so the attempts to "budo-ize" KMA is another giveaway that what we think of as being an ancient Korean art is really just an imported art that has been Koreanized. The appeals to the Hwarang and the attempts to make them out as the Korean Equivalent of Samurai is very cute, though. I am not even going to get started on the Sulsa...:lol:.

I think it's very difficult for us to fully accept how deeply different the Korean and Japanese combat traditions were... there are many aspects of their cultures which are so very similar, and a sizable group of historical linguists believe that there's enough evidence now to come down on the side of a common historical ancestor for the two, indicating that they were orginally a single population (though the majority of comparative linguists are still skeptical about that, as I understand from my colleagues over at the EALL department). But I really think we are not going to get anywhere understanding the history of the KMAs as long as we try, even subconsciously, to apply a budo culture, with Japan as the implicit model, to the Korean situation. So yes, I think you're exactly on target here.

 

[SageGhost83]

... there are many aspects of their cultures which are so very similar, and a sizable group of historical linguists believe that there's enough evidence now to come down on the side of a common historical ancestor for the two, indicating that they were orginally a single population (though the majority of comparative linguists are still skeptical about that, as I understand from my colleagues over at the EALL department).

OMG, thank you! My instructor back in college, who held a PHD in Asian studies, has taught me that the Japanese and Koreans were actually descended from a proto-korean stock in what eventually became Pusan. He even joked that the Japanese were nothing but Koreans with a little bit of Ainu in them. Of course, I presented this view and got flamed by a million Japanophiles. However, as in the subject we are discussing about Taekwondo, there are just simply those who cannot accept the truth. You should see how angry they become when you reveal the truth that there was indeed Korean blood within the Japanese royalty :lol:.

 

[exile]

OMG, thank you! My instructor back in college, who held a PHD in Asian studies, has taught me that the Japanese and Koreans were actually descended from a proto-korean stock in what eventually became Pusan.

There's been a lot of pressure over the past several generations on comparativists to try to finally get the Japanese/Korean connection sorted out, and the neatest way anyone could think of, of course, is to make them distantly related languages in their own little 'micro-family' isolate. The problem is, there are virtually no robust lexical cognates between them. There are many grammatical parallels, but that in itself isn't indicative, because we know that, contrary to what people used to think, languages really do borrow substantial amounts of structure from each other. So-called Sprachbund effects are very conspicuous in other parts of the world (the northwest coast of North America has some classic examples). I'm not saying that we know for sure that Japanese and Korean aren't related, but it's yet again one of those cases (which people often don't seem to understand) in which the fact that in principle you can't disprove X puts the burden of proof on the person who's claiming X. The Japanese/Korean common ancestral language hypothesis has a lot of passionate advocates, but it keeps stalling for a lack of the thing that in the end is pretty much make or break for a genetic hypothesis: well documented cognate vocabulary which display systematic sound correspondences. If you don't have those, you just don't have hanging evidence....

He even joked that the Japanese were nothing but Koreans with a little bit of Ainu in them. Of course, I presented this view and got flamed by a million Japanophiles. However, as in the subject we are discussing about Taekwondo, there are just simply those who cannot accept the truth. You should see how angry they become when you reveal the truth that there was indeed Korean blood within the Japanese royalty :lol:.

Yeah, it's weird how intense people get about these kinds of things... the fact is, the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Mongols and Manchurians have been in living in each other's pockets for millenia; the biological genetics of that part of the world are scrambled together beyond recall (along with the northern Siberian groups, the Goldi, Samoyed, Chuckchi and who knows what else... many of whom, as it happens, seem to have had the same kind of leg-wrestling competition games that taekyon turns out to have been. Still another feature of that huge culture area!)

 

[Kwan Jang]

Something Tez mentioned got me thinking about this thread. Did anyone see the HUMAN WEAPON episode that featured pankration? If you notice, the practioners of modern pankration have created a historical recreation of the ancient techniques and training methods of the ancient Greek martial art (or at least what they can trace it back to being). This is a modern system, heavily borrowing from other modern systems, but trying to create from this source a historical recreation of (at least of how they concieve it to be) the historical art.

Is it just me or does this sound vaguely familiar to the subject of TKD's connections to "ancient Korean martial disciplines"? I'm just curious.

 

[exile]

To me it's a very romantic view, not a wrong view but not worldly. There's Wise Men,warrior codes, ancient secrets and great faith which when exposed to the daylight and practical truths from practical men shows the truth to be actually something different, hence the howls of pain. No one wants to believe that something they have cherished, nourished and practised for years is not what it seems. I can imagine the hurt people feel when they perceive the TKD they have almost worshipped for years come under 'attack' from those who want to deal with the truth. I'm sorry for it but the truth while exposing the lie actually shows that TKD is the same art they love, they can still believe in the spiritual values and whatever else they get from the practice of it only facing the truth of it's history.
In England we have the myth of King Arthur, the Once and Future King who will come back to save us when England faces it's greatest peril. We cherish the idea of the golden time of Camelot, the Round Table and the Knights. We wish that was our history but we know it's not. The truth though is every bit as valid, interesting and heroic as is the real history of TKD.

TKD is just one of several systems that I have earned rank in (BTW, no cross ranking. Only one of my dan rankings in several systems-American Kenpo is the result of any accelerated training), but I do hold a master's rank in it. Because of this, and a strong interest in and curiosity of martial arts history, I am not really very tied down to romanticized versions of TKD's history as some around here seem to be nor have any emotional attachments that make me turn a blind eye to historical facts.

Both of you are getting at something which is very tightly connected to the point that SageGhost and I and others have been bringing up on this thread about the catastrophic effect of Yi dynasty Confucianism on the MAs of Korea. I'm thinking aloud a bit here, but I see this element you're both talking about—the romanticization of Korea's historical culture to point of fantasy, taking complete leave of anything that resembles historical realism—as a particular trap and temptation that Korea itself presents. The kind of Arthurian longing that Tez talks about is part of an extreme version of the way we 'romance the Middle Ages', and dream of high kings, and valor, and oaths of fealty and all the rest; but the fact is that there at least was, in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, a historical reality which sort of bolsters and supports that longing—there were kings, and knights, and tournaments, and all the rest; it was a lot nastier and dingier than Chrétien de Troyes, Sir Thomas Mallory, Wolfram von Eschenbach and the rest of 'em tell it, but it was there. And it was also there in Japan, in the Castle era...

... but not in Korea, apparently. And that hurts, I think, in terms of what you've both been saying...

Something Tez mentioned got me thinking about this thread. Did anyone see the HUMAN WEAPON episode that featured pankration? If you notice, the practioners of modern pankration have created a historical recreation of the ancient techniques and training methods of the ancient Greek martial art (or at least what they can trace it back to being). This is a modern system, heavily borrowing from other modern systems, but trying to create from this source a historical recreation of (at least of how they concieve it to be) the historical art.

Is it just me or does this sound vaguely familiar to the subject of TKD's connections to "ancient Korean martial disciplines"? I'm just curious.

Very interesting... more later, gotta go....

 

[punisher73]

I noticed that General Choi was brought up and how he had learned an older style of "korean martial art" from his calligraphy teacher.

I know of a high ranking Kenpo instructor who studied TKD in Korea in either the late 60's or early 70's. He does not have an interest in this type of argument but I remember him talking about winning a first edition of Choi's book in Korean and in the book he states that he was a 2nd degree bb in Shotokan and did not know the meanings of the katas. When the book was reprinted this section of the book was removed.

Also, when Choi returned to Korea he was promoted by the Korean government to 9th degree. I think that the Koreans are doing the same thing that both the Japanese and Okinawans did when they tried to distance themselves from the Chinese connection. They all started rewriting their history citing ancient methods that were kept hidden for their arts. I think that ALL peoples had some type of indeginous fighting art but I do not think that it is what TKD is. I think it is Japanese Karate that was imported and then changed as time went on to be more politically acceptable.

 

[Ninjamom]

—the romanticization of Korea's historical culture to point of fantasy, taking complete leave of anything that resembles historical realism—
>
>
in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, a historical reality which sort of bolsters and supports that longing—there were kings, and knights, and tournaments, and all the rest; .......And it was also there in Japan, in the Castle era...

... but not in Korea, apparently. And that hurts, I think, in terms of what you've both been saying...

Been following this discussion, and enjoying the mostly well-informed posts presented on the lack of historicity in modern TKD. I must disagree with this statement, though - I think it hits close to the mark, but misses it slightly.

In ancient Silla, there really was a group called the Hwa Rang that practiced martial skill, studied Confucian classics,and observed notable ethics and service to King and Country, and many of them did become famous generals and political leaders. The northern kingdom of Gokuryeo really did defeat a 300,000 + man army of Sui warriors (mostly in a single battle, BTW), and hold off invasion after invasion, eventually precipitating the fall of the Sui Empire to the Tang after years of losses due to war. Silla then unified all the Korean penninsula with Tang help, but then really did battle the Tang right off the peninnsula and gain 300+ years of independence. The succeeding Koryeo empire really did withstand six separate Mongol invasions spanning some 30 years (a feat no other kingdom managed), before falling to the Horde (not through battle, but through internal rebellion and a back-door deal, BTW). The Choseon Koreans really did battle Japan to a standstill and eventually forced them off the penninsula during the Imjin Waerun, and one Korean Admiral really did use incredible engineering and tactical skill to achieve more lopsided victories against far superior numbers than any naval force before or after (rightly becoming a national hero).

You see, Korea really did have a great history that included many astounding martial high points, incredible tales of bravery and sacrifice, and filled with the types of things easily making martial legends. The problem is that, between the Confucian culture of the Yi and the Japanese Occupation, NONE of that glorious history is preserved in any of the current martial practices. (i.e., look at the stances and motions in the Muye Dobo Tongji, and it is instantly apparent that they bare no similarity to current practice.)

THAT is the division and the link between what I hear Exile saying (there is a total lack of historical roots [i.e., 'lineage'] linking TKD and its techniques to ancient Korean practices) and what LF is saying (that Korea has a glorious martial past, and the culture/pride that inspired it is still 'alive 'n kick'n' in TKD).

On another note, if you really want to start a fight, consider again the Muye Dobo Tongji (an 18th century Korean military handbook providing a snapshot of current sword, spear, flail, etc. and hand-to-hand practices for soldiers to learn and officers to drill/train). While most remember it as a manual of current Korean military practices, many don't realize that it also contains a training guide for four different Japanese sword ryuha, to prepare Korean soldiers to face what most considered to be the likeliest source for a future invasion/attack. If you look at the diagrams and read the descriptions, you will see precious little in that manual that remotely resembles current practices by any of the 'old school' Japanese arts. In other words, even a documented lineage is no guarantee that your current martial practices are related to what was done on a battlefield centuries ago.

.......what TKD is. I think it is Japanese Karate that was imported and then changed as time went on to be more politically acceptable.

Yes and no. It changed yes. But I doubt the changes were primarily motivated by being politically acceptable. Things evolve with time. The arts practiced in one nation (even if imported from another) will take the flavor of that culture.

Karate was brought from Okinawa to Japan by Funikosha in 1925. All the major Kwan Jang Nims studied Shotokan, before Korea regained its independence in 1945, then TKD was officially formed in 1955 from those Shotokan roots. That means Shotokan had only 20 years to develop itself from an Okinawan to a Japanese artform before Korea regained its independence. Since then, TKD has had 68 years to transform itself into a Korean artform, independent of the Japanese streams that spawned it.