Taekwondo's core goes beyond technique

[Ninjamom]

Actually, there were professional soldiers, peasants and landowners who mustered under their authority as volunteers, private guerrilla fighters who mustered their own troops and scavenged provision, and Korean monks under their own leadership contributing to the inland effort.

Notable among the 'warrior monks' was the Righteous Army of Ch'ungch'ong province. Lead by Cho Heon, this group of volunteers included local peasants and a large contingent of Korean Buddhist monks under the leadership of Yonggyu. Yonggyu's warrior monks were responsible for the liberation of Cheongju from the Japanese. The righteous army and a second band of warrior monks were both defeated in separate battles trying to retake Kumsan, but the losses were so high that the Japanese ended up abandoning the site.

The Korean monastic community was originally asked to join the war effort by King Seonjo himself. The monk Hyujeong was appointed as head over all warrior monks, and promptly sent a dispatch throughout the entire country asking monks to join the war effort. Thousands did.

(see for instance "Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War 1592-1598" by Stephen Turnbull,Cassell & Co. Publishers, 2002)

 

[jim777]

My worry with these types of threads is that while they do serve a larger historical purpose, they also divide our small community here on MT in the KMA section. It's nice to know the historic connection between current TKD and Shotokan, but frankly I am better served by having 6th Dans posting here with their valuable insights on blocks, strikes, and combinations than I am losing those people over what happened with other people 40 or more years ago.

My fear when this thread started getting going was that it would cost us long time members. I hoped it would die off after 6 or 7 posts and so stayed out of it.
What matters most to me, and likely matters most to most of you as well, is where TKD is and where it is going. Isn't that really more important than where it's been?

I do not think anyone has been rude (or worse) here. I can easily see how some people may think that their years of knowledge and therefore their opinions have been cast aside as meaningless and simply wrong, however. I honestly hate to see that happen, and while there are no bad guys here there are bound to be hurt feelings anyway. I would HATE to lose Master Eisenhart from our community over this (as I have to assume we all would).

We should, I humbly put forth in the spirit of community, just let these TKD specific historical questions lie for a few weeks and concentrate on our common ground. (The kwans I mean, not the pre-20th century) We can get back to history questions later, as they will always come up anyway. Our TKD section is a vibrant, post filled section with many highly skilled artists compared to many of the other sections, and we should take a moment to be grateful for that, and do what we can to help preserve it as well.

Just a thought

 

[terryl965]

My worry with these types of threads is that while they do serve a larger historical purpose, they also divide our small community here on MT in the KMA section. It's nice to know the historic connection between current TKD and Shotokan, but frankly I am better served by having 6th Dans posting here with their valuable insights on blocks, strikes, and combinations than I am losing those people over what happened with other people 40 or more years ago.

My fear when this thread started getting going was that it would cost us long time members. I hoped it would die off after 6 or 7 posts and so stayed out of it.
What matters most to me, and likely matters most to most of you as well, is where TKD is and where it is going. Isn't that really more important than where it's been?

I do not think anyone has been rude (or worse) here. I can easily see how some people may think that their years of knowledge and therefore their opinions have been cast aside as meaningless and simply wrong, however. I honestly hate to see that happen, and while there are no bad guys here there are bound to be hurt feelings anyway. I would HATE to lose Master Eisenhart from our community over this (as I have to assume we all would).

We should, I humbly put forth in the spirit of community, just let these TKD specific historical questions lie for a few weeks and concentrate on our common ground. (The kwans I mean, not the pre-20th century) We can get back to history questions later, as they will always come up anyway. Our TKD section is a vibrant, post filled section with many highly skilled artists compared to many of the other sections, and we should take a moment to be grateful for that, and do what we can to help preserve it as well.

Just a thought

Excellent Post Jim and I for one do not wish to loose anybody from the TKD community and would hope we do not. Like I said I enjoy knowledge from all the poster and even though we may not always agree, I respect them for there knowledge and commitment to TKD as a whole.

 

[IcemanSK]

Indeed. There is much more that unites us than divides us.

 

[exile]

My worry with these types of threads is that while they do serve a larger historical purpose, they also divide our small community here on MT in the KMA section. It's nice to know the historic connection between current TKD and Shotokan, but frankly I am better served by having 6th Dans posting here with their valuable insights on blocks, strikes, and combinations than I am losing those people over what happened with other people 40 or more years ago.

The purpose of delving into the historical connections of TKD with its O/J karate ancestor is not about 'what happened with other people'. It is to help recover some important technical assets that are latent in the TKD hyung sets, in particular the combat-effective bunkai that are being rediscovered by our by now relatively distant cousins in Shotokan karate as part of the revival of careful, realistic bunkai study and training. The source of TKD in O/J karate allows us access to the same 'user's guide' that the Shotokan people are busy recovering for their own use. I have no interest at all in personalities, so far as MA training goes, or in historical anecdote for its own sake, but I fear that the value of much of the discussion in this thread will be lost if people come away from it thinking that it was about old anecdotal stuff that happened half a century ago. On the contrary, the TKD/karate common ancestry is a potential Rosetta Stone for us in trying to undertand the combat applications of our own hyung sets. Knowing, for example, that Eunbi is (unsurprisingly) the same as Empi, but with certain systematic modifactions in the use of leg techs which lead to much less sensible bunkai (as per here), allows us to better understand the combat significance of the movements in Eunbi without being misled by the later, stylistically-based modifications to the original movement set in the old Okinawan form.

My fear when this thread started getting going was that it would cost us long time members. I hoped it would die off after 6 or 7 posts and so stayed out of it.
What matters most to me, and likely matters most to most of you as well, is where TKD is and where it is going. Isn't that really more important than where it's been?

Well, the OPer was (as one would expect, eh?) the one who began the thread, in the course of which he insinuated that the vast weight of historical evidence carried out by some of the best researchers in MAs (though he could care to dismiss them on grounds that seem to have reflected, mostly, his dislike of what they were saying) was connected with my relative juniority in TKD. Please reread the OP carefully. Let's be very clear about what was said, yes?

I do not think anyone has been rude (or worse) here. I can easily see how some people may think that their years of knowledge and therefore their opinions have been cast aside as meaningless and simply wrong, however. I honestly hate to see that happen, and while there are no bad guys here there are bound to be hurt feelings anyway. I would HATE to lose Master Eisenhart from our community over this (as I have to assume we all would).

We should, I humbly put forth in the spirit of community, just let these TKD specific historical questions lie for a few weeks and concentrate on our common ground. (The kwans I mean, not the pre-20th century) We can get back to history questions later, as they will always come up anyway. Our TKD section is a vibrant, post filled section with many highly skilled artists compared to many of the other sections, and we should take a moment to be grateful for that, and do what we can to help preserve it as well.

Just a thought

Well, my thought is that if someone is going to be offended by a careful historical analysis because they don't like the conclusions, and someone else suggests that if the best-case historical hypothesis—a conclusion with important technical implications for the SD side of TKD, as I've suggested above—offends that person than perhaps we had better shut up about the history of TKD, then I have to question what the point of having a serious discussion board in the first place is. It's very nice to exchange pleasantries, but surely one of the points of someplace like MT is precisely so that we can have a pool of information and informed debate, without baseless hostility towards other members, addressing issues of content? One of the other significant subtexts in this discussion has been whether we should accept the premise that if a certain view of history makes someone (either as an individual or a group) feel good, it's really not very nice to challenge that view on the basis of actual evidence. And I think, again, that accepting that premise, and therefor abandoning a productive discussion just because it might have offended someone would, in the end, be exactly the wrong thing to do.

But if you go to the members list, Jim, and check out the OPer's most recent visit, you'll see that his last visit to the site was the day of the OP itself. So it seems fairly unlikely that his lack of reentry to the thread has anything to do with the subsequent development of the thread, wouldn't you say?

 

[jim777]

But if you go to the members list, Jim, and check out the OPer's most recent visit, you'll see that his last visit to the site was the day of the OP itself. So it seems fairly unlikely that his lack of reentry to the thread has anything to do with the subsequent development of the thread, wouldn't you say?

I had gone to LF's last login, and that was what made me think we had driven off a member. To the specific question, I guess that depends on whether you have auto login turned on, or know how to clear your cache. I don't know. I generally read these these threads with some expectation of learning something, but this thread had a different vibe from the start. Either way, all I wanted to say was that I hope we don't lose members over it. That's my only point.

 

[terryl965]

I had gone to LF's last login, and that was what made me think we had driven off a member. To the specific question, I guess that depends on whether you have auto login turned on, or know how to clear your cache. I don't know. I generally read these these threads with some expectation of learning something, but this thread had a different vibe from the start. Either way, all I wanted to say was that I hope we don't lose members over it. That's my only point.

I beleive we can all agree on this.

 

[exile]

I had gone to LF's last login, and that was what made me think we had driven off a member. To the specific question, I guess that depends on whether you have auto login turned on, or know how to clear your cache. I don't know. I generally read these these threads with some expectation of learning something, but this thread had a different vibe from the start. Either way, all I wanted to say was that I hope we don't lose members over it. That's my only point.

Again, Jim: the 'start', i.e., OP, of the thread you refer to was in large part an ad hominem attack on another member, rather than a rational confrontation of the throroughly researched results—carried out by people who have dotted every last i and crossed every last t—that that member reported and summarized. So yes, that is rather different from the way most threads start. As it happened, the other member in question chose to avoid responding to that ad hominem attack—why focus on so transparent a desperation move?—and instead tried to constrain the discussion to the substantive content at hand. And I think that's the way things went, fortunately: check out what happens in threads where the target of a gratuitous and obvious personal attack chooses to respond in kind, if you want to see something worth wringing your hands over.

But the fact that I haven't chosen to make too much of it doesn't mean that I think that the OP is entitled to a free pass, or an alibi, to substitute personal sniping for rational (or even coherent) counterargument. And that's my point.

One more thing: clearing your cache will not affect in the least your login audit at MT, so far as I know. And even if you maintain your login indefinitely, as you can with the kind of broadband cable connection many of us have, any updating of the thread you do to check current content will, I believe, count as a login for purposes of the 'last visit' category. Lurking... well, that's something else entirely. That's why I said 'unlikely' rather than 'impossible'...

 

[Marginal]

I had gone to LF's last login, and that was what made me think we had driven off a member. To the specific question, I guess that depends on whether you have auto login turned on, or know how to clear your cache. I don't know. I generally read these these threads with some expectation of learning something, but this thread had a different vibe from the start. Either way, all I wanted to say was that I hope we don't lose members over it. That's my only point.

LF tends to come and go. This isn't a new conversation for him, so I doubt hashing it out once more would drive him away.

 

[terryl965]

LF tends to come and go. This isn't a new conversation for him, so I doubt hashing it out once more would drive him away.

All I know is I want some food and not getting it. Seriously though we must know history of the Art that we study or at least in my view. I'm sure with anything people will believe what they choose to believe. Tae Kwon Do came from Okinawa karate and all of us know this, what we do not know is why do the Korean people feel the need to bring up that facts about 5000 year old form of Art. TKD started in the early fifties so at best it roots go about 55 years must people would be happy to know they have grown so much in that time frame. Well I'm done talk later.

 

[SageGhost83]

The OP was a snipe in my opinion, and I reacted to it by suggesting that such things should be handled in private rather than be made out into an entire thread. I didn't think that this thread would go on this long, either. However, I think that it is good to have a nice debate. I definitely wasn't trying to step on anyone's toes or anything like that through my own posts, and I would feel bad if I contributed to someone leaving MT. I haven't met anyone that I don't like on MT, and though our viewpoints often diverge, I really respect and enjoy reading the posts by the members of this site. I posted according to a lot of the hard, verified evidence that is backed up both within and outside of the country in question, and I did so because I felt that there were/are a lot of people who are being openly lied to concerning this subject within their art and that it is high time for the record to be set straight. I wasn't trying to be offensive or anything. As Taekwondoin, we take a lot of heat from the rest of the martial arts community and this history thing is one of the reasons why. I know that our own little corner of the net is not going to make a big difference in the larger world, but it would at least be a start, I guess. I was debating more on the principle of historical accuracy and respecting that accuracy even when it runs counter to what we are generally taught to believe in public, not just on history for its own sake. What happened back then is over and done with. Regardless of what happened back then, we are all a part of this thing now as brothers and sisters in TKD. I look at the status that our style holds today - as the largest growing martial art in the world and as a bonafied international olympic event, and I see that Taekwondo's brightest days are not only in our current time, but also in the years that lie ahead. Of course, as the people who represent this art, we have a responsibility to at least be truthful about our art and maintain its integrity, and to do our part to call out some of the shenanigans that go on within it and hopefully eliminate them (in our own spheres of practice, of course. Don't go on a witch hunt). Nothing major, more of like a "if you see trash on the ground where you are walking, then pick it up and throw it in the dumpster" kind of thing. Hey Ninjamom, you read Turnbull, too? I am a huge fan of his work. I really enjoyed his book on the Imjin wars. Really good stuff!

 

[SageGhost83]

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:.....I just noticed the hilarious irony of my signature and the subject of this thread. Maybe this would be a good time to update it. Btw, it is friday so I am buying a round for everyone :cheers:. Tae Kwon!

 

[jim777]

One more thing: clearing your cache will not affect in the least your login audit at MT, so far as I know. And even if you maintain your login indefinitely, as you can with the kind of broadband cable connection many of us have, any updating of the thread you do to check current content will, I believe, count as a login for purposes of the 'last visit' category. Lurking... well, that's something else entirely. That's why I said 'unlikely' rather than 'impossible'...

Clearing your cache would remove your auto login settings from your own browser, that's all I meant. It won't stop IP logging on the server side, as you point out.

 

[Tez3]

Clearing your cache would remove your auto login settings from your own browser, that's all I meant. It won't stop IP logging on the server side, as you point out.

Ok I don't mind arguments on the internet, I don't mind rude jokes or 'iffy' pictures but really, when you start taking technical I really have to complain or take a computer course LOL!

I doubt very much the OP has left, we've had far bigger disagreements before and he's come back. I'm sure we'll have the pleasure again of crossing swords with LF, it's a genuine pleasure btw.

 

[jim777]

Ok I don't mind arguments on the internet, I don't mind rude jokes or 'iffy' pictures but really, when you start taking technical I really have to complain or take a computer course LOL!

My apologies Some days it's tougher to leave the work at work than others! :lol:

 

[Last Fearner]

Ok Folks, I'm back! That's right... its me... the infamous, hated (and often misunderstood) Last Fearner. I have been extremely busy, but I am glad to see this thread has generated a fairly healthy discussion on this topic.

Lf feels like nobody respects his viewpoint and that they are always bashing him.

Actually, I often get positive feedback, and I appreciate the comments made by many within this thread. However, like everyone else, I receive some negative remarks also (in the case of this thread - two), such as this unsigned comment, “and you wonder why you're not respected around here” Well, I didn't wonder that, but perhaps I wonder why this person feels this way.. We can disagree with one another and still be polite about it. That doesn't mean that I am not going to take issue with someone who challenges me in a rude or condescending manner, so if some chose not to respect me because I call out those who argue with insults and poor attitudes - - then so be it.

I started this thread to address this issue in-depth, and to conform to the rules of the forum by not high-jacking F2F's thread. I would like to respectfully reply to some of the comments that have been contributed to this thread thus far, and do so with a clean slate! I mean no disrespect to anyone, and none of my following remarks are intended as an attack upon anyone, but rather as a healthy discussion about why some people believe in the origins of Taekwondo being older than the kwan era, and that the “base” of Taekwondo does not rest in Shotokan Karate.

I will break up my response into several different posts in the hopes that this will make it easier for viewers to read.

Chief Master D.J. Eisenhart

 

[Last Fearner]

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.

I commend Tez for the patience it took to print this thread out and read through it, and for having the open mind to attempt to see the different perspective from which I view things. Thanks, Tez, and I look forward to any input you have on this subject.

Been following this discussion, and enjoying the mostly well-informed posts presented on the lack of historicity in modern TKD.
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.

Ninjamom, you have really impressed me with your knowledge and research into Korea's history, and sorting out the actual historical events that shaped Korea, and established a social, and cultural identity unique to these people. Although you might not come to all of the same conclusions that I do, I can see that you give more weight and significance to the bigger picture, and the cultural history that was unique to Korea. I hope you continue to share your perspective.

Please understand, I’m not trying to refute the information Exile put forth, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. I find it very insightful and helpful in allowing me to better understand my system. The only issue I sometimes have with it is with regards to it’s relevance, where dose it really fit into the lager picture of TKD history. I fear some may give it too much weight and develop an opinion of TKD that is just as off the mark as that of those who buy into all the propaganda. I just think it’s prudent to remind ourselves that what we think we know pales in comparison to what we don’t know. Again, I think it’s best to keep an open mind, take every thing with a grain of salt and be open to the possibility that what we know to be true now may not be true in the future.

F2F, I couldn't have said this better myself, and is exactly the concern that prompted me to start this thread. I don't specifically dispute what exile and the historians say about Kwan Taekwondo, I just disagree with applying that definition to the Korean National Taekwondo which was so named “Taekwondo” for the specific purpose of placing the indigenous Korean Martial Art techniques of kicking, and philosophy of the ancient warriors at the core of its meaning.

 

[Last Fearner]

Exile, sir, with all due respect to you as a fellow Martial Artist, academic enthusiast, and historical researcher (of which I am very impressed with your knowledge and dedication), I ask you to relax for a moment, not construe my reply here as a hostile argument or attack, and consider an alternative point of view.

Sir, here is an analogy to help you, and others understand my point of view. You might have heard the expression “seeing things through rose colored glasses.” If everyone around you is looking at the world through tinted glasses, and one expert researcher decides to remove his glasses, he might see the world around him differently. He goes to his peers and convinces them to remove their glasses. After doing so, they see what he sees, and concur that the world they now see is not rose colored. The expert publishes his findings in a journal which is peer-reviewed by other experts who have removed their rose colored glasses.

You then read the journals and repeat the good news to others. “Everything is not rose colored,” you state, “The sky is green, and the grass is blue.” Some people refuse to believe your message, while you convince others to take off their glasses and see the “truth.” Of course, you are just the messenger bringing the “truth” to others as you have read it from the experts, and even experienced it yourself. Then, a guy like me comes along and says, actually, the sky and grass can be a variety of colors, but usually, the sky is blue, and the grass is green - - not the other way around. Although I could argue the point all day long, you will never agree because you are convinced by the evidence that the experts have put forth.

As it turns out, the majority of people, including the “experts,” are standing in a huge box with tinted windows. Although the experts have removed their rose-colored glasses, they are still viewing the world from one, distorted perspective. If someone, such as myself, has spent years traveling outside of the box, and has seen the world from a number of perspectives, my point of view would be different from yours and theirs.

Now, exile, sir, I am not saying that you and your experts are wrong on what you are saying about the Kwan era experience of Taekwondo, just that it is only one perspective of a larger world. It is not that I am right, and you are wrong, it is just that we are talking about two different things, and I would prefer that you avoid holding your definition of Taekwondo up as the only definition, and refrain from stating that your experts are right because of the “peer-reviewed evidence” they present, and that those who don't see it that way are kool-aid drinking idiots who lose their credibility by disagreeing with those experts.

Respectfully,
Chief Master D.J. Eisenhart

 

[Last Fearner]

Here are the relevant facts in support of my position:​

1. Tribes of central and northern Asia are estimated to have migrated down into the peninsula now known as Korea, as far back as 30,000 B.C. From around 5,000 to 1,000 B.C., new Asian migration bleded with the aboriginal tribes. Over the next 3,000 years, they became a distinct culture in an area they called Choseon - “Land of the morning calm.”

2. Between the 1st Century B.C., and the 1st century A.D., specific boundaries were established for three main Kingdoms of Choseon. Armies were formed, and soldiers were trained to protect those territories. Some of this training included unarmed hand-to-hand combat and grappling such as Subak.

3. Over the next six centuries, Choseon's warriors fought off invasions, and the three Kingdoms united as the Silla Dynasty. At this time, the young boys were trained to blossom into manhood as “Hwarang knights” with combat skills, refined social education, and a well-documented code of ethics that became the heart of their native Martial Art. According to this philosophy, Martial Art is more than just specific fighting techniques, and is more of a way of life, set of values, and a moral conviction that upholds a warrior code.

4. Throughout this early development of Korea, the technique of fighting an opponent by using the advantages of kicking and stomping the legs became prominent, and was unique to the native Martial Art of Korea. This indigenous fighting system became known as “T'ae Kyon” (Romanized as “Taekyeon”) - the “kicking method.”

5. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, indigenous Martial Art skills were outlawed along with every other aspect of native Korean culture, including the language, and their native Hangul script. However, the kicking method of T'ae Kyeon, and skills of Subak were taught covertly, and pre-occupation knowledge of ancient skills, philosophies, and warrior codes were remembered and recorded after WWII ended. If only a hand-full of survivors are known to have retained the former indigenous arts of Korea, it is this connection to the past that allows Korea to claim, with accuracy, that their history survived and is being revived in a new, modern Korea.

6. Amidst all of the confusion over Japanese influence and foreign Martial Art contamination, which resulted in a myriad of schools known as “Kwan” interpretating modern Korean Martial Art, the Korean government called upon historians and Martial Art experts to research Korea's past. They extracted the core beliefs, former philosophies, ancient warrior code, and the base foundation for the kicking art of Tae Kyeon, combined it all together and chose a new name of “Taekwondo.” Several of the Korean Kwan era leaders of Martial Art development also chose to use this same term of “Taekwon-do” to represent what they had learned and were teaching, thus the confusion over the two distinct meanings of the term “Taekwondo.”

Rather than spending a lot of time citing sources for statements of fairly common knowledge, I will simply provide a source if someone points out a specific statement they would like to challenge, and have verified through a credible source.

 

[Last Fearner]

Fence​

I don't believe anyone can accurately pin-point the origin of Taekwondo, without a specific definition of the term. Let me begin to explain my position about the definition of Taekwondo with this analogy. I had a writing professor in college back in the 80's who began the semester by writing the word “fence” on the board. He then asked the class, “What part of speech is this” ( noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.)? After a few guesses, he told the class, “None!” The majority of words can not be identified as any part of speech until they are used in a sentence. As a noun, “fence” can mean a physical barrier, or divider between two pieces of property. As a verb, it can refer to the activity of dueling with swords, foils or other such weapons.

My reason for the above story is that you must thoroughly, and accurately know the subject of which you are researching in order to identify if you are correct in finding pertinent “evidence” which is relevant to its history and origins. Exile, consider this. If you and some historical experts were to do scientific research into when the first “fence” existed, and your experts found no evidence of post holes, or fencing material dating before a specific time in history, you might draw certain conclusions as to its origins. If you said “fencing” did not exist prior to such date (referring to the manufactured materials to build a fence), and I said that fencing existed longer ago than that, I might not be saying you and your experts are wrong as to your facts, just that you are using a different definition of the term “fence” or “fencing.”

The term “Taekwon-do” of which exile speaks, is a product of a relatively small group of individuals, within a very short time frame, that were almost entirely influenced by Japanese Martial Art for their own initial education on this subject. For them, “Taekwon-do” (by that definition) began within their lifetime, and took on the form of what they learned from various teachers of mostly Japanese and some Chinese systems, re-structured and re-named “Taekwon-do” for their teaching, and organizational purposes.

This Kwan era concept started with these few men, and grew into a number of variations that each Kwan presented as their interpretation of what Taekwondo should be. Chung Do Kwan had a different perspective from Jidokwan, and Jidokwan was not the same as General Choi's military Oh Do kwan, etc. All of these Kwan variations can be traced back to their Kwan founder's personal experience, and arising out of the primarily Japanese influence on those individuals.

Conversely, what I have been taught as the “Korean National” definition of Taekwondo is not a lie, or re-writing of that particular history, but the use of the word “Taekwondo” for a different meaning. There are no fence posts or building materials to be discovered here, and Japanese Kata have nothing to do with this definition. The term “Taekwondo” is also defined as a way of life, as a philosophical belief system, and a method of training for self defense that focuses on a preference for distance, and kicking techniques that are derived from, and based upon the uniquely native skills of T'ae kyon. This is the core of “Korean National Taekwondo” and it is purely Korean in origin.

Although most of the various Kwan leaders eventually accepted the word “Taekwon-do” as an umbrella title, it meant something different to each of them, and certainly meant something more specific to General Choi who pushed to have his system, teaching methods, and curriculum recognized as the one true “Taekwon-do.” Many who currently train in his ITF organization view “Taekwon-do” as General Choi's creation, and before his death, he was claiming that he was the “Father of Taekwondo” and that the Korean Government “stole” his art from him.

An interesting comparison to the confusion over the definition of Taekwondo, could be found in the development of “Te” (pronounced “tay”) in okinawa which was defined has the “hand” fighting. When the hand techniques of China (reportedly stared by Zen-Buddhist monk Bodhidharma) reached Japan, many people called it “Kara-te” (not “kuh rah' tee”, but “Karla - tay' ”) According to famed Karate expert Gitchen Funakoshi, “Kara” was a common expression in Japan used to describe anything of value (pottery, furniture, etc) that came out of ancient China (particularly the T'ang Dynasty).

Thus the Japanese called the ancient “Chinese Boxing” “Kara-te.” In time the term became generically applied by lay-persons to both Japanese and Chinese Martial Art. A dispute arose over the definition since the Japanese people did not want to give the mistaken impression that their Martial Art originated in China. It was suggested they change the characters used to write “Kara” from that which meant “Ancient China” to a different character meaning “empty” (same as the modern term used in singing “Karaoke” - pronounced “karla - okay” - meaning “empty orchestra”). Since both were pronounced the same (“Karate”), there is still often confusion, but they have two completely differnt definitions, and are not talking about the same thing.

Perhaps we need a terminology clarification so that those who say “Taekwon-do” is based in Karate or has its roots in Shotokan, do not speak for all of “Taekwondo”, and can specify that they are talking about the limited definition of Kwan era Taekwondo. Those who use the term “Taekwondo” as representing the more ancient roots, long standing philosophies, documented battle victories, Korean warrior codes of ethics, and native Korean kicking methods as a base and core of a modern national art can do so without being called liars, Kool-Aid drinkers re-writing history, or questioning their credibility as knowledgeable instructors and masters.