The "Moo Duk Kwan" trademark

To me the lineage means little other than something to kibitz about, how good the founder was means little to me, nor does the proper historic name of the style. What does matter to me is the students who train today. How honorable they are, how practical, how tough, how they fight and how much they absolutely love what they're doing.

As for history, I always think about something. Been around long enough to see several generations of styles and instructors. Sometimes I hear "So and so did this when so and so did that and that's why such and such is the way it is today." And I think to myself, No, it's not, I was standing right there when your Master's teacher said/did that. That ain't how it happened."

It makes me wonder how hundreds of years of various Martial Arts have changed a few stories as they ease on down the road. THEN, write it on a scroll or publish it in a book and whatta' you got? You got documented History, baby.


Well said Buka.
 
To me the lineage means little other than something to kibitz about, how good the founder was means little to me, nor does the proper historic name of the style. What does matter to me is the students who train today. How honorable they are, how practical, how tough, how they fight and how much they absolutely love what they're doing.

As for history, I always think about something. Been around long enough to see several generations of styles and instructors. Sometimes I hear "So and so did this when so and so did that and that's why such and such is the way it is today." And I think to myself, No, it's not, I was standing right there when your Master's teacher said/did that. That ain't how it happened."

It makes me wonder how hundreds of years of various Martial Arts have changed a few stories as they ease on down the road. THEN, write it on a scroll or publish it in a book and whatta' you got? You got documented History, baby.
That pretty much summarizes my thoughts on lineage, too. It can help me to understand how things evolved. It can help the students to be able to look at related arts to get an idea of how things changed/didn't change. An instructor's lineage might interest me because they might have some stories about someone in the past I find interesting.

But none of that is major impact. Lineage is a matter of mild interest to me. When I look at a school, lineage matters about as much as rank. I'm far more interested in what's going on inside that school today.
 
To me the lineage means little other than something to kibitz about, how good the founder was means little to me, nor does the proper historic name of the style. What does matter to me is the students who train today. How honorable they are, how practical, how tough, how they fight and how much they absolutely love what they're doing.

As for history, I always think about something. Been around long enough to see several generations of styles and instructors. Sometimes I hear "So and so did this when so and so did that and that's why such and such is the way it is today." And I think to myself, No, it's not, I was standing right there when your Master's teacher said/did that. That ain't how it happened."

It makes me wonder how hundreds of years of various Martial Arts have changed a few stories as they ease on down the road. THEN, write it on a scroll or publish it in a book and whatta' you got? You got documented History, baby.

I cannot disagree, but I think we all hope our body of work to be remembered in a good light. Where it goes off the rails is when false claims and patent lies get spun into fact. I look at it this way; everything that has been done in the past is the building blocks for what we are doing today. Could Funakoshi defeat the fighters of today? In the ring maybe not, none of can say for sure. But as I understand the history, that is not what he learned or taught people.
 
We had a similar situation in Germany. Ko Eui Min, former Korean national coach who moved to Germany in the 70s and who runs a school in Munich or his son registered the term Kukkiwon in Germany. And they sent out cease and desist letters to other schools and clubs who were using the term Kukkiwon. Kukkiwon then undertook legal actions in order to be able to use their name in Germany.

Plus we have a similar issue with using the Jidokwan name and symbol over here. Though no legal battle yet as far as I know. There is a high ranked German instructor who started his own association and called it Jidokwan Deutschland. His view is that he‘s from a Jidokwan lineage and therefore has the right to run the national Jidokwan branch. However, there is a senior master of Korean descent who already represents Jidokwan in Germany.
 
We had a similar situation in Germany. Ko Eui Min, former Korean national coach who moved to Germany in the 70s and who runs a school in Munich or his son registered the term Kukkiwon in Germany. And they sent out cease and desist letters to other schools and clubs who were using the term Kukkiwon. Kukkiwon then undertook legal actions in order to be able to use their name in Germany.

Plus we have a similar issue with using the Jidokwan name and symbol over here. Though no legal battle yet as far as I know. There is a high ranked German instructor who started his own association and called it Jidokwan Deutschland. His view is that he‘s from a Jidokwan lineage and therefore has the right to run the national Jidokwan branch. However, there is a senior master of Korean descent who already represents Jidokwan in Germany.
I have found Korean Martial Arts can be awesome.... KMA politics however stink.

like a dead corpse.
 

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