the real meaning of poomsae

[Manny]

Sorry to post these but the post of granfire about sparring opened to me this topic. I really feel shame about this but since I was a teen in the old days and now in my gray days (because my hair color) I've been never been exposed to the full understanding of the poomsae and this is sad thing.

Yes, my sambonims has make me memorice all the poomsaes till Kungam but vaguely teach me the full meaning of the poomsae, I am talking about what japanese call bunkai (meaning and aplication of a kata).

These days is sad to see kids strugling memorizing the poomsaes and do the movements correct few weeks or days before examination but as a robots they do the poomsae without knowing what are they doing.

Sad,sad thing......

Manny

 

[Master Dan]

A group of us used to travel around and teach people what the hidden meanings of thier forms, Poomse, Kata are. Generaly speaking TaeKwonDo practitioners have the least understanding to applications of individual movements but also the mental or spiritual application of the Poomse.

Even the best DVD which have very good production values go to applications and it is pitifully basic.

However in all martial art there are fases you go through that it is time to unlearn what you have learned for a purpose because you have now trained physically long enough and have matured enough time in rank to deserve or be trusted with the knowledge. there is alot of myth and legend related to the movements that were meant to be mind ticklers to remember what the application or strike point was.

When a martial art is outlawed 60 years alot of masters pass on and the knowledge was lost. Now people are doing stuff out of tradition with out fully understanding what they are doing. Example Crane stance, my GM one day said the stance came from they were watching a Crane hunt and each time it struck and caught a fish it stood on one leg? Lovely story and I was hardly going to argue but it has nothing to do with your own body but it called a mapping point reminding you how to activate one of four points the lower two on the other persons knee which has to be struck with an assending strike which can only be done with a certain part of the foot. The story is for the public watching or students in the dojang not ready to have the knowledge for many reasons.
There are no imaginary multiple atackers, there are no defensive blocks, the term block is the ending or begining to an offensive strike and each move is not rigid in only one interpretation but could have 12 or more variations in application depending on the target of oportunity. The Japanese and Okinowins did not originate this knowlege? I don't care what the style is its origins all go back to TCM Traditional Chinese Medicine.

When you first start learning the applications or Bonki it can really mess you up doing a Poomsee like two people arguing but eventually you can seperate the main levels of the forms, strict competition, personal spiritual, demonstration and personal self defense. However you will never perform or think the same way again with out feeling the applications.

Its a thought process that takes time and you cannot get it from attending a one hour seminar I was fortunate to be taught one on one by some very good people.

I listend to a comment by an SD guy I have alot of respect for claiming all presure point instrution is BS useless in combat if any was true MMA would use it in the ring? Well I understand the passion due to weak fighting these days and also the confusion over why a certian application in a friendly DoJang enviroment works and in combat does not? There is no confusion the very nerve centers that work to effect an organ, part of the body, brain is the same structure that will interupt the impulse to the brain during fighting or stress. Does this mean never do this? no it means some technique is used with out warning like when you want the meat to be good on a cow before you kill it do you chase it up set it and get adrenalin and glucose rushing to the blood? no you walk up speaking soothing word patting the cow like a freind and blow its brains out before it realizes whats happening. In combat you do what is unexpected and what works on targets of oportunity. Saying something will never work is simplistic like saying you must only punch all the time or only kick all the time its a little more complex than that.

MMA does have rules and is sport lots of things are not allowed in the ring that do not apply in the ring. They are not allowed bare handed applications using finger nails or knuckles or manipulation or strikes to many areas off limits. I do however aplaud thier conditioning and spirit.

Seems like you have some exposure to Bonki you can PM we could discuss in private

 

[dancingalone]

I don't know that you should feel bad about this, Manny. You practice the Tae Geuk pattern set. Arguably there is nothing hidden or disguised in those forms by design. What you see is what you get, so the meaning the form should be plain enough to anyone, and you can focus exclusively on the technical performance of the form.

In contrast, the karate forms were created with more intent behind them. Some codify a specific solution to a fighting scenario. Some were designed as physical training forms. Some were made for the use of women or those physically weaker with smaller frames. And still some were largely intended to train basics and nothing more.

Personally, I promote the idea of 'enriching' TKD forms to function more like karate forms do. I do this with the Choi forms using concepts from shorin-ryu kate. But I don't think it's sad that those using the KKW forms don't have the same depth as perhaps is found in the study of Okinawan karate forms. They were never designed to function the same in the first place. You can't miss what you never had to begin with.

 

[granfire]

In an old Black Belt magazine I read an article about forms.
I mentioned it before but it was something profound how the writer explained how there is a lot of myth around forms, how it has been copied off an animal (insert your choice here) thousands of years ago while that was simply not true.

He suggested that forms were just that: a logic combination of moves to train, thought up by a guy past along, changed over time, either because the Master thought a technique was better/more important than another or had a different idea of the form and changed the priority of the moves.

What I find is lacking is the understanding of the moves themselves. Especially kids just rush through the forms, but even adult students too often have no clue what it is they are doing.

naturally there is some discussion if a move is a block or a strike (or both)
but basically those are proven attacks, and one should make use of them and put all the effort in them, you won't get to work 'picking the peach off the tree' with a partner...and a few other techniques he/she won't be thrilled to receive the full force of.

One of my instructors does do forms, from white up to his rank black, and all the forms he learned while with other organizations until the sweat pours off him!

 

[dancingalone]

A group of us used to travel around and teach people what the hidden meanings of thier forms, Poomse, Kata are. Generaly speaking TaeKwonDo practitioners have the least understanding to applications of individual movements but also the mental or spiritual application of the Poomse.

Sorry, but if you practice the Tae Geuk forms, there is NO hidden meaning to them by design. So there is little to analyse or understand about the individual movements.

Now, one can certainly take the Tae Geuk forms and reverse engineer some 'bunkai' for them using inspiration from other sources, and you might end up with something very good and worth practicing and teach to others. But you're still adding on something that was never intended to be there in the first place by the designers of the forms. I don't make a value judgment about whether this is good or bad. That's really up to the individual practitioner.

 

[dancingalone]

What I find is lacking is the understanding of the moves themselves. Especially kids just rush through the forms, but even adult students too often have no clue what it is they are doing.

More times than not, an adult who doesn't understand what his TKD form means also have poor fundamentals too. There doesn't have to be anything mystical or secretive about an inside-to-outside block. So if they don't get that the second half for example of Chon-Ji is a series of inside-to-outside blocks coupled with a lunge punch, then I would bet that when they perform the inside-to-outside block singly in practice that their block there is bad also.

 

[Master Dan]

Sorry, but if you practice the Tae Geuk forms, there is NO hidden meaning to them by design. So there is little to analyse or understand about the individual movements.

Now, one can certainly take the Tae Geuk forms and reverse engineer some 'bunkai' for them using inspiration from other sources, and you might end up with something very good and worth practicing and teach to others. But you're still adding on something that was never intended to be there in the first place by the designers of the forms. I don't make a value judgment about whether this is good or bad. That's really up to the individual practitioner.

From your perspective I agree especially with the last sentence its not about good or bad but possibilities. But getting away from a system or name of form Tae Geuk or Palque what I am talking about is the simple movements common to all forms, down block, up block, knife hand in general they are 180 degrees different in application related to what is actually being taught publicly?

Stepping away from tradition, art form what ever but over to self defense right or wrong is not the issue what works is and what is the point to to any technique if it will not work for that person in real combat or self protection? We have an obligation to help people to work with what they have. What is the point to doing any forms if not self defense? and I agree part of that is health as we get older I don't care what you know if you loose your balance and flexability you cannot defend yourself.

Stance is also a whole other subject related to application which is greatly over looked and not just the obvious but related to energy flow related to tweeking a manipuation or some going back to acient military applications related to offensive or defensive weopons?

 

[dancingalone]

From your perspective I agree especially with the last sentence its not about good or bad but possibilities. But getting away from a system or name of form Tae Geuk or Palque what I am talking about is the simple movements common to all forms, down block, up block, knife hand in general they are 180 degrees different in application related to what is actually being taught publicly?

Stepping away from tradition, art form what ever but over to self defense right or wrong is not the issue what works is and what is the point to to any technique if it will not work for that person in real combat or self protection? We have an obligation to help people to work with what they have. What is the point to doing any forms if not self defense? and I agree part of that is health as we get older I don't care what you know if you loose your balance and flexability you cannot defend yourself.

Stance is also a whole other subject related to application which is greatly over looked and not just the obvious but related to energy flow related to tweeking a manipuation or some going back to acient military applications related to offensive or defensive weopons?

It is not necessarily that I disagree with any of this. To the contrary. I am commenting more towards the original post which seems to lament the absence of applications study within tae kwon do. For the most part, this is indeed something 'missing' from tae kwon do, but I would argue there should be no shame attached to this state of affairs.

The tae kwon do pioneers never included applications study in their original curricula because they didn't learn it. In turn their students couldn't very well know something that they were never taught, so this carried through to the creation of the KKW forms, expressively with regard to the Tae Geuk sets. So if we choose to study the KKW forms were have to accept 2 things: First, that there is no such overarching idea of form applications nor the underlying principles that permits an adept of a bunkai-based art to extract applications with. Second, we can retrofit bunkai into these forms, but it IS a departure from what the founders or creators intended and may have even wanted.

So what to do? I felt many of the same frustrations Manny did once upon a time. It's why I traveled over much of North America and even some parts of the world looking for 'better' martial instruction. In the end, I finally settled on Okinawan karate as my primary art.

This probably won't win me too many friends, but I think that if one really wants to study pattern applications from a true top down approach, one really needs to seek out proper instruction for it. And that means with only a few exceptions, one must switch systems.

The KKW syllabus is not constructed to teach viable self-defense with kata or poomse as the center piece. It just isn't. The free sparring doesn't tie into the forms, neither so the self-defense or the promise sparring. So why struggle with this? We either be happy with the type of TKD we study or we must seek out an alternative that will make us happy, which to be fair I think Manny already has with American kenpo. American kenpo has "self-defense techniques" which are explicitly embodied in their forms, so in a way, it is bunkai spelled out for the students.

 

[SahBumNimRush]

Manny, I agree with Dancing, don't be sad about it. My TKD lineage broke away before the "korean" hyungs/poomsae were introduced, we practice the Japanese/Okinawan hyung sets. And we weren't ever really taught alot of the Boon Hae /Bunkai either. So much of it was either lost or never taught to the founders of the Kwans to begin with.

It is much easier for me to delve into the deeper applications, since the originators of those forms put them in there. As Dancing said, the originators of the Palgwe, Tae Guk, etc. form sets NEVER intended there to be a deeper meaning.

Reverse engineering the Boon Hae/Bunkai from those forms may be beneficial, but the only WTF or ITF form I remember anymore is Koryo so I can't say for sure.. . We had to learn them if we competed at USTU or AAU sanctioned events when I was younger, but we don't really go to things like that anymore so we don't practice or teach them at all.

The great thing about Boon Hae/Bunkai, is that once you know how and where to look at the forms, you don't need alot of instruction. You've got alot of experience and alot of years under that black belt, things will start to jump out at you.

The keys are that EVERY movement has some sort of meaning. Wraps, stacks, "preparation" movements, stances, direction/ angle of steps.. . they all have meaning. Atleast in the old forms.

 

[granfire]

More times than not, an adult who doesn't understand what his TKD form means also have poor fundamentals too. There doesn't have to be anything mystical or secretive about an inside-to-outside block. So if they don't get that the second half for example of Chon-Ji is a series of inside-to-outside blocks coupled with a lunge punch, then I would bet that when they perform the inside-to-outside block singly in practice that their block there is bad also.

Well, at that level they are allowed to suck. They won't know what they don't know yet until much later.

But there is the rift between the instructor who tells them 'to put more muscle' into it and the one who explains what it is the move actually does. I for one perform much better when I know why I am doing something, past the mechanics.

 

[dancingalone]

But there is the rift between the instructor who tells them 'to put more muscle' into it and the one who explains what it is the move actually does. I for one perform much better when I know why I am doing something, past the mechanics.

I agree. Of course, I've got to wonder about instruction that doesn't explain what the 'move' is. How exactly do you teach something like the opening press block in Hwa-Rang hyung without naming it as a press block to the students or showing what a press block is in isolation? Seems a little crazy to me or I am not understanding your scenario.

 

[granfire]

I agree. Of course, I've got to wonder about instruction that doesn't explain what the 'move' is. How exactly do you teach something like the opening press block in Hwa-Rang hyung without naming it as a press block to the students or showing what a press block is in isolation? Seems a little crazy to me or I am not understanding your scenario.

Well, naming it while telling a kid to do it, times 20....

^_^

well, you do eventually name it, but mostly you demonstrate the 'open palm downward pres block' if anything so you can later find it in the printed word...
You call it a block, but you don't tell them what you are blocking...

Once you put also a target for the move with the name - totally different story:
Choon Moo (I think): you reach about midway with an upside down fist to set up your palm up spear hand low. Once you tell the student that you are effectively reach for the belt, yanking the opponent up to meet the spear hand, things become - painfully - clear! ^_~

 

[bluewaveschool]

Breaking down forms is something we work on from mid-belts on. When you test for your BB, better be prepared to break down every movement in every form into SD app, because I'm going to pick one at random and say go. I think knowing what you are doing in the forms, not just what the movements are, makes a huge difference.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

Good post manny. For me personally, forms as a coloured belt (we do palgwes) were very much what you see is what you get. Our instructor explained each move in detail but I didnt see any real 'hidden meanings'. As Ive advanced I have found that in self defence techniques I am often using what I learnt from doing forms over and over. Stances are a huge part of self defence, I regularly see coloured belts doing SD and despite getting all the hand movements and body positioning correct the tech just doesnt seem to work for them. Then the instructor will point out that they are actually doing a horse riding stance or a front stance in the tech but are doing a 'lazy' stance, he then gets them to do the tech again but tells them to get down lower into a good solid 'copybook' stance and suddenly the tech works (sometimes too well as their partner is in quite a bit of pain). Practicing forms certainly helps it to become second nature to drop into a good solid stance during self defence and that makes all the difference. The defence against a wrist grab in palgwe 4 is also an effective one I use regularly and follows up with an attack. I think the main advantage of forms is the repetition though. If you tell a coloured belt to go home and practice a low block 100 times a day there is little chance they actually will. But if they have to learn a form for grading which contains several low blocks they will practice low blocks literally thousands of times during the course of learning the form without even realising they are doing it.

 

[Manny]

Manny, I agree with Dancing, don't be sad about it. My TKD lineage broke away before the "korean" hyungs/poomsae were introduced, we practice the Japanese/Okinawan hyung sets. And we weren't ever really taught alot of the Boon Hae /Bunkai either. So much of it was either lost or never taught to the founders of the Kwans to begin with.

It is much easier for me to delve into the deeper applications, since the originators of those forms put them in there. As Dancing said, the originators of the Palgwe, Tae Guk, etc. form sets NEVER intended there to be a deeper meaning.

Reverse engineering the Boon Hae/Bunkai from those forms may be beneficial, but the only WTF or ITF form I remember anymore is Koryo so I can't say for sure.. . We had to learn them if we competed at USTU or AAU sanctioned events when I was younger, but we don't really go to things like that anymore so we don't practice or teach them at all.

The great thing about Boon Hae/Bunkai, is that once you know how and where to look at the forms, you don't need alot of instruction. You've got alot of experience and alot of years under that black belt, things will start to jump out at you.

The keys are that EVERY movement has some sort of meaning. Wraps, stacks, "preparation" movements, stances, direction/ angle of steps.. . they all have meaning. Atleast in the old forms.

Thank you Benjamin I really apreciate your words. Something I am discovering these days when teaching is that my basic techs seem to improve, don't know if maybe because I want to teach the right way but my reverse punch and my basic kicks can cut the air like knives. Maybe all the hard work over the last years it's showing up.

My dojang is a WTF/olimpic one so you can undersatand the enphasis is on sport kickikng so there is no so much work over the poomsae.

Manny

 

[Master Dan]

The KKW syllabus is not constructed to teach viable self-defense with kata or poomse as the center piece. It just isn't. The free sparring doesn't tie into the forms, neither so the self-defense or the promise sparring. So why struggle with this? We either be happy with the type of TKD we study or we must seek out an alternative that will make us happy, which to be fair I think Manny already has with American kenpo. American kenpo has "self-defense techniques" which are explicitly embodied in their forms, so in a way, it is bunkai spelled out for the students.[/quote]

Thank you: you are right on and that is what many of us did along time ago, but and in the begining there were huge political uproar to do both. Now it is much easier and I have found some very good people to work with over the last 16 years but I keep my Okinawin training on the side for personal defense and as a reward or as cross training for my TKD students to get better for personal safety.

You are right about the KKW line but I wonder out loud did the Koreans ever have the knowledge 100 to 600 years ago? The experts I work with leading GMs in the world of Kyusho Jitsu say they did?

I tried for many years to get my GM before he died to tell me who wrote or originated the Tae Geuks and finally he responded with nobody?

They were developed by committee which means people with bias to each of thier Kwans? I would still like to know the back ground of the president and board members of the new KKW and what thier personal bias and agendas are??

thanks for your feed back

 

[Earl Weiss]

You are right about the KKW line but I wonder out loud did the Koreans ever have the knowledge 100 to 600 years ago? The experts I work with leading GMs in the world of Kyusho Jitsu say they did?

FWIW IMNSHO I think a critical analysis of the issue will lead to one conclusion. That is whether anyone had "The Knowledge" XXX years ago. Some books like Bubishi contain old material. Others may have entirely different "Knowledge" for the same techniques. Which Knowledge is THE knowledge. Some of them, none of them, or all of them. People claim to have the "Real Knowledge". Others like Rick Clark are more forthright. even though his book may be called "Real....." he acknowleges in the text that the people who had the "real knowledge" are long dead and didn't write most stuff down. He does not know for sure if his "Bunkai" is real, only that it works. My NSHO Therein lies the "Real Meaning". For instance he has a book that has "75 Applications for the down Block" . which is real?

Is it more important to discover the purportedly "Real" knowledge, or leave yourself open to all the ways a technique or series of techniques work.

General Choi taught a similar theory. Yes, his books contain examples of applications, but he also states that techniques are like letters in the alphabet. Put them together and you get a word or tactic. (Put them together a different way and get a different word or tactic) He may also show several applications for the same technique, and explain that the techniques teach distance and direction.

Vince Morris another "Alternate" applications guy will often say that this stuff will not make bad technique good. It only makes good technique better.

So, don't get too caught up in drinking the Kool Aid from any one source. Instead, learn how patterns teach you to move in a well balanced and powerful manner, then try to learn, by exploring several sources, all the ways that powerful balanced motion can be appplied in an efficient and practical manner.

As General Choi would say, if the application works then it is a good application.

 

[Tez3]

I do think we need to get away from the idea that the Bunkai is 'hidden' or secret, it gives the wrong idea. The Bunkai as has been said are more likely lost through the non teaching of them. The idea of 'secret' techniques is a romantic and erroneous one though sounds good I expect if you are trying to sell it to get more students in.

 

[dancingalone]

I do think we need to get away from the idea that the Bunkai is 'hidden' or secret, it gives the wrong idea. The Bunkai as has been said are more likely lost through the non teaching of them. The idea of 'secret' techniques is a romantic and erroneous one though sounds good I expect if you are trying to sell it to get more students in.

As with anything, it 'depends'. If you read various writings from Nagamine or Seikichi Toguchi, it's clear that they believed certain usages to be deliberately obscured within kata. In fact, Nagamine may have participated in the 'masqurade' as he was a lover of Okinawan folk dance and he often taught dancing himself AND he was one of those who believed in karate as a means of self-improvement rather than purely a form of self-defense; meanwhile, Toguchi gives a few principles for extracting bunkai in his second book, so there it is writ large.

 

[Tez3]

As with anything, it 'depends'. If you read various writings from Nagamine or Seikichi Toguchi, it's clear that they believed certain usages to be deliberately obscured within kata. In fact, Nagamine may have participated in the 'masqurade' as he was a lover of Okinawan folk dance and he often taught dancing himself AND he was one of those who believed in karate as a means of self-improvement rather than purely a form of self-defense; meanwhile, Toguchi gives a few principles for extracting bunkai in his second book, so there it is writ large.

I think though many people teach kata/patterns etc without also telling people what they are for. If told the purpose of them the tecniques won't be as secret you just have to look and see where and what they are.

Whether Nagamine or Seikichi Toguchi believe techniques have been obscured or not is one thing but they know there are techniques in kata and what kata is for, many people don't so the belief in 'secret techniques' is false. To teach kata without teaching the reason for it, (even if they don't train the techniques) and then saying there's secret techniques in martial arts is dishonest.