The Taekyon influence

[Kong]

Can somebody elaborate on how Taekyon influenced the development of the WTF Taeguk forms, if at all.
I`ve heard when the forms where developed they drew heavily on techniques from Taekyon in order to "Koreanize" Tae Kwon Do more. Is there any truth to this, and can somebody provide information please?

 

[arnisador]

...more discussion on Taekkyon here.

 

[Kong]

Thanks I`ll just take my question there!

 

[terryl965]

Can somebody elaborate on how Taekyon influenced the development of the WTF Taeguk forms, if at all.
I`ve heard when the forms where developed they drew heavily on techniques from Taekyon in order to "Koreanize" Tae Kwon Do more. Is there any truth to this, and can somebody provide information please?

You know I thought I would bump this and maybe some of us can elaborate on it. He does bring up a great question which seems to have no answers as of now. Exile and other like Mbuzzy and the rest of you lets talk about if Taekyon was any influence to the WTF Tae Guek Poomsae?

 

[exile]

Terry, my take on Taekkyon is actually embedded in my posts here, here,here,here, here and here. The article by Capener I refer to can be found here.

I think pretty much everything that the available document base allows us to infer is covered in those posts. YoungMan's posts constitute the kind of points that have been repeatedly raised in connection with taekkyon in the past, points that a serious skeptic like me has to address in order to be able to make the case against taekkyon having a measurable role in the development of TKD technique, specifically it's kicking techs.

Here's a comparison: in the 1920s, the great linguist Edward Sapir argued that the Sino-Tibetan languages and the Athapaskan languages (which includes Navaho as a member of its southern branch) were historically related at enormous time depths, and pointed out in evidence that the languages of both families are tone languages. Since it was well-understood at the time (even without the confirming DNA-marker comparisons that have recently tied Amerindian populations to particular groups in northern Siberia) that the aboriginal inhabitants of North and South America originated in Asia, the comparison had a superficial plausibility. But it turned out, as was shown by later research on both sides of the Bering Strait, that tone was an ancient feature in neither family. It evolved separately in both cases. This is a similar kind of situation to the kind of thing that appears to have happened in the case of taekkyon, except that again, it looks very much like 'modern taekkyon' adopted its kicks from the continually higher kicks TKD incorporated from the end of the Korean War era on.

There's a very nice article by Simon O'Neil, currently completing a book on boon hae/bunkai for the TKD hyungs (emphasizing the Taekgeuks, but with some coverage of the Ch'ang Hon forms as well) in which he mentions that Koreans appear to like to kick, both for sport (as seems to have been the actual status of taekkyon in the 19th c.) and in their martial art practice (unfortunately, you have to subscribe to his newsletter to get access to the article). They kick high, he believes, because for them, kicking is the striking technique par excellence, and they admire virtuousity in kicking technique. If so, there's no need to rely on the ill-founded historical claims about taekkyon itself to account for the elaboration of kicks as striking weapons in TKD...

 

[arnisador]

Meanwhile, someone is excising all references to foreign origins from the TKD entry at Wikipedia, emphasizing the continuous nature of taekkyon-->TKD. I had been having this same "debate" with those promoting a weakened version of this view before someone came in with all guns blazing. People are very invested in this mythology.

 

[exile]

Meanwhile, someone is excising all references to foreign origins from the TKD entry at Wikipedia, emphasizing the continuous nature of taekkyon-->TKD. I had been having this same "debate" with those promoting a weakened version of this view before someone came in with all guns blazing. People are very invested in this mythology.

This is one reason why you have to be very careful about taking Wikipedia as an authoritative source. It isn't; it's not vetted nearly carefully enough to be. It reflects partisan agendas aplenty.

 

[arnisador]

Definitely! It's surprisingly useful in math. but in cases like this the most persistent editors are generally the ones with, uh, "extreme" opinions.

 

[exile]

Definitely! It's surprisingly useful in math. but in cases like this the most persistent editors are generally the ones with, uh, "extreme" opinions.

That's a perfect illustration of the difference between mathematics and history. Even a very difficult proof, like the Wiles proof of Fermat (which I understand has now been judged to be complete and sound), will eventually be judged to work (or not) by all competent mathematicians; but arguments about the sheer sequence of events, let alone causal mechanisms, are the lifeblood of even rigorous academic history, where every claim and assertion has to ultimately be tied to primary documentation, or strongly supported interpretations based on material evidence.

That's one reason why mathematics is so seductive for many of us....