Was Karate in Korea before the Japanese occupation?

[J. Pickard2]

I was reading an old interview from the founder of my Kwan, Won-kuk Lee, and in the interview he says "Of course, in the days of occupation, it was forbidden by the Japanese to teach or study any martial arts including Tang Soo Do, a Korean style. When I went to university in Japan seventy years ago Tang Soo Do training was very popular there...Outside Korea, I was allowed to study Japanese and Chinese martial arts."

The way this is worded makes it seem like he is saying there was a Korean TSD that already existed in Korea before he went to Japan. He calls the first TSD a "korean style" but then goes on to explain that the TSD he trained in Japan was Japanese. So was there a form of Karate in Korea pre annexation or is this just an odd phrasing of him comparing Korean martial arts pre-japan annexation to the more known TSD of the time?

 

[philwhite]

Last year I read the book Taekwondo From a martial art to a martial sport by Udo Moenig. It covers this pretty extensively. He basically shows how TKD came from Karate. There is a lot of politics and notionalism around this subject so I'll just leave it there. If you have the chance read the book. It is pretty interesting how things came to be.

 

[J. Pickard2]

Last year I read the book Taekwondo From a martial art to a martial sport by Udo Moenig. It covers this pretty extensively. He basically shows how TKD came from Karate. There is a lot of politics and notionalism around this subject so I'll just leave it there. If you have the chance read the book. It is pretty interesting how things came to be.

That wasnt my question. I know about the 9 kwans and japanese occulation.

 

[Earl Weiss138 38]

Last year I read the book Taekwondo From a martial art to a martial sport by Udo Moenig. It covers this pretty extensively. He basically shows how TKD came from Karate. There is a lot of politics and notionalism around this subject so I'll just leave it there. If you have the chance read the book. It is pretty interesting how things came to be.

I have read his stuff and found it to be written as observed / learned thru a strong KKW lens.

 

[skribs141 162]

I have read his stuff and found it to be written as observed / learned thru a strong KKW lens.

I think that's a big part of the problem with martial arts history. So much of it is embellished, usually in favor of whatever style is being discussed. It's really difficult to tell the truth from the fiction or the fantasy.

 

[Earl Weiss138 38]

I think that's a big part of the problem with martial arts history. So much of it is embellished, usually in favor of whatever style is being discussed. It's really difficult to tell the truth from the fiction or the fantasy.

You also have books like a "A Killing Art" Second edition trashes most everyone. General Choi and KKW founders as well. 2nd edition worse than the first. Could not help but think it was excessive. Questioned why he would say Funakoshi "Borrowed" stuff from the Okinawans but General Choi "Stole Stuff" from Funakoshi. My more examples like that.

 

[punisher73]

I think you are asking two separate questions.

1) Did Korea have its own native striking art(s) before the Japanese occupation and the importation of Japanese Karate?

2) Did Korea bring in some techniques from Okinawa or China arts that later became "karate" that influenced their own native Korean martial arts?

As to the actual question of "was there 'Karate' before the Japanese occupation"? No.

The start of the Japanese occupation of Korea started in 1910. The spread of Okinawan karate to Japan did not happen until around 1920. The name "Karate" as we know it today meaning "empty hand" didn't take place until 1936 (it was known as China Hand prior to this).

 

[J. Pickard2]

I think you are asking two separate questions.

1) Did Korea have its own native striking art(s) before the Japanese occupation and the importation of Japanese Karate?

2) Did Korea bring in some techniques from Okinawa or China arts that later became "karate" that influenced their own native Korean martial arts?

As to the actual question of "was there 'Karate' before the Japanese occupation"? No.

The start of the Japanese occupation of Korea started in 1910. The spread of Okinawan karate to Japan did not happen until around 1920. The name "Karate" as we know it today meaning "empty hand" didn't take place until 1936 (it was known as China Hand prior to this).

This is, as far as I know, how things happened but when reading the interview with Lee I found it odd that he referred to TSD as a Korean style that was banned before he went to Japan. Could he have been referring to gwonbop, which was in most regards a "china hand" sort of martial art that was prevalent in Korea for a few hundred years before the Japanese occupation. Or did he simply misspeak and I am reading too much into it?

 

[skribs141 162]

You also have books like a "A Killing Art" Second edition trashes most everyone. General Choi and KKW founders as well. 2nd edition worse than the first. Could not help but think it was excessive. Questioned why he would say Funakoshi "Borrowed" stuff from the Okinawans but General Choi "Stole Stuff" from Funakoshi. My more examples like that.

I can easily empathize with a scorched-earth mentality towards some of those folks and groups, though...

 

[punisher73]

This is, as far as I know, how things happened but when reading the interview with Lee I found it odd that he referred to TSD as a Korean style that was banned before he went to Japan. Could he have been referring to gwonbop, which was in most regards a "china hand" sort of martial art that was prevalent in Korea for a few hundred years before the Japanese occupation. Or did he simply misspeak and I am reading too much into it?

In my honest opinion. Due to the atrocities that Japan did while it occupied Korea. There was a large attempt to distance itself from anything "Japanese". TSD is nothing more than a rebranded version of Shotokan. I have read the "history" of TSD and it doesn't really match up with any other known historical facts.

There were some indigenous Korean fighting arts, but nothing remains of them today (although there have been attempts to recreate them). Tae Kyon and Soo Bahk Ki were a couple of names that I have come across in regard to this.

In regard to the origin of the TSD forms, they came out of a book. "Hwang Kee had his first exposure to the Karate forms in 1939, when he found Japanese texts on Okinawan Karate while studying in the library of the Cho Sun Railway Bureau. Hwang Kee eventually added the forms that he had studied from these textbooks into his particular version of Tang Soo Do, and refined them when he encountered other Koreans who had studied Karate in Japan". (A Brief History of Tang Soo Do - National Black Belt Karate Association Foundation)

I have come across this same history from multiple sources. I remember looking at a TSD book about 20 years ago in a Barnes & Noble. It showed the Pinan/Heian forms and had a history for them that they supposedly came from China. It even attached animals to the forms. For example, the Pyung Ahn forms were the turtle and Bassai was the snake.

Therefore, I think that TSD is an attempt to recreate old Korean arts using Japanese Karate (Shotokan) as its foundation and template. It is not an actual old style of Korean martial arts.

 

[skribs141 162]

In my honest opinion. Due to the atrocities that Japan did while it occupied Korea. There was a large attempt to distance itself from anything "Japanese". TSD is nothing more than a rebranded version of Shotokan. I have read the "history" of TSD and it doesn't really match up with any other known historical facts.

Honestly I think politics has driven the development of Taekwondo forms more than anything else. I think the ITF forms and style were created to be "not Japanese" and the Taegeuks were created to be "not North Korean sympathizers".

I'm not saying that's their only purpose. But that was a main driving factor in their creation.

 

[Earl Weiss138 38]

I have come across this same history from multiple sources. I remember looking at a TSD book about 20 years ago in a Barnes & Noble. It showed the Pinan/Heian forms and had a history for them that they supposedly came from China. It even attached animals to the forms. For example, the Pyung Ahn forms were the turtle and Bassai was the snake.

Therefore, I think that TSD is an attempt to recreate old Korean arts using Japanese Karate (Shotokan) as its foundation and template. It is not an actual old style of Korean martial arts.

FWIW in General Choi's 1964 5 Text he references and shows (Using Korean Terminology) 15 of the Shorin and Shorei Patterns which also were the foundation for the Shotokan and therefore the TSD systems, I then read "Shorin" was the Okinawan derivation of Shaolin. Therein lies the Okinawan connection. Another tect that goes into the Chinese connection to "Karate" is "Bubishi- Bible of Karate.

 

[punisher73]

Honestly I think politics has driven the development of Taekwondo forms more than anything else. I think the ITF forms and style were created to be "not Japanese" and the Taegeuks were created to be "not North Korean sympathizers".

I'm not saying that's their only purpose. But that was a main driving factor in their creation.

I definitely agree with that. Even the name change from "China hand" to "Empty hand" was driven by politics because the Japanese didn't like anything Chinese at that time.

I also think that now, TKD is its own thing and has been changed enough that it is not "just Japanese karate" any longer.

 

[punisher73]

FWIW in General Choi's 1964 5 Text he references and shows (Using Korean Terminology) 15 of the Shorin and Shorei Patterns which also were the foundation for the Shotokan and therefore the TSD systems, I then read "Shorin" was the Okinawan derivation of Shaolin. Therein lies the Okinawan connection. Another tect that goes into the Chinese connection to "Karate" is "Bubishi- Bible of Karate.

Correct. The "disconnect" with TSD is the actual lineage.

Okinawans had a direct connection to the Chinese arts (calling it "China Hand").
The karate was modified by the Japanese and given new names for the katas by Funakoshi making it more "Japanese".

The Japanese karate was then learned by Koreans and brought back to Korea. There really isn't a direct link to China as Lee claims.

I have no issue with karate being modified as it moved from place to place. But, I do have issues with the claims that these arts are ancient Korean styles or that they came directly from China.

 

[skribs141 162]

I also think that now, TKD is its own thing and has been changed enough that it is not "just Japanese karate" any longer.

I agree. But I think the driver for most of those changes was to make it "not Japanese".

I'd also argue that in general, when something is designed to be "not [something else]" you struggle to find your own identity. TKD largely has in the form of kicks. But it's also lost a lot of identity in the forms, in that they are pretty much surface level instruction at this point.

 

[Earl Weiss138 38]

I agree. But I think the driver for most of those changes was to make it "not Japanese".

I'd also argue that in general, when something is designed to be "not [something else]" you struggle to find your own identity. TKD largely has in the form of kicks. But it's also lost a lot of identity in the forms, in that they are pretty much surface level instruction at this point.

Surface level Instruction?

“Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.” - Bruce Lee.

 

[punisher73]

I agree. But I think the driver for most of those changes was to make it "not Japanese".

I'd also argue that in general, when something is designed to be "not [something else]" you struggle to find your own identity. TKD largely has in the form of kicks. But it's also lost a lot of identity in the forms, in that they are pretty much surface level instruction at this point.

I'm not TKD, but I have come across an interesting book you may like.

It is called the "Taegeuk Cipher" by Simon John O'Neil. He "reverse engineers" the motions found in the Taegeuk's and uses Okinwan/Japanese karate bunkai for the same motions and applies it to them.

 

[skribs141 162]

It is called the "Taegeuk Cipher" by Simon John O'Neil. He "reverse engineers" the motions found in the Taegeuk's and uses Okinwan/Japanese karate bunkai for the same motions and applies it to them.

I have that book. He claims to have learned the secret teachings of the Taegeuks from a Master in the Philippines (or another archipelago). Not even from Korea.

It's an interesting idea, but I think it's one of those endeavors that's "I need these forms to have meaning, therefore I will create that meaning", instead of "these forms have meaning, this is what has been passed down from the originators as part of the official record."

 

[punisher73]

I have that book. He claims to have learned the secret teachings of the Taegeuks from a Master in the Philippines (or another archipelago). Not even from Korea.

It's an interesting idea, but I think it's one of those endeavors that's "I need these forms to have meaning, therefore I will create that meaning", instead of "these forms have meaning, this is what has been passed down from the originators as part of the official record."

Definitely agree with this. It was why I said, they were "reverse engineered". He started with an application and then found a place he could put it using similar motions. I have come across other books that do the same thing. I have come across some VERY bad examples of this. For example, somone saying that the crossover step from Naihanchi kata is REALLY a triangle choke when done on the ground.

 

[skribs141 162]

Definitely agree with this. It was why I said, they were "reverse engineered". He started with an application and then found a place he could put it using similar motions. I have come across other books that do the same thing. I have come across some VERY bad examples of this. For example, somone saying that the crossover step from Naihanchi kata is REALLY a triangle choke when done on the ground.

That's kind of my opinion of bunkai in general.

"Teacher, this arm crossing motion in this joint lock is similar to the scissor block."
"Yes...that's exactly why we learn it..." (takes notes)