What is Texas Korean Karate

terryl965

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I hear this alot from folks from the early days that they took Texas Korean Karate, which in a nut shell ITF style of TKD. I know Pat Burleson and Skipper Mullins along with GM Kurban and Ray Mc callum was a big part of that tradition, but what seperated Texas Korean Karate from ITF and the TKD of yesterday?
 

rmclain

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I hear this alot from folks from the early days that they took Texas Korean Karate, which in a nut shell ITF style of TKD. I know Pat Burleson and Skipper Mullins along with GM Kurban and Ray Mc callum was a big part of that tradition, but what seperated Texas Korean Karate from ITF and the TKD of yesterday?

Texas Korean Karate really pre-dated (KTA/WTF) TKD. Anyone from this lineage (Texas Korean Karate) has links through Pat Burleson to Allen Steen to Jhoon Rhee.

Seems to me that Master Jhoon Rhee was originally from the Chungdo-Kwan line of Tangsoo-do, but he joined with Choi Hong-hi's organization in the early 1960's - which is where the ITF forms came in. Pat Burleson's school still teaches a few karate forms, i.e.Bassai Tae in the student form requirements. This makes sense since Allen Steen (Pat Burleson's instructor) trained with Jhoon Rhee prior to Master Rhee joining with Choi Hong-hi.

I wasn't around back then, so I can't tell you what the difference between Korean Karate and the TKD of yesterday was. But, Allen Steen's group was known for "Texas Blood-n-Gut Karate," which means they sparred/fought very hard in training and tournaments. Many broken bones and bloodshed.

R. McLain
 
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terryl965

terryl965

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I agree and I will see Mr Burleson next week so I can always ask him that this might be a great thread with all the historians we have here.
Thank you for your response Master McLain
 

DArnold

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I hear this alot from folks from the early days that they took Texas Korean Karate, which in a nut shell ITF style of TKD. I know Pat Burleson and Skipper Mullins along with GM Kurban and Ray Mc callum was a big part of that tradition, but what seperated Texas Korean Karate from ITF and the TKD of yesterday?

Korean Karate was a term thought up for sales!

In the 60's the only thing known in the US was Karate if you were to hang a sign out on your door that said TaeKwon-Do no one would know what you were. A restaurant, a laundry, a car shop...

So the term Karate was amalgamated with most all martial arts in order to sell to the public what you were doing because people then knew, "Oh, thats one of them their Asian fightin schools".

Then you saw this meld into Karate/TaeKwon-Do

Now when you go into a studio that says Karate you are not sure what they are teaching until you see for yourself.

As an aside, Texas was just a descriptor, probably meant that you had to have a passport or speak Korean with a southern drawl. :uhyeah: just kidding

In reality most of these pioneers that came over to the US only were of a green belt capability wearing a black belt.

Then the sales games really started. If you watched in most citys, which can be varified by phone books, the sales phylosophy was that the black belt with the highest rank was the best. So the rank would jump each year as Korean instructors would try to prove they were better with the higher rank. Belt hoppers.
But on the other hand this was how they made their living so it was sometimes justified by them having to feed their family.

They were just sent over to propigate the art, not paid by the organization.

Similar to the ITF Black belt status card. ITF had money, but when they sent Choi to Canada he needed a way to support himself and what he was doing. Thus the status card that they could sell to students. It really had nothing to do with status or tracking black belts. Simply a way to make money to support an instructor.
 
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terryl965

terryl965

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I'd pit the Northwest Korean Karate guys against the Texas Korean Karate guys anyday.:soapbox:
Sean:)


Ok I will take old timers for 1000 oh yea the daily double
icon10.gif
who won more matches in the seventies, yea you are right Texas martial Artist.:asian:
 

rmclain

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IcemanSK

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Here are some links to some tournament photos from the "Texas Korean Karate" days. My instructor (GM Kim Soo) is like a museum and keeps most of the things he attended in those days.

R. McLain

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-first30/dallas68/dallas68.htm

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-first30/uskc68.html

Bonus tournament program (1964):
http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/1964Tournament/index.html


That is incredibly cool, Master McClain! Thanks for sharing. So much of TKD's history isn't shared with the public like this.
 

tshadowchaser

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GM Arn Yee Mo (sp) also was putting out some great students in those days and his influence extended to New England. His students and all of those that came out of the Texas days fought hard and had some of the best techniques of anyone practicing back then
 

rmclain

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GM Arn Yee Mo (sp) also was putting out some great students in those days and his influence extended to New England. His students and all of those that came out of the Texas days fought hard and had some of the best techniques of anyone practicing back then

Unfortunately, Master Yemoh Ahn died around late November 2004. A great loss. I attended his funeral on Dec. 4, 2004, if I remember correctly (A little blurry since my wedding was during the first part of December, lots of planning). I believe one of his long-time students took over teaching in Dallas at that time.

Master Ahn was known for breaking cynder blocks with a head butt back then. For those that don't remember Master Ahn, below are a few links to some 1970's photos and a 1992 photo of Master Ahn. He was originally a Mooduk-Kwan student.

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-first30/1970kimSooOpen/1970kimSooOpen.htm

http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-first30/gmks-group.html

R. McLain
 

billybybose

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google blue cliff tkd then click history for korean karate,and the texas blood and guts era.blue cliff is an a-kato school.a-kato founded by keith yates who earned his rank from allen steen.hope it helps
 

Gordon Nore

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Korean Karate was a term thought up for sales!

In the 60's the only thing known in the US was Karate if you were to hang a sign out on your door that said TaeKwon-Do no one would know what you were. A restaurant, a laundry, a car shop...

Same thing here in Toronto. Park Jong Soo started setting up schools in the area in the early seventies. I remember his ads for Tae Kwon Do appeared with the subtitle "Korean Karate." A few years ago I read an interview with him in which he explained that he used of the term "karate" because it was familiar to people.

http://www.jongpark.com/jpk01.html
 

exile

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Korean karate is I think an entirely legitimate description of Tang Soo Do, which is a literal translation into Korean of the `China hand' transliteration of Japanese kara te. The other transliteration, corresponding to `empty hand', was Kong Soo Do, and in the late 1940s and '50s, the kwans in Seoul were explicitly teaching their Koreanized karate under one or the other of those two names. And it's also a perfectly good description of the many approaches to TKD which don't go the WTF/KKW route, but instead follow the karate-based curriculum of the early Kwans. My own lineage, Song Moo Kwan (which translates as English `Pine tree martial training hall' and hence is a direct translation into Korean of Japanese shoto kan) is very similar to Shotokan technically, and describing it as Korean karate isn't a marketing ploy in the least, but an accurate description of its technical content.
 

DArnold

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Korean karate is I think an entirely legitimate description of Tang Soo Do, which is a literal translation into Korean of the `China hand' transliteration of Japanese kara te. The other transliteration, corresponding to `empty hand', was Kong Soo Do, and in the late 1940s and '50s, the kwans in Seoul were explicitly teaching their Koreanized karate under one or the other of those two names. And it's also a perfectly good description of the many approaches to TKD which don't go the WTF/KKW route, but instead follow the karate-based curriculum of the early Kwans. My own lineage, Song Moo Kwan (which translates as English `Pine tree martial training hall' and hence is a direct translation into Korean of Japanese shoto kan) is very similar to Shotokan technically, and describing it as Korean karate isn't a marketing ploy in the least, but an accurate description of its technical content.

Ok, so it depends on where your talking about.
In the USA it was a sales ploy.
In Korea it is an insult to Koreans!

(If you know history!)
 

rmclain

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