What were they doing before?

[Kittan Bachika]

This probably belongs in the Korean MA section, but it is best to get as many opinions as possible.

Been reading up on TKD and the connection to Shotokan Karate comes up a lot. From what can be gathered, during the Japanese occupation of Korea, Koreans were forced to learn Japanese culture including martial arts.

My question is before the occupation, what were the Korean martial arts styles being practiced? Are they being practiced now? Is there anything in Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido that originates from Korea?

Not trolling here. Just want to see if anyone has any answers.

To The Mod: This is no doubt a very sore subject for some people and if this thread becomes a flame war, please just kill it.

Don't think it will come to that, since the people here are pretty chill.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Northern Chinese type kung Fu stuff I imagine.
Sean

 

[Omar B]

Taekkyon, Kwon Bup, Ssireum, Shippalgi, Gungdo, Hwa Rand Do (not the modern version), Seon Kwan Moo, Subak.

 

[rlp271]

By the time the Japanese made Korea a colony the martial arts culture was largely moribund. The yangban (aristocrats) class didn't like the villagers' violent games, so they put restrictions on them. Korea also went through a huge non-violence movement that made zero sense considering how many times they country was invaded.

Taekkyon was a folk game, but more of a sport in the way that boxing is a sport. It was used to settle disputes and as a game. But it was nearly gone by the end of WWII. I'm not sure if what's around today is a complete system.

Ssireum is Korea's version of wrestling. Every country has their own, this one is Korea's. It's been around for a long time.

As far as the others Omar mentioned, you have to go pretty far back in history to find them practiced. A few modern versions live on in name only.

 

[Omar B]

That's what he asked for though, pre-Japanese Korean MA, how old they are is of no consequence.

 

[Bruno@MT]

That's what he asked for though, pre-Japanese Korean MA, how old they are is of no consequence.

Your answer satisfied the requirements of the request, but probably not in the way intended by the OP

The 'real' question was probably: what were they practising at the time the Japanese invaded and 'made' them learn shotokan. And the answer probably is 'not much'. I'd even go so far as to say that perhaps shotokan was embraced because the Koreans didn't have much of their own any more, and for many who wanted to learn MA, this was the first real opportunity they got.

 

[Omar B]

The court martial arts and the royal martial arts were still practiced at the time. In Hyuk Suh learned a portion of what got rolled into Kuk Sool from his grandfather who taught the royal martial arts ... or so the story is told.

 

[rlp271]

The court martial arts and royal martial arts weren't really taught close to preoccupation, and none of them are empty handed. If that's the original intent of the question then the only native Korean martial arts taught leading up to the occupation period were Ssireum and Taekkyon. Both of them were folk sports akin to wrestling and boxing in the west. Any other system would have been related to Northern Chinese martial arts, or they were Northern Chinese martial arts. This is strictly talking about the Neo-Confucian, late Chosun period.

If you want to go back further in Korea's history, then yes, there were many other indigenous Korean martial arts that were derived from Chinese Long Fist and Bagua among others.

Shippalgi can be a catchall term for Chinese martial arts. What it became was a largely weapons based system in the mid to late Chosun that was heavily Chinese flavored.

Kwon Bup (拳&#27861 is pronounced Kempo in Japanese and Chuanfa in Mandarin, so Kwon bup isn't necessarily indigenous to Korea. It could be a system that came from China, and it likely is.

Also, Shotokan was mostly learned in Japan by people who came back to Korea post-occupation. Kendo and Judo were the two martial arts most offered in Korea during the occupation period. The Yunmookwan (Judo/Yudo) started offering Karate on the side in 1943. The Chungdokwan and Songmookwan were opened in 1944. The Kongsoodo (Korean pronunciation of the Chinese characters for Karate) and Tangsoodo thing were largely post-occupation.

 

[Omar B]

Yeah, but what's the point you are trying to make? They are all pre-Japanese era martial arts, even if they are descended from Chinese arts (because those themselves are descended from Indian arts) . Weapons or no weapons, sport or not, it still fits the criteria. And the royal martial arts still exist in that their systems have been folded into Kuk Sool and Hwa Rang Do. Even the Temple Art Sunmudo is still practiced and you can go visit a temple and train with the monks for extended periods.

 

[Big Don]

What were they doing before?

Beating each other, well, wrong?

 

[Marginal]

Yeah, but what's the point you are trying to make? They are all pre-Japanese era martial arts, even if they are descended from Chinese arts (because those themselves are descended from Indian arts) . Weapons or no weapons, sport or not, it still fits the criteria. And the royal martial arts still exist in that their systems have been folded into Kuk Sool and Hwa Rang Do. Even the Temple Art Sunmudo is still practiced and you can go visit a temple and train with the monks for extended periods.

According to at least one major governing body, the claim is made that Taekwondo is the result of an art that's been refined and developed for over 2,000 years from cave paintings.

This historical fiction really bugs people. So this kind of stuff'll come up any time someone asks about indigenous Korean Martial Arts.

 

[Omar B]

Well in the case of TKD you can easily tell that is a lie. Some of it does get a bit muddy though. One of these days I'm am going to make a full study of learning Korean so I can get into their history books and such, not the ones translated to English but the real stuff that they publish over there.

 

[rlp271]

He asked which Korean martial arts were being practiced pre-colonization. That can be read as either what martial arts were being practiced in Korea pre-colonization, or which native Korean martial arts were being practiced. If you read it in the fashion of the latter, then you're looking at Taekkyon and Ssireum. If the martial art has been adapted to be Korean, yes, it fits the bill, but most of them are direct from China. Hell, western boxing was very popular in Korea pre-colonization. It's all in how you read the question. I read it as native Korean martial arts being practiced pre-colonization.

The Muyedobotongji, which is the basis for modern Sippalgi and Muye24gi, can be linked directly back to Chinese General Qi Jiguang's treatise on the training of soldiers from the 16th century. A lot of what you're seeing in old Korean martial arts is the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese characters used for each martial art. The problem is separating the martial arts that Koreans adapted and the martial arts that became purely Korean. The history is difficult to find, and the Korean government did too good a job spreading a revisionist history full of fallacies and half truths. That's my point.

One thing I definitely know, Koreans were really good at shooting stuff at people. There are tons of old cannons, projectiles, and rockets in the Korean War Museum. Not to mention innovations like the turtle ship, the first truly armored war ship. Korea has a great history of defending itself with indigenous inventions. There was no need for the government to make up a bunch of stuff.

The claims of modern KMAs linking them to ancient KMAs are thin at best, and a lot of times an outright lie. I don't know of any that have stood up to scrutiny by independent historical scholars. If you want to read things from over here, you're going to have to learn Hanja rather than just Hangeul. All the older books have been translated into Hangeul, but can lose some of their meaning that way. Any modern books, written in Hangeul, have to be looked at under a certain lens. It's difficult to find independently written, non-revisionist history in KMAs. I'm still working on my Hanja ability, because I want to be able to read things like the Muyedobotongji as they were meant to be read.

 

[Blade96]

hehe Aunt's bf had done some tkd and i used to joke with him that tkd is just a shotokan spinoff