# Taekwondo's core goes beyond technique



## Last Fearner (Feb 7, 2008)

This thread is in response to comments made by exile in another thread.

Exile and I do not usually see eye-to-eye on matters of Taekwondo content, philosophy, ethics, history and origins, and I would prefer to leave it at that, but not when I'm being talked down to, and insulted. To the members of MT, I apologize for the length of this post, and if parts sound rather arrogant, but I am greatly offended when someone holds their point of view up as being right over legitimate, knowledgeable instructors, while questioning the "credibility" of those who present a different point of view.



exile said:


> Well, one of the less pleasant aspects of reality is that frequent repetition of one's cherished beliefs, in the face of abundant contradiction, doesn't generally make those beliefs true; nor does it succeed in dispelling the contradictory evidence.


 
Very astute observation, exile - - if only you would turn it around and apply that logic to the highly frequent repetition of your own cherished beliefs (which are not as accurate as you might believe). The type of contradictory evidence that you cling to so fervently, is the type that used to frequently convict innocent people of murder and rape until DNA evidence proved otherwise.

You can draw whatever conclusions you want, based on whatever evidence you choose to focus on, but until you open your mind to the truth of what Taekwondo is, your verdict is always going to be biased, and you are going to continue to hold your scientifically educated research piously above others who, in my personal opinion, have a much clearer understanding of the nature, philosophy, technical application, and history of the art of Taekwondo.



exile said:


> The irrelevance of almost all aspects of what was done in 'old Korea' to contemporary Korean MAs is abundantly documented in a list of historical studies that keeps getting longer as scholarly investigation proceeds, with so far not a single bit of challenge from any carefully reviewed piece of historical research,


 
There are several flaws in the above statement. First, is the term irrelevance. What is relevant and what is not relevant historically speaking is not for you to say, nor for those who are conducting similarly biased and misguided research into this topic. What I discuss is relevant because it addresses an aspect of Korean Taekwondo that you are clearly unaware of, or refuse to recognize, but your repeated refusal does not change the truth. Secondly, you say almost all aspects. Here again, where is your authority to say which aspects are relevant, and which are not, especially if you admit that some are.

Finally, you mention a list of historical studies, and scholarly investigations. I have had my share of college education, and the scientific approach to empirical evidence which has very little to do with such an abstract, and philosophical concept as the Martial Art. Who conducts these historical studies, and are they legitimate masters of Taekwondo, or are they asking the Masters for the answers? I have had personal conversations with Koreans who have dedicated their entire lives to studying, and teaching of their native art, yet I have never seen one of them participate in these scholarly investigations.

One particularly Grandmaster, who I have known and trained with, is considered so senior and respected in one Kwan, that I have observed every 8th and 9th Degree in the room, that most would consider to be the top experts, stand and bow to him, and when he spoke, they all shut up and listened. Some of these Korean Grandmaster of Taekwondo, you probably have never heard of, let alone met or interviewed, and even if you did, I am certain they would not tell you very much of what they know.

It took me decades to get into the confidence of late night meetings where I was the only American in a hotel room of 8th and 9th Dan Korean Grandmasters. They took me into their confidence on many things, but I still know they held back on some things, and there are other GMs like them that I have never met. I am not saying this to brag about myself, but to emphasize that there is a vast amount of in-depth knowledge about Taekwondo that is beyond the scope of these alleged scholarly studies. So I know the depth of this art, and its history, but I also know that you won't find it in a book, or some scholarly scientific journal.

To put it simply, the thing that you don't seem to understand, exile, is that the term Taekwondo was offered up to the Korean people, historians, and Kwan founders as a name to represent much more than you and your experts have garnered from your studies. If I were to list everything that is in the content of Taekwondo education, a very small minority of that curriculum would be about fighting techniques, and even less would be about any hyungs that were re-worked from the kata where you focus so much attention. Karate Kata do not define Taekwondo.

The core philosophy of what makes Taekwondo what it is comes from centuries of the Korean plight. The character building and ethics were well documented as part of Korean culture in the Hwarang, which is carried over into today's Taekwondo. The list of building blocks goes on and on, and has nothing to do with what influence occurred during the Japanese occupation except that the Korean people once again survived enemy oppression and hostilities.

For you, or anyone else to say a generalized, blanket statement such as Taekwondo is this, or Taekwondo is not that, or Taekwondo is based in Karate implies that you own the rights to the term Taekwondo - - that you created Taekwondo, and/or fully understand it to the extent that you are the one authority who can say what it is or is not Taekwondo, and where all of the elements that make up Taekwondo come from.

All of which is not the case, and while you will likely dodge the bullets and say that is not what you are saying, it is the implication based on comments like Taekwondo is a Karate based art. I do not deny the influence that Karate and other Japanese systems had on those individuals of the Kwan era, but Taekwondo was not born then, contrary to novice belief. The name was chosen at that time, but the concept, essence and core of Taekwondo goes far beyond those individuals, and that technical content that those Kwan founders were limited to at that time in history.



exile said:


> I have yet to encounter a single citation or evidence of documentation, in any MartialTalk thread or elsewhere, that suggests anything other than the basis of TKD firmly and squarely in theOkinawan/Japanese combat arts grouped together under the name karate,


 
Well, exile, perhaps this is one of your research flaws by looking for the answers on Martial Talk (no offense to this forum). However, I have made reference to the truth in threads on MT before, only to be addressed in a condescending manner by you, although you undoubtedly feel that I am arrogant and narrow minded for stating my position I see similar qualities in you (and Master Stoker wonders why genuine Grandmasters are not attracted to this or any other internet forum).



exile said:


> I do think the historical issue has to be revisited in light of the above, for two reasons:
> 
> first, because repeated recycling of MA folklore as fact, with no apparent awareness of just how large the burden of proof now is on such claims, reflects rather poorly on the overall credibility of those making such claim;


 
Here is where some of your subtle insults of instructors like me becomes annoying by blatantly saying that those who disagree with your position automatically have poor credibility because you believe our arguments have been disproven. Some of folklore is fact and the lack of apparent awareness rests solely on your shoulders, exile (and I mean this with considerable respect) until you gain a better understanding of the definition of the term Taekwondo and the complete philosophy that it entails, I suggest you don't try to hold your limited understand, and the "experts" you quote as being undeniably right.



exile said:


> second, because to the extent that the technical core of the KMAs can indeed be (and has been) shown to arise from O/J karate, and to the extent that the technical core of karate are the kata (just as the borrowed and remixed sequences in the kata are the basis of TKD hyungs)


 
From what I have seen in many of your own questions about how to do specific Taekwondo techniques which you have posted on MT, exile, I would question the depth of your understanding of the technical core of the KMAs, specifically of Taekwondo. The technical core of Taekwondo is a culmination of both old and new influences, and has been under development since the decision to pull together all of Korea's indigenous Martial Art training and give it the name Taekwondo.

Your confusion is understandable, however. Typically, when something has old content, and it is met with newer influences, one can trace a logical order of events. However, since the Japanese occupation of Korea, and suppression of Korean culture, language and Martial Art created a unique circumstance in history, the Kwan era produced a spark of creativity that gives the appearance of established origins and sources for the later known Taekwondo. However, the little known truth, and barely understood reality is that Taekwondo was a term given to a multitude of concepts, including the efforts of Korean Martial Art Masters to bring together any and all of the knowledge that existed before the occupation. If the name Taekwondo represents the pre-WWII era as its roots (which it does), then the occupation and early kwan eras are additional influences to the core of Taekwondo's roots even though the name did not exist until later.

Although there are natural similarities to all unarmed combat systems, I have studied both Karate and Taekwondo, and there are more differences than just added kicks, and absolutely nothing proves that even the vast majority of what is taught in Taekwondo can be shown to arise from Okinawan or Japanese Karate (the Kwan era and Kwan content is a different story). You say that the kata are the technical core of Karate, and then attempt to correlate this with Taekwondo hyungs, but the truth is that the forms of Taekwondo do not represent the technical core of the Korean Art in the same way as your reference to Karate kata.

Furthermore, from a Taekwondo perspective, the borrowed concept of kata, is merely a framework for practicing techniques - Taekwondo techniques - and developing skills very different than the approach at the core of Karate kata. Taekwondo Poomsae are the result of redesigning the content of what goes into the framework of a pre-arranged pattern which has gradually evolved since Korean Martial Art broke away from the dictatorial control of Japanese influence, became named Taekwondo, and began to reflect the concepts of old and new Korean Martial Art within the generic diagrams that have been called tuls, hyungs and poomsae. The diagrams, philosophy, and technical content in today's Taegeuk are based on the philosophies of the I-Ching which is borrowed from Korea's Chinese neighbors, but that does not make Taekwondo Chinese either.



exile said:


> - As Henning in his 2000 JAMA article points out...
> - see mycitation of some of the relevant history from Capener's study...
> - Marc Tedeschi's massive Taekwondo offers similar conclusions...
> - As Burdick documents in his 2000 JAMA article...
> - the result, as Abernethy has noted...


 
Well now, if I were not a life-long, dedicate student of Taekwondo, with more than 42 years in the Martial Art, and 30 years of teaching Taekwondo, I might rush right out and buy every book by these experts and even beg to become a student of someone so knowledgeable as Mr Abernathy. However, since I don't encourage students to learn about Taekwondo from books, and since my sources of Taekwondo education comes from people who don't write books, but whose knowledge far surpass the entire collection listed above, I am not inclined to do so. I don't quote these experts as you do, exile, because I don't consider them any more of an expert than I am (sorry if that comes off pius, but reality is what it is).

I am sure you are genuinely in awe of these people who you have encountered in your years in Taekwondo, and you view them as knowledgeable because what they say makes sense to you, but with all due respect to their efforts and research, they are still seeking answers through trial and error based on their own limited skills, yet they don't compare to those that I have met who know the answers first hand. 

I know it is easy to scoff at a statement like that, or write it off that I am being arrogant, or that I am just blowing smoke, but you would have to have encountered the people that I have, gained their trust, and heard it first hand to understand.



exile said:


> - All of this documentated history, much of it peer-reviewed,


 
Yes, peer-reviewed is a nice term when applied to the medical and scientific communities. However, when an advanced abstract concept such as the Martial Art is barely understood by most who spend a lifetime seriously studying it, I find the peer-reviewed evidence to be much like the blind leading the blind and proof-reading their work for approval (no offense to those who are visually challenged).

I am sure, with your background and education, exile, you are personally impressed with the credentials, methodology, and concept of this peer-reviewed system, but I also did peer-reviews of fellow college students works for grade requirements, and that held little weight compared to a professor's review. In other words, from my perspective, you've got well-intentioned people trying to figure out an art of which they themselves are not masters, guessing at what the evidence means to them, and similar colleagues giving them the thumbs up on their research which, in turn, makes sense to them - - Flawed from the beginning, in my opinion.



exile said:


> So far as I can tell, the chief source for the idea of TKD as having any origins in 'old Korea', whatever that means,


 
Well, exile, if you don't know what that means, then I question how you could understand the complexity of where Taekwondo comes from.



exile said:


> the writings of General Choi...


 
I could take an entire new thread to answer the comments you make about General Choi, the early kata he and others taught, and the argument over tae kyon vs taekkyun, but it would do little good as you typically call people like General Choi liars when there is a change in their story, or a discrepancy you do not understand (modified stories don't always indicate lies).

Suffice to say, in his 1965 English translation of his book on Taekwondo, General Choi states that he first learned T'ae kyon (the kicking method) from his calligraphy teacher, Mr. Han in 1936. He describes Mr. Han as a well-known teacher, and a veteran of the ancient T'ae kyon. What did Mr Han teach young Choi, Hong Hi? Do you know? Were you there, or are you just willing to call Gen. Choi a liar based on your opinion which is based on the modern research of so-called experts?

Has anyone proven that Mr. Han did not exist, or that he did not know any kind of Korean Kicking techniques? If Mr. Han was a veteran of Korean Kicking in 1936, where and when did he learn it, and from what T'ae kyon teacher in the early 1900s and even further back, before the Japanese occupation and influence? General Choi is not the only authority to have brought up the fact that T'ae kyon, Subak, and other native skills survived the occupation in secrecy.

No one is saying that all of the modern fancy jumping, flying and spinning kicks of today's Taekwondo was part of this early T'ae kyon kicking self defense system, but this is part of the technical core from which the kicking aspect of modern Taekwondo originates.  That is just one thing that makes Taekwondo what it is, and it did not come from Karate, or from Japan.



exile said:


> Take a look at the following comments by Lawrence Kane and Chris Wilder,... (Kane's input is especially important because his specialization is in crowd-violence control, especially in large sports arenas, so situations in which multiple attackers are involved is something he has a particular professional interest in):


 
Lawrence Kane is not the only one who has had extensive experience in crowd-violence control, and judging by the following comments, your experts are not so expert.



exile said:


> Rule 3 of Kata Interpretation: There is Only One Enemy at a Time
> 
> In reality, from a street-fighting point of view, it is pretty much impossible to make a kata that is designed to fight against multiple attackers at once. One person cannot simultaneously execute many different techniques against multiple opponents except in well-choreographed movie stunts. The vast majority of kata techniques are designed to deal with a single attacker who is directly in front of the attacker. Although there are certain movements where the imaginary enemy strikes from behind, there is always only one opponentat a time.


 
In reality, exile, there is not always only one opponent at at time. I have been in many situations with multiple attackers, and had to take down multiple opponents simultaneously. Also, it is not even difficult, let alone impossible to create a poomsae (kata) designed to fight multiple attackers at once. Although basic forms of Taekwondo are not intended for such complex training, the creation of such a form is quite possible.

The quote that One person cannot simultaneously execute many different techniques against multiple opponents except in well-choreographed movie stunts shows me how inexperienced and wrong these experts are. I have personally used multiple simultaneous techniques to multiple attackers, and through no super-human abilities that I possess. Apparently these authors just don't know how to do it effectively, but it is wrong of them to blanketly say that it can't be done in reality.

Finally, the statement that in kata (or Taekwondo hyung) there is always only one opponent at a time. is false. I could cite multiple examples of double simultaneous blocks to multiple attackers, as well as combination blocks and strikes to different opponents, in different directions, at the same time.  While there are not a lot of them (that is not what forms primarily teach, they do exist - - so this "expert" is mistaken.



exile said:


> Are K&W denying that there are ways of applying the techs they extract from kata to multiple attack situations? Not at all! Notice their followup comments on the problem:
> 
> Dealing with multiple attackers is very challenging.... if one is forced to fight, he or she can realistically only engage one opponent at a time...


 
That is just flat out wrong, and shows a lack of genuine experience and expertise. While attempting to position yourself to deal with one attacker at a time is ideal and recommended, to say that fighting more than one at a time is not realistic is wrong.



exile said:


> But if there's someone out there who actually has some explicit information about just how the content of the TMAs, and their intended training methods, were designed to defend you against four really pissed-off regulars in a West Yellowstone biker bar you wandered into by mistake, well then by all means let's talk about that, eh? One of the problems with this sort of discussion is that it often never quite gets down to concrete details, and we're left challenging generalities with other generalities.


 
Here are some concrete details, exile - - I don't teach people how to do what I can do over the internet, and I don't teach it to beginner students, lest they quit and become internet gurus claiming to be something they are not. I think it is ironic that you joke about secret hand-shakes and secret knowledge withheld for only high ranks because you would be surprised at what many Korean Grandmasters talk about pertaining to not sharing all of what they know with outsiders. There are many instructors, myself included, who reserve some of the most advanced training for dedicated Black Belts just so we don't create killers with bad attitudes and no ethics.

It takes years to develop the basics to the point that combinations flow smooth, and advance concepts such as multiple targets, and multiple attackers can be addressed. Many students quit before the reach that stage, and others train from instructors who never learned it, then write books about how it can't be done so others can read their words of wisdom and quote them in internet forums.

- Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I am merely speaking what I believe to be the truth, and I feel someone has to say it. It is not being said out of disrespect, ego, bragging, or any attempt to insult or belittle anyone, but rather to set the record straight when others repeatedly hold false evidence up as the one and only truth, and call into question the credibility of those of us who have legitimate credentials, and an in-depth understanding of the art of Taekwondo simply because we state things with which they disagree.

Respectfully,
Chief Master D.J. Eisenhart


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## terryl965 (Feb 7, 2008)

C.M Eisenhart, I do enjoy your threads and Exile at the same time. I hope we all can agree that there is more than one authorities word on what is and what is not TKD. You have been fortunite to talk and train with some of the best peole in the world and you are going to take what they have to say as the gospel truth. I see nothing wrong with that. Exile has meet some very inpressive people as well and he chooses to take much of what they say as the gospel truth.

I on the other hand have trained in Korea and some very high ranking GM myself and take what they say with a gain of salt and I respect them for there skills and there knowledge of there interpetation of TKD, you see  we have way to many GM in the world that spead what they want us to know and what they do not want us to know. I have sat in meeting with thm as well and have heard things that I have given my world to never say. Does this mean they are absolutely right (yes in ther e minds they are). 

At best we can all agree to dis-agree with each other ways of thinking bur until the GM with all the right answer come forward and tell what they know we are all in a guessing game to what TKD is and what it will become, evolution wil work it way though the art just like everything else and in twenty five years we will be told something else. I like you have been around TKD for a long time and have heard what is and what is not by some pretty high people, but does it really matter, if it did they would step up from behind closed doors and make this known to the general TKD community once and  for all.

I refuse to believe all of my training and all of my student training rest in the hands of a few GM that will not come out for the Betterment of TKD, we must put a side our differences and grow and unite as one for the common good of the Art we so pasonate about.

Looking forward to some great debate and common courtesy from all.


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## Brian R. VanCise (Feb 7, 2008)

I am with Terry here in that Tae Kwon Do has many different teacher's and quite a few of them teach *rather differently*.  I do not think there is one absolute truth when it comes to Tae Kwon Do and how it is taught and practiced.  My teacher's certainly never were all on the same page 100% of the time and they in turn had differances of opinion with other teacher's.

Now as to both you and Exile I feel that you both have some excellent advice and comments.  I do feel that Exile in many way's gets to the truth of the matter particularly on certain subjects and I enjoy his posts.  I enjoy your posts based on your experience in Tae Kwon Do as well.  

Though it is important to keep thing's within the frame work of friendly martial arts discussion as that is what MartialTalk is all about.


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## exile (Feb 7, 2008)

Just a few quick points in response to LF's post:


First, the history of TKD, or MAs, or anything else, is _history_; being a practitioner of TKD, or anything else, gives you no expertise at all, whatsover, about the history of that thing. Astronomers frequently have no clue about the ancient history of astronomy; lawyers typically have no idea where the legal content they learned in law school came from, how it evolved in earlier stages of human society. Technical expertise in TKD guarantees absolutely nothing about the degree to which your picture of the history of TKD corresponds to the best-case account of that history.
That being the case, everyone who makes a historical claim can be expected to be held to a standard of evidence. All of my sources meet that standard. To date, LF, you have yet to cite a single bit of checkable fact that contradicts their claims; they on the other hand can provide ample checkable documentation for every statement they make. The fact is that their expertise is not predicated on claims of great experience, or of rank, or any ad vericundiam argument; it's based on available documentation, archaelogical research, and the rest of the means by which history seeks to separate well-founded hypotheses from wishful fantasy&#8212;in all aspects of human life. 
Given that the interpretation of KMA history that they provide is abundantly documented, with each statement supported by publically accessible records, and that you have yet to cite a single demonstrable fact in contradiction, the picture that emerges from my sources' extensive, peer-reviewed research represents the burden of proof on you to contradict. You can claim all the special knowledge you like, but evidence you can't produce isn't evidence. If you can't show how the picture painted by the historians I've cited is mistaken, then you haven't met that burden of proof in the slightest. That doesn't stop you from believing what you want, of course, but anyone looking for the more likely of the two narratives with an open mind will simply choose to believe the vastly better supported historical picture based on the past decade and a half of disinterested, careful, professional research by people trained in historical research methods, as laid out for all to see in their sources. 

As I say, one may wish things were otherwise, but they aren't.

I _think_ that speaks to what substantive content there is in the OP. Much of the rest of it seems to me to be, in effect, blaming the messenger&#8212;a tempting option when confronted by evidence that one has no actual counter for; it's a very common (but I think ultimately self-defeating) kind of response, and I'm confident, from my experience on the board, that Martial Talk readers will have no trouble recognizing it as such.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 7, 2008)

I have to go with exile on this one. Exile's views are supported by proven facts which were gathered by highly educated professionals who have done the cold hard research and gathered the information from the very place of the art's origin. They didn't just blindly accept the revisionist history or folklores, they got right to the cold uncomfortale truth of the matter and published the results for all to see sans the nationalist agenda. Exile is merely sharing what is supported by *fact* as opposed to unprovable supposition. Those facts have been proven and they hold true regardless of if Stuart Anslow, Ian Abernathy, Lee Won Kuk, or Kim Soo are presenting them. Just because someone is a high ranking member within an art doesn't mean that they automatically know everything about the art and its history. Do you know how many high ranking people don't know the bunkai to the katas/forms? Rank does not automatically make someone correct. Doing actual unbiased research and knowing the facts is what makes someone correct. I love Taekwondo too, however, I know better than to believe most of the lies that are taught as truths within our beloved art (like TKD being 2000 years old, for instance). If I just went by everything that my instructor (who is a korean immigrant) said, then I would probably believe that TKD is 2000 years old, too. I learned the truth by going out on my own, just like our good friend exile, and actually reading the work of those who have spent many years painstakingly researching the *actual* history of the style. I have also been corrected many times on MT. It is about reality, not romanticism. By the way, if you have a beef with somebody then you should handle it in private, one-on-one with the individual. It is not very tactful to start a public thread with the sole purpose of going after another member, I am pretty sure that the moderators will have something to say about this. If you are going to get into a p*ssing contest with someone, then at least have the decency to keep it in the restroom. What exactly are you trying to prove, anyways? If you are truly secure in what you do, then you won't care what others think. Not trying to offend you, and if I did, then I apologize - just telling it like it is.


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## Cirdan (Feb 8, 2008)

You know, EVERY time I question some TKD myth I get the awnser "Master told me so and he is NOT lying" This appears to go all the way to the top. Where did the myths come from anyway eh?


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## tellner (Feb 8, 2008)

On one side we have evidence, research, inference, logic, primary and secondary sources and painstaking peer-review by scholarly experts in the field.

On the other side we have "My Master told me so, and he can break 41 bricks at a time, so he must be right," and "The Korean government says so, so it must be true".

A rational, skeptical person with a desire to find out the truth will pick one by using his or her forebrain. A Kool-Aid guzzling True Believer will use wishful thinking and pick the other out of blind loyalty. Call me a bitter old cynic, but I'll take the first, thank you very much. I've got a great deal for those who go for door number two. It seems that a Nigerian Oil Baron has died, and his widow needs to get $61,000,000 out of the country...


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## granfire (Feb 8, 2008)

Uhm...what?


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## Tez3 (Feb 8, 2008)

This is one of those threads where the posts are so long I cannot read them on screen so have to print. I will read with an open mind but I'm not encouraged by the way the OPs opening lines seem to be combatative and against one person but we'l see!


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## foot2face (Feb 8, 2008)

From my perspective it looks like there are kool-aid guzzlers on both sides. Although Exiles information is excellent and indisputable (for the most part) in reality it only represents an infinitesimally small portion of TKD history. Just because someones assertions have not been painstaking peer-review(ed) by scholarly experts doesnt mean that theyre untrue, just as peer-reviewed works are not necessarily the final word on any given topic. Instead of condescendingly refuting the experience and opinions of others simply because it dose not match what weve read in a book (no mater how seemingly credible) or lashing out at someone because they put forth assertions that contradict our life-times worth of experience and knowledge, cant we just debate one another in a mature, *humble* manner. Isnt it better to keep an open mind and take everything with a grain of salt?


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## exile (Feb 8, 2008)

foot2face said:


> From my perspective it looks like there are &#8220;kool-aid guzzlers&#8221; on both sides. Although Exiles information is excellent and indisputable (for the most part) in reality it only represents an infinitesimally small portion of TKD history. *Just because someone&#8217;s assertions have not been &#8220;painstaking peer-review(ed) by scholarly experts&#8221; doesn&#8217;t mean that they&#8217;re untrue, just as peer-reviewed works are not necessarily the final word on any given topic.*Instead of condescendingly refuting the experience and opinions&#8217; of others simply because it dose not match what we&#8217;ve read in a book (no mater how seemingly credible) or lashing out at someone because they put forth assertions that contradict our life-times worth of experience and knowledge, cant we just debate one another in a mature, *humble* manner. Isn&#8217;t it better to keep an open mind and take everything with a grain of salt?



I understand your take on the question, f2f, and what you're trying to do. And I respect it, believe me. But there's something which I think needs to be taken into account here in considering your point, which is the very nature of the question at issue, the _facts of the matter_.  What are we discussing here? It's simply the history of the development of the KMAs, a human institution, if you like, no different in nature from the history of the NY stock market, or the history of museums, of socialism, or of particle physics. We're talking about what happened, and why, over a long period of time. That history cannot in any way be reconstructed on the basis of anyone's lifetime of experience, as you allude to it, especially of someone who did not play a role in the pivotal events which are the heart of the question. Look back at my post that the OP complains about to see the testimony of Korean grandmasters, or the testimony that Robert Young reports firsthand in his 1993 _JAMA_ article which contains similar testimony from other pivotal figures in the development of TKD, for evidence from those who were actually _there_, about the role that putatively ancient KMA didn't play in the development of TKD. The crucial point is that what is at issue is a question that can only be answered on the basis of evidence that spans the long timespan implicated in the claim that TKD has 'ancient' or even 'old' (as in 'old Korea[n]') content. Individual knowledge from a single lifetime's experience cannot by its very nature answer that question, particularly, of course, an experience which began well after the developments in question had occurred.

Given that, you have to ask yourself what is most plausible. That's always the question, no? We approach all answers to a question with a basic skepticism: _show me why I should believe what you're saying!_ And in some cases we get (i) vague answers, requiring a kind of unearned belief in the authority of the respondent; in others, we get (ii) a long series of citations of evidence, of every kind which has bearing on the question, which all converge on a single story. Sometimes, of course, we're left in between. In the present case, though, we have a significant body of evidence from a number of researchers who have the training in languages, philological methods for the understanding of ancient documents, detailed background in the archaeological picture of northern Asia, and valuable firsthand testimonies from some of the modern creators of the art itself&#8212;and they all converge on a particular story, a story compatible with all available evidence. On the other hand we have, let's say, a version of (i).  

Now it's true, as you say: there may be a lot more out there that we don't know. On the basis of what we do know, though,  the picture based on (ii) has met the necessary standards of evidence; that in (i) has failed to meet it almost completely. The point is the same as in the following picture: it's true that WWI may have been caused by a complex of factors, involving competing colonial empires, the complex structure of alliances in early 20th c. Europe, and maybe a dozen other factors, in various weightings, which are of course themselves debatable. Or it could have been caused by a command, telepathically implanted in the minds of the commanding officers of the various European armies by aliens hidden amongst Earth's poplulation, to fight to the death amongst each other as part of a generously funded research project on the alien species' home planet. Can you logically rule out the latter? Suppose you encountered someone who insisted that this latter idea had to be true, because they knew it for a fact, because no one had shown it wasn't possible, etc. etc. Where would you say the burden of proof fell? On the exhaustive historical analyses that have so far been carried out, and given us a very detailed picture, and plausible overview, of the political, social and economic factors which lead to WWI, based on the massive documentation of the past century and a half, letters from the principals to each other, independently developed economic models of the European colonial powers at the time, intelligence documents which have become available during the past generation, etc? Or on the view that it was all the fault of conscienceless alien scientists practicing mind control over Earthling generals, kaisers and presidents?

The point is, always, where does the burden of proof lie? And as I say, don't blame the messenger who points out that the totality of evidence, detached from nationalist and political agendas which can be themselves identified and analyzed, points unequivocally in one direction rather than the other. We aren't looking at a symmetrical situation here. What evidence we have&#8212;and there is now quite a bit, though of course there will, we hope, be more in the future&#8212;points in to the recent creation of the KMAs on the basis of Okinawan and Japanese combat techniques. This doesn't necessarily implicate what was subsequently done with that Korean adoption of karate. It just point to the _source_ of the KMA technique set, at the begining of that development, in O/J karate. What I would hope is that those who have some interest in the factual status of the question actually go to the various sources I've cited&#8212;a number of the most important ones are given citations here&#8212;and then decide for yourselves if claims about the origins of Taekwondo in 'ancient Korea', 'old Korea' or some similar description have the status of anything more than historical fantasies.

This is strictly an empirical question. It hangs completely on the evidence. Clumsy personal attacks based on hostility to the way that evidence plays out ought to have nothing to do with the discussion, eh? On this point, I think we agree completely.


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## Makalakumu (Feb 8, 2008)

Never mistake humility with falsehood.  That which you omit in favor of other's favor is a lie.


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## Marginal (Feb 9, 2008)

foot2face said:


> From my perspective it looks like there are kool-aid guzzlers on both sides. Although Exiles information is excellent and indisputable (for the most part) in reality it only represents an infinitesimally small portion of TKD history. Just because someones assertions have not been painstaking peer-review(ed) by scholarly experts doesnt mean that theyre untrue, just as peer-reviewed works are not necessarily the final word on any given topic. Instead of condescendingly refuting the experience and opinions of others simply because it dose not match what weve read in a book (no mater how seemingly credible) or lashing out at someone because they put forth assertions that contradict our life-times worth of experience and knowledge, cant we just debate one another in a mature, *humble* manner. Isnt it better to keep an open mind and take everything with a grain of salt?


Depends on the nature of the argument. One one side, you have people demonstrating that TKD was largely derived from JMA and then it evolved from there. 

The other side says, Korea suffered terribly under the Japanese occupation therefore they get to rewrite their history to make themselves feel better about it. If they want to link TKD to loosely related martial traditions centuries gone, who are we to question it? It's their history, not ours.


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## Brian R. VanCise (Feb 9, 2008)

Marginal said:


> Depends on the nature of the argument. One one side, you have people demonstrating that TKD was largely derived from JMA and then it evolved from there.
> 
> The other side says, Korea suffered terribly under the Japanese occupation therefore they get to rewrite their history to make themselves feel better about it. If they want to link TKD to loosely related martial traditions centuries gone, who are we to question it? It's their history, not ours.


 
True but we do not have to take it as actual history. :idunno:  
Deconstructionism is a stock and true trade to create the history that you want to achieve.  That in turn does not make it real or actual history!


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## terryl965 (Feb 9, 2008)

Brian R. VanCise said:


> True but we do not have to take it as actual history. :idunno:
> Deconstructionism is a stock and true trade to create the history that you want to achieve. That in turn does not make it real or actual history!


 
This is sooo true!!!!!!!


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## tellner (Feb 9, 2008)

f2f, I'm afraid it doesn't wash. The sources that exile has cited did the research. They checked the facts. Their conclusions are the best history we have on the subject. It isn't a matter of that stuff being "a small part of Tae Kwon Do's history". It's a pretty fair summation of _all_ of TKD's history; there isn't that much of it.

General Choi claims that his calligraphy teacher told him that Korean martial arts came from Tae Kyon? Once we put that claim under the microscope it cuts as much ice as a soap hacksaw. So do the cave paintings, the mythical Hwa Rang Super Warriors and all the rest. You're left with the reality. The only shame there is that the Korean government wasn't satisfied with the truth and decided to spread lies to make the country feel better about itself.

It's a real shame. The Korean martial arts have a lot to recommend them.  That goes double because they got so much done in such a short time. The problem is that when people start lying everything they do is diminished. 

It's like the old line from Abraham Lincoln:



> How many legs does a dog have if we call the tail a leg?
> 
> Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 9, 2008)

Aside from the obvious nationalism and anti-japanese racism, I think I understand why Korea does this. Every Asian nation has a renowned warrior culture to export to the rest of the world. Japan has bushido, China has Kung Fu, The Phillipines has Arnis/Kali, etc. But what does Korea have? Whatever she had was abandoned after the three kingdoms period or wiped out by the Japanese occupation. So here is Korea, metaphorically naked in this area and feeling left out. They have learned other arts from other countries, namely Japan and China, and remixed them to fit their own styles and tastes. Now they push them off as being formed exclusively on Korean soil, and they attach false, romanticised stories to them in an attempt to compensate for their lack of a ready-made warrior culture to export to the rest of the world *cough* Joo Bang Lee *cough*. the sad part is that everyone sympathizes with Korea without them having to lie - we know what happened and we know why. There is no shame in admitting that most of your culture was systematically destroyed by an evil, invading force and that you had to rebuild it. However, there is infinite shame in openly lying about it and trying to force those lies on the rest of the world when most of us already know the truth. There is no need to lie. What is gained from it? A false sense of patriotism and pride? A bunch of people who blindly adhere to a legend out of loyalty alone? It is an insult to the style and it is an insult to the legacy of Korea. No, the styles are not ancient Korean martial arts, they are new Korean martial arts that were imported to the peninsula and remixed. So what is wrong with admitting that? They may have started out as styles from other countries, but *now* they are Korean and they are distinct from those other styles. Japanese Karate is no longer Okinawan Karate, Taekwondo is no longer Japanese Karate. However, the Japanese are willing to acknowledge that their karate came from another country that they are not particularly fond of and have always looked down upon. So why is it so hard for Korea to do that? Just be honest. We all know the truth, it has been uncovered by honest, reliable sources both within and outside of the country. It is not hearsay, it is proven fact that can be backed up by hard evidence. Facts are facts, you cannot deny them just because you don't like them and you want to make up new stories about the romantic past that you wish you had but know damn well that you didn't. I know the truth about Taekwondo, and it doesn't make me think any less of the style or its country. The blatant lying, however, leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.


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## foot2face (Feb 10, 2008)

Im sorry Tellner, but I disagree. I believe that even Exile would admit that the information he provided represents only a small portion of TKDs overall history. The events that led to the formation of TKD are exceedingly complex and so many details have yet to be revealed to the public. For you to come here with the little information you believe to be true and make a blanket statements like It's a pretty fair summation of *all* of TKD's history; there isn't that much of it. then go on to say that pretty much everything that doesnt immediately coincide with _your interpretation _of the facts is a pack of lies, smacks of the type of intellectual inflexibility (which exist on both sides) that I point to in my earlier post. Despite your assertion that there is not that much TKD history, there remains a profusion of information that is still unknown to the masses and its very likely that *all of our perspectives*on the art will change over the coming years as these details come to light and further our understanding. I hope my comments dont come off as being mean spirited, please dont take offence to them Tellner, I have no animosity for you. I respect your contribution to the conversation. I only mean to provide a differing opinion.:asian:

Id like to address those who keep referring to the Korean governments lies. The matter is not that simple. The propaganda that has obscured much of TKDs true history emanates from several parties, each with their own agenda. The KKW/WTF, the ITF and those who are devoted to the ways of the original Kwans have all contributed to the refuse that plaques those seeking answers about TKDs history. IT should be pointed out that the propaganda that steams form the original Kwans is very Karate-centric and tends to minimize or belittle philosophy and methods that stray from their typically JMA ways. This is why some remain skeptical of the type of information Exile provides, no matter how credible it may be. In fact many Kwan ere propagandists often use sound evidence like that which Exile writes of, to bolster their fallacious claims. They take advantage of the degradation in the quality of TKD instruction due to the immense popularity of the art and the focus of some only on the sport; unfortunately there are way too many under qualified teachers passing off rubbish as TKD. Kwan era propagandist often make claims like  we practice real TKDreal TKD is Karateany changes made to the system past 1955 were done solely for nationalistic purposes and did nothing but water down the art and turn it into a useless joke. Its falsehoods like this that lead some modern TKDist to hastily reject the information Exile points to. 

Now for those who are of the belief that the facts are the facts, accept them and let go of the lies, Exiles provided information that is well researched and indisputable; look at it this way. In his earlier post Exile points to firsthand testimony from pivotal figures in the development of TKD. Ironically, most of the lies and misinformation about TKD were originally spread by those who were pivotal in its development. Cant you see why some may be reluctant to embrace these new facts that are derived from the testimony of a few of TKDs pioneering GMs? 

Please understand, Im not trying to refute the information Exile put forth, I couldnt, I wouldnt. I find it very insightful and helpful in allowing me to better understand my system. The only issue I sometimes have with it is with regards to its relevance, where dose it really fit into the lager picture of TKD history. I fear some may give it too much weight and develop an opinion of TKD that is just as off the mark as that of those who buy into all the propaganda. I just think its prudent to remind ourselves that what we think we know pales in comparison to what we dont know. Again, I think its best to keep an open mind, take every thing with a grain of salt and be open to the possibility that what we _know_ to be true now may not be true in the future.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 10, 2008)

foot2face said:


> Now for those who are of the belief that the facts are the facts, accept them and let go of the lies, Exiles provided information that is well researched and indisputable; look at it this way. In his earlier post Exile points to firsthand testimony from pivotal figures in the development of TKD. Ironically, most of the lies and misinformation about TKD were originally spread by those who were pivotal in its development. Cant you see why some may be reluctant to embrace these new facts that are derived from the testimony of a few of TKDs pioneering GMs?


 
That doesn't change the fact that the style was derived from japanese karate and we *know* that. It even used the original Shotokan katas in its infancy. Most of the founders were trained in Japanese karate and the influence is readily apparent, too. I am open to the possibility that some indigeneous techniques may have been added into the mix, however, I am not going to buy into the Taekwondo-is-2000-years-old-and-was-practiced-by-the-Hwarang line. I agree that there are some specifics that we don't know. However, there is a lot of stuff that we *do* know, and the stuff that we *do* know negates the majority of so-called histories regarding our beloved KMA. That is where we call shenanigans - when histories are being presented to us that we know are not true based on the hard evidence that we actually *do* have. the stories of the founders changed because hard evidence was eventually found and they knew that they couldn't lie anymore. Joo Bang Lee had to come clean, Hwang Kee had to fess up, and GM Kim Soo came out and gave testimony, as well. What drives me crazy is that there is this attempt to deny the truth and try to force a new nationalist 'truth' onto the world just becuase the country in question doesn't want to accept the fact that their national sport was derived from a martial art that was prominent in a country that they hate. Lying sucks, especially when people come to you in good faith. Korea is awesome, there is no need for the propaganda.


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## terryl965 (Feb 10, 2008)

Oh come on people you know TKD is 10,000 years old with all the tradition of any Art. Sorry I knew that would get everyone attention, here is a bit of info. that we must all face we do not know and we will never know the whole truth the Koreans GM and government will not allow it. We must all look into the future and make TKD history ourself though our students and there actions. When it is all said and done every Art has taken from each other and thus so many simalarities are out there. I for one am tired of the past and looking forward to the future of TKD THE ART I LOVE.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 10, 2008)

foot2face said:


> Kwan era propagandist often make claims like  we practice real TKDreal TKD is Karateany changes made to the system past 1955 were done solely for nationalistic purposes and did nothing but water down the art and turn it into a useless joke. Its falsehoods like this that lead some modern TKDist to hastily reject the information Exile points to.


 
Ah, but TKD *was* derived from karate - the original katas were the same and a lot of the kibon is STILL the same. Most of the founders held high ranks within karate, too. The forms *were* changed for nationalistic purposes, the koreans wanted a martial art that they could call their own, and anything Japanese was openly rejected. Ever wonder why the new forms are all named in reference to the Korean flag? As much as I hate to admit it, and as much as you hate to accept it, a lot of changes were made soley for nationalistic purposes - that is the nature of the animal that we are dealing with here. The changes didn't necessarily water down the art and turn it into a useless joke, however, a lot of the original, far deadlier apps were lost when they decided to toss the original forms in favor of the new, more 'Korean' forms. They are not falsehoods. Like I said earlier, they are backed up by hard evidence. If modern TKDists hastily reject them, then they are living in denial. Did you ever wonder why TKD was originally referred to as "Korean Karate"? There is definitely a reason for that.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 10, 2008)

terryl965 said:


> Oh come on people you know TKD is 10,000 years old with all the tradition of any Art. Sorry I knew that would get everyone attention, here is a bit of info. that we must all face we do not know and we will never know the whole truth the Koreans GM and government will not allow it. We must all look into the future and make TKD history ourself though our students and there actions. When it is all said and done every Art has taken from each other and thus so many simalarities are out there. I for one am tired of the past and looking forward to the future of TKD THE ART I LOVE.


 
Yes!!! This is the best thing that I have heard on here regarding TKD! It is a young, vibrant art that has a very bright future! It doesn't have to adhere to a rigid past, it is open and free to grow in every way - including shedding the nationalist agenda :lol2:.


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## terryl965 (Feb 10, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> Yes!!! This is the best thing that I have heard on here regarding TKD! It is a young, vibrant art that has a very bright future! It doesn't have to adhere to a rigid past, it is open and free to grow in every way - including shedding the nationalist agenda :lol2:.


 
Well at least somebody agree's let get drunk and past out


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 10, 2008)

terryl965 said:


> Well at least somebody agree's let get drunk and past out


 
I am with you %100 :headbangin:.


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## terryl965 (Feb 10, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> I am with you %100 :headbangin:.


 
Over to Lisa lounge for a few


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## exile (Feb 10, 2008)

I'm coming along with you guys, for a quick nightcap or two before the evening ends... a fine group, and everyone has been making excellent points in response to the OP, from different enough perspectives at times that apparent disagreements arise that I don't think are actually there. I have never thought that TKD needs to be bound to a particular phase of its development&#8212;a living MA will change and grow, that's part of what the word 'living' means. But I've been very concerned with defending a realistic, historically defensible view of TKD for two main reasons, one a matter of general principle and the other a matter of practical value in looking at the TKD legacy of formal patterns.

The matter of principle is just this: it's crucial that truth not be relativized to serve nationalist propaganda or the feel-good needs of any one group, no matter how much they were victimized. Allowing that sort of thing does no service to anyone, even to the Koreans themselves. After all, one of the chief complaints of the Koreans and Chinese about the post-war Japanese is that the latter have still yet to acknowledge, in their own history textbooks, what happened to Koreans under the Occupation, what happened to the victims at Nanking and so on... simply because it makes the Japanese feel better not to confront what they did to their subject populations during the war. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. And clearly, there are a number of senior TKDists who have no problem facing the facts about the origins of their art. But that doesn't mean that they support 'freezing' it in the Kwan era either. In my own lineage (Song Moo Kwan) Byung Jik Ro, the founder of the kwan, was very loyal to his Shotokan training, but added a number of technically distinct kicking techniques, according to his biographers, and developed the art in a number of ways that helped make it distinctly Korean, while still showing clearly the hard Shotokan skeleton it's built on. So no contradiction _there._

The second point is very practical: if we understand the sources of TKD in karate, we have a skeleton key to the analysis of the formal patterns that TKD forms are based on and incorporate. I called the process of hyung creation 'mixmastering' of the kata sequences; Kwan Jang, one of our very experienced instructors and practitioners, talks about the way the TKD forms have been 'spliced' together from the original elements supplied by kata such as the Pinan set (I've actually seen, I think, some bits and pieces of the Empi kata in one of the Taegeuks, and did a double-take the first time I noticed it). I myself think the resurgence of bunkai/boon hae focus in both the Japanese and Korean MAs is one of the healthiest, most progressive developments (in both cases) in the past forty or so years. I see them as reassertions of the primacy of self-defense, of practicality and utility, of these wonderful combat systems. The historical sources I keep invoking&#8212;and the credit goes to them, the people who've done the careful groundwork and difficult documentary research&#8212;have as one of their payoffs the fact that we can appropriate the findings of the current best-case bunkai analyses for our own, because the overwhelming evidence that TKD and TSD share a common root with Shotokan and a couple of other karate styles entails that the combat applications in our TKD/TSD forms are linked to the very practical strategic principles and tactical combat instructions contained in the historical _roots_ of these Korean forms. As the Germans say, the dead are not dead and the past is not past&#8212;what turns out to work for the karate ancestor of TKD will work for the formal elements of that ancestral source that live in our own hyungs, inherited, even in rearranged fashion, from Matsumura, Itosu and the other Okinawan masters.

Again, that doesn't confine us to any particular era or block the growth of TKD as a Korean art in its own right, standing on a platform of Okinawan/Japanese origins. And I see no reason why TKD will not continue to evolve, possibly into an American variant in this country at least. That would simply be a continuation of the pattern&#8212;from China, to Okinawa, to Japan, to Korea, to here. Onward, into the future....


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## Steel Tiger (Feb 11, 2008)

When I read through this thread yesterday I was, to put it mildly, indignant at the uninformed assault on the discipline that is part of my life.  Now, having read it again, I am actually offended.

I don't care that the heart of the matter is TKD, the subject could be anything, what I find offensive is the suggestion that the processes of gaining an understanding of the past that have existed for at least 150 years are somehow less than hearsay and gossip garnered at a late night drinking session (that's what it was for all I know, I have no evidence to the contrary). 

History is not about unverified statements.  It is about evidence.  How do we know the ancient Sumerians lived in Mesopotamia?  Because we have the remains of buildings, written materials, and a variety of other evidence of their existence.  That is history.  It is evidence garnered through research and investigation.

And then there is the implication that works are unscholarly because they don't agree with one's worldview.  What?  I'm not particularly happy about the vast amount of material written about how interesting the Third Reich was, but I would never say it was unscholarly.  People have put a lot of hard work into this reasearch and study and should receive credit for that.

Peer-review.  A group of college students joining hands and patting each other on the back is not peer-review.  And the implication that this is what is happening is tantamount to calling it a weird system akin to a mates' rates rank farm.  I can tell you this is not the case.  My thesis was reviewed by three people, one of whom did not even know the subject matter.  They were people I did not know chosen for that very reason.  Of course a professor's review has more substance than a student's, but scholastic works are not reviewed by students.  Peer is this case means someone of the same substantive level of knowledge and experience.  I mentioned a person who reviewed my thesis not knowing the subject.  That is true, they didn't know about Mesoamerica during the 8th and 9th centuries, their work was in other areas that's all.

The issue of the truth.  What is truth?  One thing it is not is a nice neat little formula that satifies your every desire and fantasy.  History is a pursuit of truth, verifiable through evidence.  That truth may be unpleasant, but that does not mean it is not the truth.  Australian troops did mutiny on the Western Front in WWI, Australian and American Troops in WWII did take less prisoners than other national forces, Britain was the first modern nation to employ racially motivated concentration camps (during the Boer War).  These things are unpleasant but that are part of our various histories.  We may not like them but they are not going away.  Even when someone decide to rewrite history to suit themselves as Stalin did, it is only a case of what they say, not the truth.  Saying something is true and not supporting that statement undermines one's entire position.


Let me finish with a quote that I think is relavent to the study of history,



> There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth - not going all the way, and not starting. - Siddhartha Gautama


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 11, 2008)

Steel Tiger said:


> When I read through this thread yesterday I was, to put it mildly, indignant at the uninformed assault on the discipline that is part of my life. Now, having read it again, I am actually offended.
> 
> I don't care that the heart of the matter is TKD, the subject could be anything, what I find offensive is the suggestion that the processes of gaining an understanding of the past that have existed for at least 150 years are somehow less than hearsay and gossip garnered at a late night drinking session (that's what it was for all I know, I have no evidence to the contrary).
> 
> ...


 
Amen to that! That is exactly how I feel about it, as well. We cannot write off the cold, hard facts just because they are uncomfortable or they expose the bogus stories concerning our art and KMA in general. Accepting such lies on the basis of "well my instructor said so" when we clearly have hard evidence that proves such lies are nothing but bullcrap, is an insult to Taekwondo itself, and it is insult to our collective intelligence. Our art has a bad enough reputation as it is (4 year old black belts and Mcdojangs, anyone?). Spewing forth nationalist lies and propaganda then accepting them as gospel truths will only disgrace our art even further. I think that I am going to have another drink, I will be sure to toast to the hope that maybe one day these lies will be universally struck down and we can all train without having to deal with the nationalist nonsense. Cheers!


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## exile (Feb 11, 2008)

Steel Tiger said:


> When I read through this thread yesterday I was, to put it mildly, indignant at the uninformed assault on the discipline that is part of my life.  Now, having read it again, I am actually offended.
> 
> I don't care that the heart of the matter is TKD, the subject could be anything, what I find offensive is the suggestion that the processes of gaining an understanding of the past that have existed for at least 150 years are somehow less than hearsay and gossip garnered at a late night drinking session (that's what it was for all I know, I have no evidence to the contrary).
> 
> ...



There are so many good points in here, ST, that there's no room for me to emphasize them all. But I think they cover the ground represented by the OP pretty thoroughly. I have to say, when I first saw the OP, I was struck by (i) how wide of the mark it was in so many different ways (it's one thing to miss the bullseye, another to not even be in the same postal code as the target) and (ii) how effectively it made my own case for me. As I say, there too many things to get down to specifics on, but the point I've bolded above is well worth following up.

I had to laugh when I read the comment about peer review in the OP, and I confess that my first thought was, hoo boy, have you ever put your foot in it... because the peer reviewers for _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_ are among the top professional MA/cultural historians of their areas in the scholarly world. The current editorial board, from which the referees for _JAMA_ submissions are chosen, includes the following:


 *Dakin Burdick*, Ph.D.; responsible for Korean martial arts. Instructor at Indiana University (Bloomington, i.e., main campus). He holds a fourth dan in TKD, a third dan in Hapkido, a 2nd dan in iado and _recently revised and updated the martial arts entries for Encyclopaedia Britannica._ (note: Burdick was not a member of the editorial board when his seminal paper was published in the 1997 _JAMA_). 


 *Paul Cote*, MS, Ph.D.; responsible for China and Okinawa. Instructor at Georgetown University. He  is ranked Yondan (4th Dan) in Isshin-ryu Karate and Kobudo by the IWKA; certified as an Instructor (Shidoin) by both the IWKA and OIKA when he was promoted to Sandan (3rd Dan). He has also practiced and researched the Northern Chinese internal martial arts of xing-yi quan, bagua zhang, and taiji quan for the past 20 years.


 *Barbara Davis*, MA; responsible for China/Taijiquan, author of _The Taijiquan Classics: an Annotated Translation_; editor, _The Taijiquan Journal_.


 *Karl Friday*, Ph.D; responsible for Japanese martial arts.  Professor of history at the University of Georgia and is the author of _Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan (1992), Legacies of the Sword: The Kashima-Shinryu and Samurai Martial Culture (1997),_and _Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan (2003)._ He has spent a number of years living, training, and doing research in Japan; he presently holds the _menkyo kaiden_ license and is a certified _shihan _in Kashima-Shinryu.


 *Michael Maliszewsk*i, Ph.D.; responsible for Medicine/Cross-cultural studies. Instructor at Harvard Medical School. 


 *Willy Pieter*, Ph.D.; responsible for Korean MAs/Sports Science. Instructor at the Science University of Malaysia.

And on and on... and on; this is a representative sample, only a third of the full board, and anyone who wants to cavil about the credentials of the rest of the editorial board members is free to find the complete list in the current issue and discover for himself that the rest of the board is just as academically (and martially) qualified as the few I've chosen. Every submission is vetted by _at least_ two members of the board. Looking back at the OP, and then at the scholarly training, research profile and martial credentials of the _JAMA_ board, and then back at the OP's insinuations... well, as I say, I guess I have to consider myself fortunate that my original points have been made _for_ me.

But I'm very comforted by the rationality and respect for historicity that all the people responding to the OP have shown. The followup posts reacting to the OP confirm what I've believed all along: that, in the end, the MT membership is interested primarily in what the best evidence shows, and discounts irrelevant speculations about personalities. 

And as f2f, Terry and others have noted, acknowledging the past in no way traps us in the past.



SageGhost83 said:


> I think that I am going to have another drink, I will be sure to toast to the hope that maybe one day these lies will be universally struck down and we can all train without having to deal with the nationalist nonsense. Cheers!



Cheers, SG&#8212;I'm joining you in that one!


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## TaeKwonDoKevin (Feb 11, 2008)

Hi all....Here are my 2 cents worth for FREE! 
I tend to agree with Last Fearner......
I have 30 years in TaeKwonDo. I have also studied Karate.
Now, I too have thought about this TaeKwonDo history.........
Not reading ALL in this thread, or the original thread that started this one, so I guess I am commenting out of ignorance of the thread, somewhat.
1st - Most all of the Asian countries had a type of Martial Art...correct? Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, VietNam and the list goes on.
Why is it so hard to believe that Korea did NOT have some sort of fighting style? All of it's neighbors had something that evolved into a distinct Art.
Yes, modern TaeKwonDo has some (most) roots in the Japanese & Okinawan Arts. But I find it very hard to believe that none (not one technique) of the pre-Japanese occupation fighting styles survived in Korea.
The facts are, People and Nations always find a way to keep and hide their heritage whenever they are being occupied.
Do I believe all of the stories that TaeKwonDo is 2000 years old, of course not. But I do believe that some of the "old" arts survived and were handed down.
I have studied 3 different "styles" of TaeKwonDo. Without a doubt, GM Duk Sung Son's Chung Do Kwan is greatly influenced by Japan's Arts. They were even teaching the Pinan katas.
But ChungDoKwan, Chang Hun, JiDoKwan and OhDoKwan are very different Arts......in tech, and many aspects.
There are some "experts" that will not even acknowledge Gen. Choi's accomplishments in the TaeKwonDo world.
So who do we listen to?
Those are my thoughts......
Take care,
-Kevin


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## terryl965 (Feb 11, 2008)

Ok Kevin here is some of my background a 5th in Okinawa Karate and a 4th in TKD study over sea's while my father was in the Marines teaching Judo and Karate for 38 years. You are right they had a fighting system before they where occupied that is a given but it was not Tae Kwon Do so it could not be TKD it was called something elsem who cares what but it was not TKD. When General Choi and others trained they where mainly Okinawa Karate and some of Korea's past arts, but again not TKD. Tae Kwon Do was formed when the general help covence many of the Kwons to come together and they officially named it Tae Kwon Do, so TKD has only been around 50 years so it can not have that rich heritage as other Arts, but it can have hertitage from other Arts mix in with it. Now we can call the older style of fighting TKD but that would be a lie plan and simple.

Sorry TKD just does not have those deep roots, but that does not mean Korea does not have techs that are not deep.


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## exile (Feb 11, 2008)

TaeKwonDoKevin said:


> Not reading ALL in this thread, or the original thread that started this one, so I guess I am commenting out of ignorance of the thread, somewhat.



Kevin... let me suggest that you actually consult the evidence that's been produced on the subject, rather than arguing that since you find it hard to believe X, it follows that 'not X' must be true. The world is full of things we find hard to believe, but which the facts more or less force us to accept. That's the reason people study the history of things, rather than assume that what they find plausible is therefore true.

 Think of it this way: what you've said constitutes evidence for facts about your belief-system. It doesn't constitute evidence of any kind for the historical _accuracy_ of your belief system. So you need to provide some kind of evidence for those beliefs, if you want others to find them plausible. Do you actually have any new evidence to add the the mix? As vs., say, the arguments and evidence presented in the sources given here?

And is the logic of your reasoning any different from the following bit of argumentation?


 There is fighting and combat in all human societies;
 there have been Jewish settlements in the Middle East for thousands of years;
 therefore, it must be the case that Krav Maga represents the development of (or at least contains technical components of) a 5,000 year old MA first practiced by the ancient Israelites.
So now, in light of (what I _hope_ is) the self-evident absurdity of that kind of conclusion, could you identify precisely _what_ aspects of 'ChungDoKwan, Chang Hun, JiDoKwan and OhDoKwan' suggest some deep substratum of 'lost' Korean MAs distinct from the Okinawan/Shotokan sources&#8212;sources which (as Stuart Anslow documents in his recent book on the Chang Hon hyungs) Gen. Choi, notwithstanding his later claims, identified in a 1960s interview in _Combat_ magazine as crucial to the formation of Taekwondo?  

The role of Gen. Choi as an early drum-beater for 'ancient' TKD makes it worth noting that&#8212;as Gm. Kim Byung-Soo observed in the January issue of _Black Belt_, in an interview with one of our members, Rob McLain&#8212;General Choi taught the same Japanese kata and curriculum elements that the other Kwan founders did, and that's no surprise, given that his entire MA training, _to the extent that it can be verified_, was confined to Shotokan karate (please, _please_ consult Robert Young's detailed, carefully researched and fully documented examination of the history and disappearance of 'taekyon' in Korea for some idea of just how unreliable Gen. Choi's invocation of taekyon in his earlier training turns out to be; Steve Capener's article, though apparently completely independent of Young's,  supports exactly the same conclusions here. The person Choi identifies as his taekyon instructor turns out to be, very likely, an imaginary friend...)

The point is, there's contemporary evidence, and there's good evidence that by the time the Japanese began actively suppressing the MAs in Korea, the MAs they were suppressing largely consisted of the _imported_ Japanese MAs judo and jiujitsu. If, in the face of the savage and thorough enforcement the Japanese imposed on the proscription of _any_ MA training in Korea between the beginning of the Occupation and the mid 1930s, the best you can suggest is that there 'must have been' people training... training _something_ we don't know about, and doing so in total secrecy... something that no one at the time or currently can identify in any way that stands up to serious scrutiny... but which somehow crept into the form of the Kwan curricula... then I think you're going to find that you have a very, very tough sell on your hands.

I should also note that Gen. Choi isn't particularly important here _except_ insofar as he was one of the very loudest voices&#8212;later on, of course&#8212;denying that the Okinawan/Japanese MAs, which he and every other one of the original Kwan founders studied in Japan (except Hwang Kee) had studied to one or another dan levels, had anything to do with TKD.  (And HK admitted, in his last book, after a good chunk of a lifetime claiming Chinese origins for what he taught, that he had  learned much of his technique, especially those rooted in the seminal Pinan katas, from Japanese textbooks. As John Hancock, in his important article 'Quest for the truth', points out 

_On pages 15 and 16 of [HK's The History of Moo Duk Kwan (1995)], it clearly states that Hwang Kee's knowledge and understanding of the majority of the forms taught within tang soo do, including the pyong ahn hyung, came from reading and studying Japanese books on Okinawan karate. Hwang discovered those books in the library of the train station where he worked in Seoul in 1939. We can only speculate as to which books those were, but I would venture that Funakoshi's Ryukyu Kempo Karate (1922) was among them.)_​
Choi's whole significance here is that he was very important in starting the nationalist 'party line', still aggressively pursued by the TKD directorate in Korea, that TKD is the product of 'ancient' indigenous Korean arts. 

Given these tiresomely well-documented facts about the training of all the Kwan founders, the specific reason that we need to posit an ancient/old/etc. stratum to the very clearly O/J sources of the TKD techs in _all_ known lineages, in order to make sense of the technique set of Kwan-era TKD and later,  is that .... ....?

Again, we're not talking here about what TKD became. We're talking about where it started. Take karate itself: by the time Okinawan karate was exported to Japan, it was very, very different, so far as we can tell, from its Chinese/indigenous antecedents, the raw materials. That's how the life of MAs evolves, and there's no reason to suppose that the development of TKD/TSD, the Korean expressions of karate, worked any differently. There are styles that are much closer to the common O/J rootstock of the modern Korean striking arts, and styles that are further away. But all the converging lines of evidence point to that O/J rootstock (Simon O'Neil alludes in one or two places in his _Combat TKD_ monograph to a small role played by elements of chuan fa, but doesn't develop the discussion in any detail....)


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 12, 2008)

TaeKwonDoKevin said:


> Hi all....Here are my 2 cents worth for FREE!
> I tend to agree with Last Fearner......
> I have 30 years in TaeKwonDo. I have also studied Karate.
> Now, I too have thought about this TaeKwonDo history.........
> ...


 
You have 30 years in TKD, that is very impressive, but that does not make you a historian - and the issue here is history. You are right about Korea having its own martial arts. I'll do you one better - seeing as how they defeated the Japanese in the Imjin wars and the Mongols, and they gave the Chinese fits, then their indigenous styles must have been pretty damn good. However, Taekwondo is not one of those styles and neither does it draw from those styles. The earliest versions of Taekwondo were indeed carbon copies of japanese karate. They used the original techniques and the original katas of Japanese karate, and the style was in fact, referred to as Korean Karate. Of course, the style has evolved and has been changed around to reflect the tastes and preferences of its new home and its masters. What we practice today is based in those modern changes, not in alleged ancient Korean martial arts. The original forms were replaced with new forms that were based more in Korean nationalism than anything else (Taeguk, Korean flag). If Korean syles survived and were handed down, and they were truly indigenous Korean martial arts, then why didn't the government snap them up and use them exclusively within the nationalist propaganda machine? Given the political climate within Korea, why didn't somebody come forth and say "yes, we do have our own arts, and here is X art that was practiced and passed down to me from X time in the past? As for our beloved TKD, all that you have to do is trace the style back to its modern roots and look at it in its original form and you will see that it started out as nothing more than a Korean version of Shotokan Karate, complete with the same exact uniforms (karate-style gi), the same exact kihon (basic blocks), and the same exact katas. It is better to think of TKD as a modern KMA with roots in war-torn Korea/Japan/Okinawa. I would love to find out about old, indigenous Korean martial arts, but TKD is not one of them. Perhaps Ssireum or Shippalgi may be a better source for ancient Korean martial arts because TKD definitely isn't. The long, romanticised past just isn't there for TKD. Why is this so hard to accept? Ours is not an art of the past, it is an art of the future. Bartender! I'll have Two White Zombies Chasing A Blue Motorcycle, Please!


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 12, 2008)

TaeKwonDoKevin said:


> There are some "experts" that will not even acknowledge Gen. Choi's accomplishments in the TaeKwonDo world.
> So who do we listen to?


 
If by accomplishments you mean threatening to put people on the front line of the Korean war unless they renounce their training and practice what he was teaching, then yeah, I can see why they wouldn't be in such a hurry to celebrate such an egregious, A-hole "accomplishment". Didn't GM Kim Soo come clean and expose a number of the general's lies? Then there was that whole North Korea Fiasco which arguably led to the whole ITF-WTF split in the first place. Hmmm, maybe those "experts" know what they are talking about and do not subscribe to the knee-jerk romanticism? I respect general Choi because, if nothing else, he made a lot of noise to get TKD noticed in other parts of the world. However, I won't prop him up on a pedastool, either. The founding of our art was a group effort and all of the Kwans chipped in, so he doesn't deserve any special treatment apart from the treatment that the other Kwan leaders are given.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 12, 2008)

Oh, and we should listen to the people who have actually done the research and have the hard evidence to back up the facts that they present. Several authors have already been listed in this thread, so there is no need for me to repeat them.


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## tellner (Feb 12, 2008)

LF and TKDK are pretty much saying the same thing, to wit:

"I don't care what the research says. I don't care what the facts are. TKD must be just like the Korean government tells me it is because I like it, and I'm personally invested in it."

I'm really sorry to say this, but it just isn't so. No matter how many times LF says "The research isn't complete" he has yet to come up with anything resembling evidence for his position other than he wants it to be true. In fact, he's been remarkably coy about what his actual position is.

FL, where does TKD come from? What are its antecedents? Why were the original forms, uniform, techniques and backgrounds of the founders all straight Japanese Karate? If you mention cave paintings and Tae Kyon what do you have to weigh against the best research we have which debunks them? What earlier Korean martial arts went into TKD? Do any of them exist today, and if so where and in what form?


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## Cirdan (Feb 12, 2008)

The "ancient art" story of TKD is only slightly more likely to be true than that it is really based on the mating rituals of pink flying extradimensional hippos visiting our world.

Come on, take the red pill.


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## YoungMan (Feb 12, 2008)

I'll admit, early Tae Kwon Do was heavily influenced by Japanese karate. No surprise given that an entire generation of Koreans and their culture were ruled by Japan.
However, as I've pointed out, the modern Korean kicking and techniques our class did when I was coming up bear a remarkable resemblance to what I've seen Tae Kyon students do (high kicks, spinning, jumping etc.). You can't tell me that Tae Kyon did not or does not do those techniques because I've seen video of those guys (from the Korean TK Association) doing them. So somewhere along the line, the Japanese techniques were removed and traditional Korean techniques inserted. You can argue with me all you want, but I'm going by what my eyes saw. Those techniques were not just invented out of thin air, they were brought in from somewhere. If the Hapkido guys discovered them first, fine, but modern Tae Kwon Do is definitely descended from traditional Korean technique, despite what Exile and others say. I've seen too many similarities to believe otherwise.


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## YoungMan (Feb 12, 2008)

And yes, early Tae Kwon Do was called "Korean Karate". But that was a marketing ploy used by some in reference to the fact that people knew Japanese Karate. Who knew, especially in America, what Tang Soo Do was? The Chung Do Kwan people knew almost immediately that a Korean-based name was needed if Tang Soo Do was to have its own identity. 
So it wasn't called "Korean Karate" because it was, it was called that for marketing purposes.


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## exile (Feb 12, 2008)

YoungMan said:


> I'll admit, early Tae Kwon Do was heavily influenced by Japanese karate. No surprise given that an entire generation of Koreans and their culture were ruled by Japan.
> However, as I've pointed out, the modern Korean kicking and techniques our class did when I was coming up bear a remarkable resemblance to what I've seen Tae Kyon students do (high kicks, spinning, jumping etc.). You can't tell me that Tae Kyon did not or does not do those techniques because I've seen video of those guys (from the Korean TK Association) doing them. So somewhere along the line, the Japanese techniques were removed and traditional Korean techniques inserted. You can argue with me all you want, but I'm going by what my eyes saw. Those techniques were not just invented out of thin air, they were brought in from somewhere. If the Hapkido guys discovered them first, fine, but modern Tae Kwon Do is definitely descended from traditional Korean technique, despite what Exile and others say. I've seen too many similarities to believe otherwise.



YM, when you read Young's and Capener's definitive examinations of the history Taekyon&#8212;which I remember pointing you to several weeks back and which you clearly still haven't read&#8212;you will note that by the mid-fifties, the guy who was the last living 'master' of taekyon reckoned that there were only three other people _in the whole of Korea_ who were doing taekyon, and this at a time when TKD was exploding. Between then and now, taekkyon grew into an activity that several thousand people practice, compared with the millions in Korea who have trained in it since then. This growth in taekkyon, a tiny minority 'art' which happened, essentially, well after the formation of modern TKD, incorporates high kicks and other TKD/TSD techniques (whereas the 'old' taekyon made extensive use of leg blocks and other things missing from both TKD/TSD and 'nouveau' taekyon), and you're trying to tell us that TKD got these _from_ nouveau taekyon??? And you find this plausible??

Just to remind you of how much of this has already been documented for you, let me reproduce part of an MT post I sent you here, roughly three weeks ago:



exile said:


> Now *I* have a quotation for *you*, and it comes from the mouth of Song Duk Ki himself, the man declared a Living National Treasure in the 1980 as the last repository of knowledge of taekyon. Robert Young, in his definitive 1993 article 'The History and Development of _Tae Kyon_', _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_, 2.45&#8211;69, quotes from SDK's 1983 book as follows:
> 
> _The first recent demonstration in public occured during a national police martial arts competition on March 26, 1958, the birthday of former President Syngman Rhee. Rhee greatly enjoyed the special demonstration organized by Im Ho and Kim Seong-hwan but felt sorry that tae kyon was dying out in his homeland (Song, 1983:21). A presidential bodyguard who knew Song Duk-ki personally later told him how the president desperately wanted the art to continue for future generations. Song began looking for a more qualified taekyon master, to fulfil Rhee's request, *but he could find none. As far as Song  knew, only he Kim, and the elderly Im Ho continued to practice tae kyon.*_​
> _This was in 1958, YM_. During the 30s, and beyond, taekyon was hardly practiced at all; as Song says in his book (p.9), he was one of the very few who had time to train. And by the end of the 1950s, at the culminating phase of Kwan era TKD, there were exactly three practitioners of the art that the acknowledged 'Living National Treasure' master of the art knew about&#8212;one of them, Im Ho, quite elderly, in his 80s, and the other two in their sixties&#8212;and this while TKD was increasing explosively in prestige, prominence and student clientele on a yearly basis. This statement comes from the memoirs of the major Taekyon practitioner of the century. In contrast, there is not a single shred of documentary evidence that Lee Won-Kuk studied, or practiced, or was influenced in his MA training, or teaching, by tae kyon, or as we should actually call it, given both the Chinese and Korean characters which spell the name, _ta(e)k_ 'push' _gyeon_ 'shoulders'. As both Young and Stan Henning note in their respective _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_ historical studies, there is absolutely no connection between Korean _tae_ 'foot' lexical item and  _tak/taek_ 'push'. And if you had gotten around to do the minimal historical research on taekyon, and looked into the two most important historical studied on it available, Young's 1993 _JAMA_ article and Capener's 1995 ms.&#8212;I'm not going to repeat the references, I've provided you with them enough times already&#8212;you would have noticed, particularly in Young's amply illustrated article, that the taekyon demo looks virtually nothing like TKD of _any_ sort. Just looking at the foot techs, Lee Yong-Bok, Chairman of the Korean Taekyon Research Association, has said in a recorded interview with Young that _'Tae kyon has traditionally emphasized stepping and stamping techniques *directed at the opponent's lower legs and feet*'_. I'll repeat that, YM: stomping and low strikes to the opponents lower legs and feet. I hope you can see the impact of that statement, from one of the outstanding authorities on the activity, on your persistent, undocumented statement that TKD foot techs and (contemporary) taekyon kicks show an affinity that proves the derivation of the first from the second. :lol:



And it wasn't surprising that Song-Duk Ki estimated only four practitioners of taekyon left, himself included, _is_ it! Because as Capener reports (and as I cited in a post to you, _six_ weeks ago, which you never seem to have responded to),

_Further testimony to the completeness of t'aekkyon 's disappearance from 
Korean folk customs is given by Song Tok-ki the Choson's "last t'aekkyon player" who 
was invited in 1958 to give a demonstration of t'aekkyon on the occasion of then 
President Syngman Rhee's birthday. *In spite of searching in "100 directions" he was 
unable to locate even one person versed in t'aekkyon with whom he could 
demonstrate. This in spite of hundreds of t'aegwondo schools throughout the country.*
Song Tok-ki goes on to say that t'aekkyon was never thought of as other than a game 
and existed almost exclusively in Seoul where it was played regularly in a few 
locations._​
(from Capener, 'Problems in the Identity and Philosphy of T'aegwando and their Historical Causes', available here.) 

And after all that information, including testimony from the one 20th century figure whom anyone can identify as a major point of contact with the 19th c. folk sport of taekyon, its 'Living National Treasure', all of which clearly and severely challenges your assumption of the direction of travel in technique between nouveau 'taekyon' and TKD, you still post along these lines...


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## Steel Tiger (Feb 12, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> The original forms were replaced with new forms that were based more in Korean nationalism than anything else (Taeguk, Korean flag). If Korean syles survived and were handed down, and they were truly indigenous Korean martial arts, *then why didn't the government snap them up and use them exclusively within the nationalist propaganda machine?* Given the political climate within Korea, why didn't somebody come forth and say "yes, we do have our own arts, and here is X art that was practiced and passed down to me from X time in the past?


 
This is a very interesting point.  It goes to the heart of Korea's martial arts dilema.  Why didn't the government use the truly homegrown arts in this endeavour as did China and Japan?  It would appear that it is because there were no practitioners of those arts around at the time.  There is a disconnection between the past and the present, brought about by Japanese imperialism.

This is not to say that those ancient arts did not exist, just that circumstances led to a break of continuity.  The attitudes of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) saw martial arts fade from importance and become sanctioned for the military only, and something of a half remembered folksy thing by the 19th century.  Add to this the effect of 30-40 years of Japanese domination and determination to obliterate any possibility of revolt and you end up with, well, nothing.  Nothing but old memories of old men about things they saw in their youth.

One thing I find intriguing in all this is the appearance of revival arts like Muye24ban and Muye24gi.  These are based on the old manuals _Muyejebo_ and _Muyedobotongji_.  I know there is some contention over these manuals, and I have my own opinion, but they do represent an early stage of martial art development in Korea.  The mere fact that these arts have started to appear indicates that people in Korea are questioning the official line on Korean martial arts continuity.  Very interesting.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 12, 2008)

... That pretty much sums it all up. No matter how much evidence you present, there are those who are still going to believe the lies. They have not only drank the Kool-Aid, they have pulled the Kool-Aid man into a back alley and had their way with him. It is a shame, really. The good thing is that the Koreans themselves have enough common sense to look at the facts and see that something isn't quite right with the propaganda stories, so there is some hope after all. It was called Korean Karate BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT IT WAS!!! IT USED THE SAME EXACT KATAS AS SHOTOKAN AND IT EVEN APED THE UNI'S!!! THE CHANGES WERE *MODERN* CHANGES THAT WERE MADE FOR NATIONALIST PURPOSES AND TO TRY TO FURTHER DISTANCE THE STYLE FROM ITS JAPANESE ROOTS. THE KICKS WERE ORGINALLY LOW - THEY WERE RAISED OVER TIME FOR DEMO AND COMPETITION PURPOSES!!! SPORT KARATE HAS ALSO UNDERGONE SUCH TYPES OF EVOLUTIONS TO REFLECT THE TRENDS IN ITS COMPETITIONS!!! WE HAVE THE EVIDENCE!!! IT IS PROVEN BY MEN FAR MORE QUALIFIED IN THE FEILD OF HISTORY THAN ALL OF US PUT TOGETHER!!! WE HAVE THE SMOKING GUN PEOPLE!!! WHY DO WE STILL INSIST ON BELIEVING IN THE NONSENSE AND THE LIES WHEN EVEN THE KOREAN PEOPLE THEMSELVES ARE DOUBTING THEM??? IT IS NO SHAME TO ADMIT THAT YOU DRANK THE KOOL-AID. I HAVE DONE IT, WE HAVE ALL DONE IT AT SOME POINT - IT IS PART OF THE LARGER LEARNING PROCESS!!!


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 12, 2008)

Steel Tiger said:


> One thing I find intriguing in all this is the appearance of revival arts like Muye24ban and Muye24gi. These are based on the old manuals _Muyejebo_ and _Muyedobotongji_. I know there is some contention over these manuals, and I have my own opinion, but they do represent an early stage of martial art development in Korea. The mere fact that these arts have started to appear indicates that people in Korea are questioning the official line on Korean martial arts continuity. Very interesting.


 
Yes, exactly! The Korean people are not stupid, eventually they will find out that the wool has been pulled over their eyes by nationalist agendas! It looks like it is already beginning to happen! I consider the MDT one of Korea's indigenous treasures as well as taekkyon. I believe there are sections in the MDT for Ssireum and Shippalgi too, if I am not mistaken. From reading the MDT, it seems that the Koreans were more of a weapons-first martial culture not too dissimilar from the Saxons or Japanese in that they had more weapons work than anything else. Of course, weapons have always ruled the battlefeild, so that thought may not hold much weight. Just food for discussion, I guess. The nerd in me is deeply interested in old Korean martial arts :lol:!


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## exile (Feb 12, 2008)

Steel Tiger said:


> *The attitudes of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) saw martial arts fade from importance and become sanctioned for the military only, and something of a half remembered folksy thing by the 19th century. * Add to this the effect of 30-40 years of Japanese domination and determination to obliterate any possibility of revolt and you end up with, well, nothing.  Nothing but old memories of old men about things they saw in their youth.



This is so important... and so little known. Capener makes much of it in his essay, approvingly, because he actually disapproves of the way in which TKD arose, as the Korean development of karate. He argues that the whole culture of Korea was inhospitable to _budo/justsu_ attitudes towards martial arts, that the superficial similarity between the Three Kingdoms warfare era and the Japanese castle era samurai culture has led people to believe that the two are basically expressions of the same kind of Asian feudal combat ethic, whereas, he argues, the combat psychology of the Japanese was never an important component of Korean culture, and therefore TKD is best construed culturally not as a combat system but as a martial sport. To me, this seems like a projection of Capener's own thinking; he's a technical advisor to the WTF and very committed to the Olympic definition of TKD. The Korean and Vietnamese war showed how tough and combat-effective both the RoK military and TKD were. But the fact is, at the time that the Japanese occupation began, civil combat systems had been moribund in Korea, under the stifling weight of Confucian atttudes, for something like half a millenium. 



Steel Tiger said:


> One thing I find intriguing in all this is the appearance of revival arts like Muye24ban and Muye24gi.  These are based on the old manuals _Muyejebo_ and _Muyedobotongji_.  I know there is some contention over these manuals, and I have my own opinion, but they do represent an early stage of martial art development in Korea.  The mere fact that these arts have started to appear indicates that people in Korea are questioning the official line on Korean martial arts continuity.  Very interesting.



Stanley Henning and Manuel Adrogués, who did the definitive assessments of the key Korean martial ms., the _Muyedobotongji_, identify it as an essentially word for work copy of an earlier Chinese ms., written by a Han general 250 years earlier, _The New Manual of Effective Discipline_, and Androgués in particular notes that the empty-hand combat system illustrated (in the few pages devoted to it) can be fairly securely identified with Long Fist Chuan Fa. This reflects the enormous, probably almost suffocating influence of Chinese thinking on Korean thought (including military thought) over many centuries, and I think it's Henning who noted that in the early 19th century a kind of cultural reaction set in against Chinese influences in Korea. But in reaction to the horrible abuse the Koreans underwent at the hands of the Japanese, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were a serious revival of interest in the earlier Chinese combat systems that, as Androgués charts brilliantly in his 2003 _JAMA_ article on ancient Korean military manuals, were essentially copied and presented as the content of Korean combat strategy and skill sets, culminating in the _Muyedobotongji_.



SageGhost83 said:


> ... That pretty much sums it all up. No matter how much evidence you present, there are those who are still going to believe the lies. They have not only drank the Kool-Aid, they have pulled the Kool-Aid man into a back alley and had their way with him. It is a shame, really. The good thing is that the Koreans themselves have enough common sense to look at the facts and see that something isn't quite right with the propaganda stories, so there is some hope after all. It was called Korean Karate BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT IT WAS!!! IT USED THE SAME EXACT KATAS AS SHOTOKAN AND IT EVEN APED THE UNI'S!!! THE CHANGES WERE *MODERN* CHANGES THAT WERE MADE FOR NATIONALIST PURPOSES AND TO TRY TO FURTHER DISTANCE THE STYLE FROM ITS JAPANESE ROOTS. THE KICKS WERE ORGINALLY LOW - THEY WERE RAISED OVER TIME FOR DEMO AND COMPETITION PURPOSES!!! SPORT KARATE HAS ALSO UNDERGONE SUCH TYPES OF EVOLUTIONS TO REFLECT THE TRENDS IN ITS COMPETITIONS!!! WE HAVE THE EVIDENCE!!! IT IS PROVEN BY MEN FAR MORE QUALIFIED IN THE FEILD OF HISTORY THAN ALL OF US PUT TOGETHER!!! WE HAVE THE SMOKING GUN PEOPLE!!! *WHY DO WE STILL INSIST ON BELIEVING IN THE NONSENSE AND THE LIES WHEN EVEN THE KOREAN PEOPLE THEMSELVES ARE DOUBTING THEM???* IT IS NO SHAME TO ADMIT THAT YOU DRANK THE KOOL-AID. I HAVE DONE IT, WE HAVE ALL DONE IT AT SOME POINT - IT IS PART OF THE LARGER LEARNING PROCESS!!!



I think that the testimony of a number of eminent Korean grandmasters, cited in Robert Young's groundbreaking _JAMA_ paper in 1993, breaking ranks with their partisan fellows (and acknowledging what was at the time regarded as a shameful secret&#8212;the Japanese sources of TKD) is particularly important.  One of the lessons that Korean MAists have had to learn, in bitter resignation, during the past sixty years is that if you break ranks, you will be punished; just ask the shade of Hwang Kee, or the TKD kwan founders who resisted Gen. Choi early on, or people such as Gm. Kim Byung-Soo, who continued to resist; and Gen. Choi himself eventually got chewed up in the jaws of the Korean TKD directorate that he had been so important in creating. Nonetheless, what Gm. Kim suggest in his January *Black Belt* interview&#8212;

_today the truth is coming out. Still some people try to make up some mysterious stories - claim their art is 2000 years old or from a monk in the mountains or something. But, if people are educated about history and lineage, they cannot be fooled. I believe Korea, like many other countries, had some type of martial arts being practiced before the 20th century. But after the Japanese occupation of Korea (1909-1945), indigenous martial arts were gone and influences from other places (Japan, Okinawa, China) were being taught. 

This is the same as if someone&#8217;s father is a farmer, but tells everyone his father is a doctor. You should show respect for your father and let people know who he is, not make up some strange story. The same is for martial arts lineage. Your direct instructor is your martial arts father; his teacher is your grandfather, etc. This is your family line in the martial arts. It doesn&#8217;t matter where the art comes from. Martial art belongs to the people that practice and preserve it, not to &#8220;this country or that country.&#8221;_​
Gm. Kim didn't wait to come to the U.S.  before presenting this perspective on TKD; he was doing it even as a young student, comparing the techs he was learning to those he was able to read about and observe in Shotokan and Shudokan karate. He took on some serious risks in doing so, too. But I think, as time goes on, people will feel less pressure from this kind of 'political correctness' to defend these romantic fabrications that get passed off for MA history...

The thing is, you can understand Koreans doing something like that. But what I find really, *really* strange is when Westerners, coming out of cultures which do _not_ have that institutionalized, accepted distinction between 'official truth' (_tatemae_ in Japanese) and  independently discovered, verified truth (_honne_) do the same thing. As Karel Van Wolferen, in _The Enigma of Japanese Power _(MacMillan 1989), observes in chapter 9 of his detailed study, in Japanese culture, individuals who go out of their way to ferret out facts and check official doctrine against these facts are referred to, contemptuously, as _rikkutsuppoi_, 'reason freaks', and there is a similar hostility in many echelons of Korean society as well. What's really bizarre is finding the same thing in the comparatively open world of martial arts in the U.S. Which brings us, of course, back to the thread OP here.... :wink1:

And speaking of the OP, I have to note that the pattern exhibited in that post, attacking the messenger with everything but a factual argument, and offering  hostile but virtually completely undefended judgments of the individual reporting the data (as vs. challenging the data, or arguing with the interpretation in terms of counterevidence, or anything consistent with the simple basics of sound historical debate) is nothing new for the OP. If circumstances warrant, I would _love_ to go back to a prior post of the OPer, here, responding to Steve Capener's extremely well-documented survey of the historical origins of TKD, arguments which already rested on a strong basis of support in Young's 1993 _JAMA_ paper, subsequently strongly corroborated in the followup work of Burdick in 1997 and 2000, and note the same pattern as in the OP: lots and lots of attacks on the professional competence of the author,  based on a fundamental confusion between MA rank on the one hand and control of historical data, with a conspicuous lack of anything resembling an actual counterargument based on either new empirical findings or plausible reassessment of older documentation&#8212;in other words, mistaking belt level for knowledge of history, who cannot offer a single even mildly plausible factual challenging to the emerging picture of modern TKD as the Korean development of Shotokan and Shudokan karate, plain and simple. The 'discussion' of Capener's findings about taekyon (including the devastating interview testimony and autobiographical writing of the last living practitioner of that 19th c. traditional folk foot game, Song-Duk Ki, that Capener uncovered) is particularly telling... oh yes, there's a _lot_ to be said about the way in which the OPer approached the documented historical material in Capener's article! What's really interesting in this case is that that every single solitary careful investigation of TKD martial history has wound up coming to the same conclusion&#8212;one that's supremely embarrassing for the romantic nationalist fables that Gen. Choi and others in the Korean TKD directorate began pumping up the volume on the post-Korean-War era. The more you look at the evidence base, the more transparently weak these claims are now showing themselves to be. And yet we have people who enthusiastically champion those claims, without even making a pretense of constructing a serious response to the by now massive evidence that TKD originated as Korean karate, emerging out of a background which shows not even the faintest trait of an indigenous MA tradition. This lack of a continuous Korean tradition is something that demands explanation&#8212;there are some very interesting suggestions in the continuation of this thread below&#8212;but the kind of response, including a wholesale ducking of publically attested contemporary evidence, documentary information and all the rest of it (to the point of raising major doubts as to the responders' awareness that a serious historical critical literature on the KMAs actually _exists_) in favor of repeated assertions of personal convictions (as though the strength of those convictions carried any weight in and of itself)... this I find, well, _fascinating_... :EG:


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 12, 2008)

YoungMan said:


> You can argue with me all you want, but I'm going by what my eyes saw. Those techniques were not just invented out of thin air, they were brought in from somewhere. If the Hapkido guys discovered them first, fine, but modern Tae Kwon Do is definitely descended from traditional Korean technique, despite what Exile and others say. I've seen too many similarities to believe otherwise.


 
No, we are not arguing - we are presenting the proven facts that are backed up by hard evidence. You are right, those techniques were not invented out of thin air - they didn't come from Taekkyon, either. They were brought in from Shotokan Karate and refined over time to reflect the tastes and preferences of their new home. Hapkido itself is a Korean version of Aikido - Ai and Hap even mean the same thing. Of course, Hapkido grew away from its original source and was changed over time, too. Taekwondo is descended from Japanese and Okinawan Karate - it has already been proven by *actual* historians, and many of the founders have come clean about the truth. You see, it is not just "What Exile and others say", it is the proven facts of those who have actually done the painstaking research in the feild and presented their nonbiased work for all to see. You are going by personal belief and observation, we are going by the hard evidence that has been gathered by people who are far more knowledgeable about the subject than all of us. There is a reason why they are called professionals, and their work is legit even if it doesn't fit in with Sanbunim's romantic fantasies. It is not our *opinion* of the matter, we are just reiterating the facts. We have no personal agenda to prove or force upon others, we are just putting the truth forward. I realize that truth is a bitter pill that never goes down easy, but that doesn't mean that we should avoid ingesting it. I believe integrity is one of the values that the arts are supposed to teach...


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 12, 2008)

exile said:


> Stanley Henning and Manuel Adrogués, who did the definitive assessments of the key Korean martial ms., the _Muyedobotongji_, identify it as an essentially word for work copy of an earlier Chinese ms., written by a Han general 250 years earlier, _The New Manual of Effective Discipline_, and Androgués in particular notes that the empty-hand combat system illustrated (in the few pages devoted to it) can be fairly securely identified with Long Fist Chuan Fa. This reflects the enormous, probably almost suffocating influence of Chinese thinking on Korean thought (including military thought) over many centuries, and I think it's Henning who noted that in the early 19th century a kind of cultural reaction set in against Chinese influences in Korea. But in reaction to the horrible abuse the Koreans underwent at the hands of the Japanese, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were a serious revival of interest in the earlier Chinese combat systems that, as Androgués charts brilliantly in his 2003 _JAMA_ article on ancient Korean military manuals, were essentially copied and presented as the content of Korean combat strategy and skill sets, culminating in the _Muyedobotongji_.


 
I have heard many times that old Korean martial arts had a very Chinese flavor to them. It is nice to know that what I heard was not just hearsay, but there is actually a basis in fact concerning these claims. It makes sense, given that the two countries have been neighbors since forever. I find it peculiar that the Korean name for their home country is Hanguk - Han = the people we commonly think of when referring to "the Chinese", and Guk = People/Person. Do we have yet another smoking gun ?


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## exile (Feb 12, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> I have heard many times that old Korean martial arts had a very Chinese flavor to them. It is nice to know that what I heard was not just hearsay, but there is actually a basis in fact concerning these claims. It makes sense, given that the two countries have been neighbors since forever. I find it peculiar that the Korean name for their home country is Hanguk - Han = the people we commonly think of when referring to "the Chinese", and Guk = People/Person. Do we have yet another smoking gun ?



Nice point, SG! (see my addendum in my previous note on the point you made about the emergence of the truth about KMA origins against some very stubborn political resistance...)

The Chinese certainly messed around with the Korean political scene plenty in the ancient era, by all accounts. They regarded the whole shooting match&#8212;Manchuria, Tibet, Korea, etc.&#8212;as their tributaries and were really quite shocked on the several occasions when the Koreans appear to have held their own against them. And the Mongols got a rude shock from the Koreans as well. There was no lack of toughness or military shrewdness on their part. The problem the Koreans always had, I suspect, was geographical: they were backed against the wall on their peninsula, sitting ducks for the demographically overwhelming Chinese to the west and south, and the gung-ho military overdrive of the Japanese warrior culture to the east...


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## Steel Tiger (Feb 12, 2008)

exile said:


> Stanley Henning and Manuel Adrogués, who did the definitive assessments of the key Korean martial ms., the _Muyedobotongji_, identify it as an essentially word for work copy of an earlier Chinese ms., written by a Han general 250 years earlier, _The New Manual of Effective Discipline_, and Androgués in particular notes that the empty-hand combat system illustrated (in the few pages devoted to it) can be fairly securely identified with Long Fist Chuan Fa. This reflects the enormous, probably almost suffocating influence of Chinese thinking on Korean thought (including military thought) over many centuries, and I think it's Henning who noted that in the early 19th century a kind of cultural reaction set in against Chinese influences in Korea. But in reaction to the horrible abuse the Koreans underwent at the hands of the Japanese, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were a serious revival of interest in the earlier Chinese combat systems that, as Androgués charts brilliantly in his 2003 _JAMA_ article on ancient Korean military manuals, were essentially copied and presented as the content of Korean combat strategy and skill sets, culminating in the _Muyedobotongji_.


 
The interesting thing about the _Muyejedobotongji_, and it is important for any view of old Korean fighting arts, is that it is in effect a synthetic manual.  The base material is that of the short (14 rather than 18 chapters) version of _Ji Xiao Xin Shu_ to which, over some 200 years, were added Korean ideas about warfare and a Japanese martial arts manual.  Even though its origins may have been in Ming Dynasty China, the text we know today is a Korean construction.  It shines a light on Korean fighting arts from 200 years ago (last version appears to have been published in 1791), and perhaps earlier.

I suspect, however, given the Confucian influences and attitudes in Korea at the time, its publication may have been little more than an exercise in scholarship, as were seen in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and not indicative of any societal interest in fighting arts at the time.


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## exile (Feb 12, 2008)

Steel Tiger said:


> The interesting thing about the _Muyejedobotongji_, and it is important for any view of old Korean fighting arts, is that it is in effect a synthetic manual.  The base material is that of the short (14 rather than 18 chapters) version of _Ji Xiao Xin Shu_ to which, over some 200 years, were added Korean ideas about warfare and a Japanese martial arts manual.  Even though its origins may have been in Ming Dynasty China, the text we know today is a Korean construction.  It shines a light on Korean fighting arts from 200 years ago (last version appears to have been published in 1791), and perhaps earlier.
> 
> I suspect, however, given the Confucian influences and attitudes in Korea at the time, *its publication may have been little more than an exercise in scholarship, *as were seen in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and not indicative of any societal interest in fighting arts at the time.



This makes sense. It seems to have been a command performance by some scribes in the Royal Palace involving updating and pulling together some of the earlier mss. Adrogués discusses (as vs.  a project undertaken by the military, for military purposes). 

This is something that people who reason from the experience of other Asian societies to conclusions about Korea fail to take into account: Korea had a very unusual experience of systematic _de_militarization, at least in terms of civil society. I see this as the precursor to the... I dunno, deracination of MAs in Korea, I suppose,  which led to the loss of the local/family lineage or even school lineage traditions so important to the maintenance of MAs as 'locally owned' activities in China/Okinawa and Japan respectively. I had a thread running on this for a while, quite some time ago... here. This long, long era in which so much combat content was bleached from the local, village-level culture of Korea is probably a very big part of the reason for the ultimate state control and regulation of the MAs in Korea, as vs. the rest of Asia....


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## granfire (Feb 13, 2008)

Well, geography might also play a role in it. Korea is a rather small country (compared to China anyhow) and unlike Japan a continuous landmass...once the country was unified there was no individual need for local MA...Okinawa has not been Japanese for more then 2 generations...


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## Tez3 (Feb 13, 2008)

I was on night shift last night and with it being a very quiet night had plenty of time to think about this thread. Excuse me if I ramble a bit to start with please!
I think the key to this thread and the OP is to ask yourself why you train martial arts, I train because I enjoy the physical exercise, I like to be able to defend myself and I rather enjoy fighting. it's also a business for me with teaching and promotng MMA fight nights. The reasons are all practical, I know the history of Wado Ryu, it's not a very old martial style. The history of MMA may well go back to Pankration in the original Greek Olympics but it has no bearing on my training. It's interesting nothing more. I have my own faith and beliefs outside martial arts that I'm happy with and I don't look for anything spiritual in MA.
Reading LF's OP and I mean no disrespect here it seems to me that TKD is his spiritual and entire life. he talks of it as if it were almost a religion, a quest for the Holy Grail. To me it's a very romantic view, not a wrong view but not worldly. There's Wise Men,warrior codes, ancient secrets and great faith which when exposed to the daylight and practical truths from practical men shows the truth to be actually something different, hence the howls of pain. No one wants to believe that something they have cherished, nourished and practised for years is not what it seems. I can imagine the hurt people feel when they perceive the TKD they have almost worshipped for years come under 'attack' from those who want to deal with the truth. I'm sorry for it but the truth while exposing the lie actually shows that TKD is the same art they love, they can still believe in the spiritual values and whatever else they get from the practice of it only facing the truth of it's history. 
In England we have the myth of King Arthur, the Once and Future King who will come back to save us when England faces it's greatest peril. We cherish the idea of the golden time of Camelot, the Round Table and the Knights. We wish that was our history but we know it's not. The truth though is every bit as valid, interesting and heroic as is the real history of TKD.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 13, 2008)

exile said:


> This makes sense. It seems to have been a command performance by some scribes in the Royal Palace involving updating and pulling together some of the earlier mss. Adrogués discusses (as vs. a project undertaken by the military, for military purposes).
> 
> This is something that people who reason from the experience of other Asian societies to conclusions about Korea fail to take into account: Korea had a very unusual experience of systematic _de_militarization, at least in terms of civil society. I see this as the precursor to the... I dunno, deracination of MAs in Korea, I suppose, which led to the loss of the local/family lineage or even school lineage traditions so important to the maintenance of MAs as 'locally owned' activities in China/Okinawa and Japan respectively. I had a thread running on this for a while, quite some time ago... here. This long, long era in which so much combat content was bleached from the local, village-level culture of Korea is probably a very big part of the reason for the ultimate state control and regulation of the MAs in Korea, as vs. the rest of Asia....


 
I have always thought of the MDT as being indicative of indigenous Korean martial arts, but after being enlightened by the evidence that has been put forth, I stand corrected. I never considered the Confucian tradition, which is naive on my part. Thanks for clearing up my misconception, guys:asian:! You know, I recall reading some of Turnbull's work and coming across something to the effect of Korea pretty much abandoning the majority of its martial arts after the peninsula became unified because they felt that they no longer needed to practice them after the peace that was established. They instead focused on the arts and humanities while the military became more of an afterthought. The irony is that the Koreans seemed to erase their own traditional martial ways long before the Japanese ever occupied the peninsula. I am not saying that the Japanese didn't do their part in it, but that the bulk of KMA was probably already a forgotten memory and the Japanese just simply finished the very process that the Koreans themselves started centuries ago. Another thing that makes me extremely cynical regarding KMA is the push to "budo-ize" it. It has already been pointed out that the Koreans didn't really have a culture that was conducive to budo, so the attempts to "budo-ize" KMA is another giveaway that what we think of as being an ancient Korean art is really just an imported art that has been Koreanized. The appeals to the Hwarang and the attempts to make them out as the Korean Equivalent of Samurai is very cute, though. I am not even going to get started on the Sulsa...:lol:.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 13, 2008)

Tez3 said:


> I was on night shift last night and with it being a very quiet night had plenty of time to think about this thread. Excuse me if I ramble a bit to start with please!
> I think the key to this thread and the OP is to ask yourself why you train martial arts, I train because I enjoy the physical exercise, I like to be able to defend myself and I rather enjoy fighting. it's also a business for me with teaching and promotng MMA fight nights. The reasons are all practical, I know the history of Wado Ryu, it's not a very old martial style. The history of MMA may well go back to Pankration in the original Greek Olympics but it has no bearing on my training. It's interesting nothing more. I have my own faith and beliefs outside martial arts that I'm happy with and I don't look for anything spiritual in MA.
> Reading LF's OP and I mean no disrespect here it seems to me that TKD is his spiritual and entire life. he talks of it as if it were almost a religion, a quest for the Holy Grail. To me it's a very romantic view, not a wrong view but not worldly. There's Wise Men,warrior codes, ancient secrets and great faith which when exposed to the daylight and practical truths from practical men shows the truth to be actually something different, hence the howls of pain. No one wants to believe that something they have cherished, nourished and practised for years is not what it seems. I can imagine the hurt people feel when they perceive the TKD they have almost worshipped for years come under 'attack' from those who want to deal with the truth. I'm sorry for it but the truth while exposing the lie actually shows that TKD is the same art they love, they can still believe in the spiritual values and whatever else they get from the practice of it only facing the truth of it's history.
> In England we have the myth of King Arthur, the Once and Future King who will come back to save us when England faces it's greatest peril. We cherish the idea of the golden time of Camelot, the Round Table and the Knights. We wish that was our history but we know it's not. The truth though is every bit as valid, interesting and heroic as is the real history of TKD.


 
That is a beautiful post, my friend. I couldn't agree more with what you said. We tend to take the folklore and romanticism behind what we practice and accept it as unquestionable fact, and then we are crushed when we find out that the folklore and romanticism is nothing more than.....folklore and romanticism. I think that sometimes people get so involved in it and take it, along with themselves, waaay too seriously. Don't get me wrong - there is nothing wrong with striving to live by the higher ideals presented within one's art. However, I think that we must all keep things in perspective and not let them go to our heads. As far as being hurt, I think that the biggest shame is that the practitioners come to an art in good faith and are fed lies upon lies by somebody who they trusted for so many years. They have been decieved and they have been used by a person that they look up to. This is why we must hold our instructors accountable for what they teach, and this is why we should seek out the history and truths to our styles from professional sources who are not biased to any agendas within our styles. My heart goes out to any and all who have been decieved by their sanbunim. You deserve better than that. As dedicated martial artists, you have payed blood, sweat, and tears - you have the right to know the truth.


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## exile (Feb 13, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> I have always thought of the MDT as being indicative of indigenous Korean martial arts, but after being enlightened by the evidence that has been put forth, I stand corrected. I never considered the Confucian tradition, which is naive on my part. Thanks for clearing up my misconception, guys:asian:!



SG, you have nothing to apologize for&#8212;the fact is, it's only recently that we've had a reliable English translation of the MDT; and notice that Sang Kim, in his introduction, manages to avoid virtually all mention of the fact that the volume itself is essentially a synthesis of the Han military work I mentioned with some material on the Japanese sword, as was mentioned earlier. He somewhat coyly points out that the manual 'included... Chinese fighting methods', which is roughly like saying that Julia Child's _Mastering the Art of French Cooking_ 'includes French cooking methods'. Stan Henning's work, based on the original Korean text and informed by Henning's knowledge of Chinese and of philological methods of textual comparison, and Adrogués' subsequent work on the systematic importation of Chinese martial arts instructional texts into Korea and their translation and dissemination as Korean military manuals is something we've only learned about fairly recently; and that work hasn't been widely publicized. The information about the MDT and what it actually shows&#8212;the overwhelming influence of Chinese culture on its smaller, feisty but vulnerable and somewhat insecure peninsular neighbor and (in the Emperors' minds anyway) tributary state&#8212;is becoming better known as time goes on; but I have to say, what Henning and Adrogués were able to document in their work came as a real revelation to me when when I first encountered it a couple of years ago... not what I'd been expecting at all.





SageGhost83 said:


> You know, I recall reading some of Turnbull's work and coming across something to the effect of Korea pretty much abandoning the majority of its martial arts after the peninsula became unified because they felt that they no longer needed to practice them after the peace that was established. They instead focused on the arts and humanities while the military became more of an afterthought. The irony is that the Koreans seemed to erase their own traditional martial ways long before the Japanese ever occupied the peninsula.



Yes&#8212;this is a very important aspect of the martial arts story in Korea, the impact of the Chosun/Yi aversion to combat arts outside the context of strictly professional military activity. In much of Europe, from the Renaissance on, combat skill with the rapier was considered the mark of a gentleman, and that certainly would have been true, to some extent, in the aftermath of the Japanese castle era as well; but it's as though, in Korea, the mark of a gentleman was precisely that you _didn't_ receive training in civil combat skills. Very, very strange. And unlike China, and to some extent in Okinawa, where there seem to have been persistent family combat traditions, there is absolutely no shred of evidence whatever for that in Korea. I have to say, I really don't understand why Korea was so different in this respect from its Asian neighbors....




SageGhost83 said:


> I am not saying that the Japanese didn't do their part in it, but that the bulk of KMA was probably already a forgotten memory and the *Japanese just simply finished the very process that the Koreans themselves started centuries ago.*



Yes, exactly. 



SageGhost83 said:


> Another thing that makes me extremely cynical regarding KMA is the push to "budo-ize" it. It has already been pointed out that the Koreans didn't really have a culture that was conducive to budo, so the attempts to "budo-ize" KMA is another giveaway that what we think of as being an ancient Korean art is really just an imported art that has been Koreanized. The appeals to the Hwarang and the attempts to make them out as the Korean Equivalent of Samurai is very cute, though. I am not even going to get started on the Sulsa...:lol:.



I think it's very difficult for us to fully accept how deeply different the Korean and Japanese combat traditions were... there are many aspects of their cultures which are so very similar, and a sizable group of historical linguists believe that there's enough evidence now to come down on the side of a common historical ancestor for the two, indicating that they were orginally a single population (though the majority of comparative linguists are still skeptical about that, as I understand from my colleagues over at the EALL department). But I really think we are not going to get anywhere understanding the history of the KMAs as long as we try, even subconsciously, to apply a budo culture, with Japan as the implicit model, to the Korean situation. So yes, I think you're exactly on target here.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 13, 2008)

exile said:


> ... there are many aspects of their cultures which are so very similar, and a sizable group of historical linguists believe that there's enough evidence now to come down on the side of a common historical ancestor for the two, indicating that they were orginally a single population (though the majority of comparative linguists are still skeptical about that, as I understand from my colleagues over at the EALL department).


 
OMG, thank you! My instructor back in college, who held a PHD in Asian studies, has taught me that the Japanese and Koreans were actually descended from a proto-korean stock in what eventually became Pusan. He even joked that the Japanese were nothing but Koreans with a little bit of Ainu in them. Of course, I presented this view and got flamed by a million Japanophiles. However, as in the subject we are discussing about Taekwondo, there are just simply those who cannot accept the truth. You should see how angry they become when you reveal the truth that there was indeed Korean blood within the Japanese royalty :lol:.


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## exile (Feb 13, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> OMG, thank you! My instructor back in college, who held a PHD in Asian studies, has taught me that the Japanese and Koreans were actually descended from a proto-korean stock in what eventually became Pusan.



There's been a lot of pressure over the past several generations on comparativists to try to finally get the Japanese/Korean connection sorted out, and the neatest way anyone could think of, of course, is to make them distantly related languages in their own little 'micro-family' isolate. The problem is, there are virtually no robust lexical cognates between them. There are many grammatical parallels, but that in itself isn't indicative, because we know that, contrary to what people used to think, languages really do borrow substantial amounts of structure from each other. So-called _Sprachbund_ effects are very conspicuous in other parts of the world (the northwest coast of North America has some classic examples). I'm not saying that we know for sure that Japanese and Korean _aren't_ related, but it's yet again one of those cases (which people often don't seem to understand) in which the fact that in principle you can't disprove X puts the burden of proof on the person who's claiming X. The Japanese/Korean common ancestral language hypothesis has a lot of passionate advocates, but it keeps stalling for a lack of the thing that in the end is pretty much make or break for a genetic hypothesis: well documented cognate vocabulary which display systematic sound correspondences. If you don't have those, you just don't have hanging evidence....



SageGhost83 said:


> He even joked that the Japanese were nothing but Koreans with a little bit of Ainu in them. Of course, I presented this view and got flamed by a million Japanophiles. However, as in the subject we are discussing about Taekwondo, there are just simply those who cannot accept the truth. You should see how angry they become when you reveal the truth that there was indeed Korean blood within the Japanese royalty :lol:.



Yeah, it's weird how intense people get about these kinds of things... the fact is, the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Mongols and Manchurians have been in living in each other's pockets for millenia; the biological genetics of that part of the world are scrambled together beyond recall (along with the northern Siberian groups, the Goldi, Samoyed, Chuckchi and who knows what else... many of whom, as it happens, seem to have had the same kind of leg-wrestling competition games that taekyon turns out to have been. Still another feature of that huge culture area!)


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## Kwan Jang (Feb 13, 2008)

Something Tez mentioned got me thinking about this thread. Did anyone see the HUMAN WEAPON episode that featured pankration? If you notice, the practioners of modern pankration have created a historical recreation of the ancient techniques and training methods of the ancient Greek martial art (or at least what they can trace it back to being). This is a modern system, heavily borrowing from other modern systems, but trying to create from this source a historical recreation of (at least of how they concieve it to be) the historical art.

Is it just me or does this sound vaguely familiar to the subject of TKD's connections to "ancient Korean martial disciplines"? I'm just curious.


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## exile (Feb 14, 2008)

Tez3 said:


> *To me it's a very romantic view,* not a wrong view but not worldly. There's Wise Men,warrior codes, ancient secrets and great faith which when exposed to the daylight and practical truths from practical men shows the truth to be actually something different, hence the howls of pain. No one wants to believe that something they have cherished, nourished and practised for years is not what it seems. I can imagine the hurt people feel when they perceive the TKD they have almost worshipped for years come under 'attack' from those who want to deal with the truth. I'm sorry for it but the truth while exposing the lie actually shows that TKD is the same art they love, they can still believe in the spiritual values and whatever else they get from the practice of it only facing the truth of it's history.
> *In England we have the myth of King Arthur, the Once and Future King who will come back to save us when England faces it's greatest peril. We cherish the idea of the golden time of Camelot, the Round Table and the Knights. We wish that was our history but we know it's not. *The truth though is every bit as valid, interesting and heroic as is the real history of TKD.





Kwan Jang said:


> TKD is just one of several systems that I have earned rank in (BTW, no cross ranking. Only one of my dan rankings in several systems-American Kenpo is the result of any accelerated training), but I do hold a master's rank in it.* Because of this, and a strong interest in and curiosity of martial arts history, I am not really very tied down to romanticized versions of TKD's history as some around here seem to be nor have any emotional attachments that make me turn a blind eye to historical facts.*



Both of you are getting at something which is very tightly connected to the point that SageGhost and I and others have been bringing up on this thread about the catastrophic effect of Yi dynasty Confucianism on the MAs of Korea. I'm thinking aloud a bit here, but I see this element you're both talking aboutthe romanticization of Korea's historical culture to point of fantasy, taking complete leave of anything that resembles historical realismas a particular trap and temptation that Korea itself presents. The kind of Arthurian longing that Tez talks about is part of an extreme version of the way we 'romance the Middle Ages', and dream of high kings, and valor, and oaths of fealty and all the rest; but the fact is that there at least was, in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, a historical reality which sort of bolsters and supports that longingthere were kings, and knights, and tournaments, and all the rest; it was a lot nastier and dingier than Chrétien de Troyes, Sir Thomas Mallory, Wolfram von Eschenbach and the rest of 'em tell it, but it was there. And it was also there in Japan, in the Castle era...

... but not in Korea, apparently. And that hurts, I think, in terms of what you've both been saying...



Kwan Jang said:


> Something Tez mentioned got me thinking about this thread. Did anyone see the HUMAN WEAPON episode that featured pankration? If you notice, the practioners of modern pankration have created a historical recreation of the ancient techniques and training methods of the ancient Greek martial art (or at least what they can trace it back to being). This is a modern system, heavily borrowing from other modern systems, but trying to create from this source a historical recreation of (at least of how they concieve it to be) the historical art.
> 
> Is it just me or does this sound vaguely familiar to the subject of TKD's connections to "ancient Korean martial disciplines"? I'm just curious.



Very interesting... more later, gotta go....


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## punisher73 (Feb 14, 2008)

I noticed that General Choi was brought up and how he had learned an older style of "korean martial art" from his calligraphy teacher.

I know of a high ranking Kenpo instructor who studied TKD in Korea in either the late 60's or early 70's.  He does not have an interest in this type of argument but I remember him talking about winning a first edition of Choi's book in Korean and in the book he states that he was a 2nd degree bb in Shotokan and did not know the meanings of the katas.  When the book was reprinted this section of the book was removed.

Also, when Choi returned to Korea he was promoted by the Korean government to 9th degree.  I think that the Koreans are doing the same thing that both the Japanese and Okinawans did when they tried to distance themselves from the Chinese connection.  They all started rewriting their history citing ancient methods that were kept hidden for their arts.  I think that ALL peoples had some type of indeginous fighting art but I do not think that it is what TKD is.  I think it is Japanese Karate that was imported and then changed as time went on to be more politically acceptable.


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## Ninjamom (Feb 14, 2008)

exile said:


> the romanticization of Korea's historical culture to point of fantasy, taking complete leave of anything that resembles historical realism
> >
> >
> in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, a historical reality which sort of bolsters and supports that longingthere were kings, and knights, and tournaments, and all the rest; .......And it was also there in Japan, in the Castle era...
> ...


Been following this discussion, and enjoying the mostly well-informed posts presented on the lack of historicity in modern TKD.  I must disagree with this statement, though - I think it hits close to the mark, but misses it slightly.

In ancient Silla, there really was a group called the Hwa Rang that practiced martial skill, studied Confucian classics,and observed notable ethics and service to King and Country, and many of them did become famous generals and political leaders.  The northern kingdom of Gokuryeo really did defeat a 300,000 + man army of Sui warriors (mostly in a single battle, BTW), and hold off invasion after invasion, eventually precipitating the fall of the Sui Empire to the Tang after years of losses due to war.  Silla then unified all the Korean penninsula with Tang help, but then really did battle the Tang right off the peninnsula and gain 300+ years of independence.  The succeeding Koryeo empire really did withstand six separate Mongol invasions spanning some 30 years (a feat no other kingdom managed), before falling to the Horde (not through battle, but through internal rebellion and a back-door deal, BTW).  The Choseon Koreans really did battle Japan to a standstill and eventually forced them off the penninsula during the Imjin Waerun, and one Korean Admiral really did use incredible engineering and tactical skill to achieve more lopsided victories against far superior numbers than any naval force before or after (rightly becoming a national hero).

You see, Korea really did have a great history that included many astounding martial high points, incredible tales of bravery and sacrifice, and filled with the types of things easily making martial legends.  The problem is that, between the Confucian culture of the Yi and the Japanese Occupation, NONE of that glorious history is preserved in any of the current martial *practices*.  (i.e., look at the stances and motions in the Muye Dobo Tongji, and it is instantly apparent that they bare no similarity to current practice.)

THAT is the division and the link between what I hear Exile saying (there is a total lack of historical roots [i.e., 'lineage'] linking TKD and its techniques to ancient Korean practices) and what LF is saying (that Korea has a glorious martial past, and the culture/pride that inspired it is still 'alive 'n kick'n' in TKD).

On another note, if you *really* want to start a fight, consider again the Muye Dobo Tongji (an 18th century Korean military handbook providing a snapshot of current sword, spear, flail, etc. and hand-to-hand practices for soldiers to learn and officers to drill/train).  While most remember it as a manual of current Korean military practices, many don't realize that it also contains a training guide for four different Japanese sword ryuha, to prepare Korean soldiers to face what most considered to be the likeliest source for a future invasion/attack.  If you look at the diagrams and read the descriptions, you will see precious little in that manual that remotely resembles *current practices* by any of the 'old school' Japanese arts.  In other words, even a documented lineage is no guarantee that your current martial practices are related to what was done on a battlefield centuries ago.



punisher73 said:


> .......what TKD is. I think it is Japanese Karate that was imported and then changed as time went on to be more politically acceptable.


Yes and no.  It changed yes.  But I doubt the changes were primarily motivated by being politically acceptable.  Things evolve with time.  The arts practiced in one nation (even if imported from another) will take the flavor of that culture.

Karate was brought from Okinawa to Japan by Funikosha in 1925.  All the major Kwan Jang Nims studied Shotokan, before Korea regained its independence in 1945, then TKD was officially formed in 1955 from those Shotokan roots.  That means Shotokan had only 20 years to develop itself from an Okinawan to a Japanese artform before Korea regained its independence.  Since then, TKD has had 68 years to transform itself into a Korean artform, independent of the Japanese streams that spawned it.


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## crushing (Feb 14, 2008)

punisher73 said:


> I think* it is Japanese Karate* that was imported and then changed as time went on to be more politically acceptable.


 
Which is Okinawan. . .which is Chinese. . . which is Indian. . .which is Greek. . . .

Descendent?  Influenced?  Peers?  Silos?

Very interesting discussion.  Seems like I've read this stuff before. . . .nevermind that was about pasta and Marco "Choi" Polo.  

Thanks for the great reads!


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## punisher73 (Feb 14, 2008)

> Karate was brought from Okinawa to Japan by Funikosha in 1925. All the major Kwan Jang Nims studied Shotokan, before Korea regained its independence in 1945, then TKD was officially formed in 1955 from those Shotokan roots. That means Shotokan had only 20 years to develop itself from an Okinawan to a Japanese artform before Korea regained its independence. Since then, TKD has had 68 years to transform itself into a Korean artform, independent of the Japanese streams that spawned it.


 
I would agree that it has changed and evolved, but take credit for the change instead of saying that it was an ancient artform and try to remove the japanese base altogether.


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## exile (Feb 14, 2008)

Ninjamom said:
			
		

> Been following this discussion, and enjoying the mostly well-informed posts presented on the lack of historicity in modern TKD.  I must disagree with this statement, though - I think it hits close to the mark, but misses it slightly.
> 
> In ancient Silla, there really was a group called the Hwa Rang that practiced martial skill, studied Confucian classics,and observed notable ethics and service to King and Country, and many of them did become famous generals and political leaders.  The northern kingdom of Gokuryeo really did defeat a 300,000 + man army of Sui warriors (mostly in a single battle, BTW), and hold off invasion after invasion, eventually precipitating the fall of the Sui Empire to the Tang after years of losses due to war.  Silla then unified all the Korean penninsula with Tang help, but then really did battle the Tang right off the peninnsula and gain 300+ years of independence.  The succeeding Koryeo empire really did withstand six separate Mongol invasions spanning some 30 years (a feat no other kingdom managed), before falling to the Horde (not through battle, but through internal rebellion and a back-door deal, BTW).  The Choseon Koreans really did battle Japan to a standstill and eventually forced them off the penninsula during the Imjin Waerun, and one Korean Admiral really did use incredible engineering and tactical skill to achieve more lopsided victories against far superior numbers than any naval force before or after (rightly becoming a national hero).
> 
> You see, Korea really did have a great history that included many astounding martial high points, incredible tales of bravery and sacrifice, and filled with the types of things easily making martial legends.  *The problem is that, between the Confucian culture of the Yi and the Japanese Occupation, NONE of that glorious history is preserved in any of the current martial practices.  *



But I think that that's where this sense of disappointment I was talking about arises from. There is this huge wedge of time that separates the really ancient warrior culture of ancient Koreaand at that point, it wasn't really Korea but a whole swathe of northern Asiafrom the corresponding 'chivalric' era in Japan. It's as though we had to go back, not to the Middle Ages, but to the early Roman imperial era, in order to flesh out those heroic longings. And that's really probably way too far back. We ourselves, for examplehow much easier is it to connect with Henry V at Agincourt, compared with Cinncinatus going back to his plow 1,600 years _earlier_ than the St. Cripian's Day speech. We can relate to the Tokugawa castle lords, and all that heraldry, we think we really do understand it from our own ancestral mediæval picture. But the part of your note I've bolded is the crucial bit: it doesn't add up to an accessible heroic past. My own sense is, it's just too long ago. 





Ninjamom said:


> (i.e., look at the stances and motions in the Muye Dobo Tongji, and it is instantly apparent that they bare no similarity to current practice.)



Right. Adrogué identifies those postures as probably closest to Long Fist chuan fa of any of the currently available candidates. Whatever it was, it sure wasn't anything at all like what we find in current KMAs...



Ninjamom said:


> THAT is the division and the link between what I hear Exile saying (there is a total lack of historical roots [i.e., 'lineage'] linking TKD and its techniques to ancient Korean practices) and what LF is saying (that Korea has a glorious martial past, and the culture/pride that inspired it is still 'alive 'n kick'n' in TKD).
> 
> On another note, if you *really* want to start a fight, consider again the Muye Dobo Tongji (an 18th century Korean military handbook providing a snapshot of current sword, spear, flail, etc. and hand-to-hand practices for soldiers to learn and officers to drill/train).  While most remember it as a manual of current Korean military practices, many don't realize that it also contains a training guide for four different Japanese sword ryuha, to prepare Korean soldiers to face what most considered to be the likeliest source for a future invasion/attack.  If you look at the diagrams and read the descriptions, you will see precious little in that manual that remotely resembles *current practices* by any of the 'old school' Japanese arts.  In other words, even a documented lineage is no guarantee that your current martial practices are related to what was done on a battlefield centuries ago.



Very true....



Ninjamom said:


> Yes and no.  It changed yes.  But I doubt the changes were primarily motivated by being politically acceptable.  Things evolve with time.  The arts practiced in one nation (even if imported from another) will take the flavor of that culture.
> 
> Karate was brought from Okinawa to Japan by Funikosha in 1925.  All the major Kwan Jang Nims studied Shotokan, before Korea regained its independence in 1945, then TKD was officially formed in 1955 from those Shotokan roots.  That means Shotokan had only 20 years to develop itself from an Okinawan to a Japanese artform before Korea regained its independence.  Since then, TKD has had 68 years to transform itself into a Korean artform, independent of the Japanese streams that spawned it.



I agree that it has become very different in many ways. My critical point, the essential thing, is that the combat technique set of Okinawan karate is still there, in the TKD hyungs, whichas Kwan Jang puts it so wellrepresent respliced Okinawan kata sequences. In other words, as a guide to application, the Okinawan/Japanese origins of TKD guarantee that we have a  kind of off-the-shelf set of bunkai incorporating the strategic principles and effective tactical resources of O/J karate. My main interest in TKD is street defence, and in practiceas an effective combat systemI think the optimal application of TKD will probably _look_ a lot like an application of Shotokan karate....


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## Kwan Jang (Feb 14, 2008)

I'm truly not trying to bash Gen. Choi, but I feel a correction is due for Punisher's statement about his rank. Gen. Choi was given a honorary 4th dan at the unification of the Kwans which he was later stripped of by the KJN of Chung Do Kwan when he tried to pass it off as legit and then demanded to be promoted to a legitimate (non-honorary) 6th dan. This happened while he was still a powerful force in Korea and well before his exile. Any promotion to 9th dan (to the best of my knowledge, though I am open to correction if someone can produce documentation or independent sources) was by either his own "authority" or that of his students and org.


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## Ninjamom (Feb 14, 2008)

punisher73 said:


> I would agree that it has changed and evolved, but take credit for the change instead of saying that it was an ancient artform and try to remove the japanese base altogether.


 


exile said:


> I agree that it has become very different in many ways. My critical point, the essential thing, is that the combat technique set of Okinawan karate is still there, in the TKD hyungs, whichas Kwan Jang puts it so wellrepresent respliced Okinawan kata sequences. In other words, as a guide to application, the Okinawan/Japanese origins of TKD guarantee ....etc etc


 
I agree with you both on this.



exile said:


> But I think that that's where this sense of disappointment I was talking about arises from. There is this huge wedge of time that separates the really ancient warrior culture of ancient Korea


I'm thinking out loud here, but perhaps it isn't the length of time between the martial heritage and current practice, so much as the depth to which the culture was beaten down.  If this were still Choseon Korea, I think everyone would agree that TKD is derived from Okinawan roots, and no one would care.  But it's not, and I think many still alive bear the scars (whether they admit it or not) of the Japanese Occupation.  

Even without the Occupation, Korean history includes at least one chapter where it (Koguryeo) ruled a good swath of the eastern world.  Now, there are foreign troops in the country, largely to defend against the other half of the divided nation.


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## foot2face (Feb 14, 2008)

I'm a bit disappointed in the way this conversation has unfolded. Many are so quick to point out the "Korean government lies" but are so willing to accept the anti-post-Kwan TKD propaganda that is just as dishonest. To assert that all of the changes were made for Nationalist and sports purposes is incredibly naive. Do you really believe that the TKD masters and soldiers who were responsible for the changes to TKD, many during times of war when TKD was proving itself as a deadly system, made these changes simply so they can feel good about their history or make a game of it? There is no doubt that fervent nationalism is a part of TKD history but it was not the only factor, there were many meaningful combat related changes made.


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## Ninjamom (Feb 14, 2008)

OK, one more then I'll stop.



exile said:


> .....There is this huge wedge of time that separates the really ancient warrior culture of ancient Korea .......... from the corresponding 'chivalric' era in Japan. .......it doesn't add up to an accessible heroic past. My own sense is, it's just too long ago.


While the examples you give are certaqinly accurate for comparing the Silla Hwa Rang and the Tokugawa Shogunate, please remember that the Japanese and Koreans (mostly within the confines of their current geographical boundaries) faced each other in the mid Choseon period during the Imjin Waeran (1592-1598).  Seven years of constant warfare saw some heroic martial history of legendary proportions, from Admiral Yi Sun Shin and the famed 'Turtle Boats' to the most recent historically-verified 'warrior-monks' taking to the battlefield to rescue home and heartland.



exile said:


> Right. Adrogué identifies those postures as probably closest to Long Fist chuan fa of any of the currently available candidates. Whatever it was, it sure wasn't anything at all like what we find in current KMAs...


FYI, that's what the Jixiao Xinshu (Chinese source for the diagrams in 1/4 of the Muye Dobo Tong Ji) identifies it as, as well. The MDTJ is very thorough in its footnotes and bibliographic annotations, giving Qi Ji Guang (Korean: Chuk Kye Kwang) and his New Manual on Martial Discipline (Chinese: Jixiao Xinshu; Korean: Kihyo Shinsu) credit for contributing much (but not all) to the section on fist methods.

For you harcore martial history buffs, the English translation of the Muye Dobo Tongji is available from Turtle Press in hardback, paperback, or reconstructed art video/DVD forms.  The chapter of the Jixiao Xinshu on fist methods has been translated into English as a Master's Thesis in East Asian Studies by Clifford Michael Gyves, and may be borrowed on interlibrary loan.  Since the Jixiao Xinshu (1560 AD, China) was a source document for the original MDTJ (1790 AD, Korea), it is interesting to see how much was changed, abridged, modified, and added between the two editions.


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## exile (Feb 14, 2008)

punisher73 said:


> I noticed that General Choi was brought up and how he had learned an older style of "korean martial art" from his calligraphy teacher.



That matter is dealt with very thoroughly in Robert Young's 1993 heavily documented and detailed history of Taekyon in the 1993 volume of the _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_. What emerges from the extensive investigation that he and others carried out is that there is very likely to have been no such person.  Specifically, the individual named by Gen. Choi was unknown even to the very few remaining contemporary Taekyon practitioners, appears on no dojang records, and does not seem to have had any documentable existence. Interestingly, the official Taekyon site (there was a link to it posted in a recent thread, but I can't find it) also expressed considerable skepticism that Gen. Choi had actually studied taekyon.  




punisher73 said:


> Also, when Choi returned to Korea he was promoted by the Korean government to 9th degree.  I think that the Koreans are doing the same thing that both the Japanese and Okinawans did when they tried to distance themselves from the Chinese connection.  They all started rewriting their history citing ancient methods that were kept hidden for their arts.  I think that ALL peoples had some type of indeginous fighting art but I do not think that it is what TKD is.  *I think it is Japanese Karate that was imported and then changed as time went on to be more politically acceptable.*



Japanese karate was definitely imported from Okinawa, and underwent major changes once it started being taught in the Japanese university system there&#8212;not so much for reasons of political acceptability (though there were changes of nomenclature for that purpose, including the transliteration of _kara te_ to read 'empty hand' rather than 'China hand', and several others), but because of the niche Funakoshi was marketing to&#8212;the Japanese Defense and Education ministries' interest in a kind of 'martial calisthenics', as vs. an effective civil combat system. Bill Burgar, in _Five Years, One Kata_, his book-length study of bunkai for Gojushiho, has a very incisive, insightful discussion of how this change led to the decline of serious bunkai study in Japanese karate.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 14, 2008)

foot2face said:


> I'm a bit disappointed in the way this conversation has unfolded. Many are so quick to point out the "Korean government lies" but are so willing to accept the anti-post-Kwan TKD propaganda that is just as dishonest. To assert that all of the changes were made for Nationalist and sports purposes is incredibly naive. Do you really believe that the TKD masters and soldiers who were responsible for the changes to TKD, many during times of war when TKD was proving itself as a deadly system, made these changes simply so they can feel good about their history or make a game of it? There is no doubt that fervent nationalism is a part of TKD history but it was not the only factor, there were many meaningful combat related changes made.


 
That is because the Korean government does lie...every government lies - especially when issues of national pride are at stake (if you don't believe me, then open a japanese textbook and read the portion that is dedicated to world war 2). What propaganda? Oh, you mean the facts that have been uncovered by the careful and academically sound efforts of professionals who just want to get to the cold hard truth? Doesn't sound like propaganda to me. Of course I am willing to accept it - it is backed up by careful research and hard evidence, not my-master-said-so-it-must-be-true logic :wink1:. The TKD that we practice today is not the same TKD that was practiced by Korean soldiers during the war. Their TKD was much closer to Shotokan karate in appearance and methodology. Seeing as how all of the founders held pretty high rank in Shotokan, then more likely than not, what they used in the Korean war was Shotokan or at least Korean Shotokan, especially given the time at which all of this was happening. If the TKD that was practiced during the war was much closer to Japanese karate than even the TKD that we practice today, and the TKD that we practice today has been heavily altered due to the changes made to get it into the olympics, then what exactly were the deadly changes made by the soldiers? You have Korean Shotokan on one end of the spectrum and what we practice today on the other end of the spectrum. In between, you have the myriad changes that were being made for reasons already known. Either the soldiers didn't really make any significant changes at all during that time, or the original product was so effective in their hands that they didn't need to make any changes to it. I would like to believe the latter because those ROK marines are pretty good. Mosts of those so-called 'deadly changes' were made very recently, heck, the naming of the art is a very recent thing. As for nationalism, we must not forget the massive effort to purge Korea of all things Japanese following the end of the occupation, nor should we forget the *government's role* in not just that, but also the effort to rebuild the Korean national culture and identity with *what they had available to them at the time*. Sports? We must not forget the profound effects that the major push to get TKD into the olympics had on our art, either. Now, to deny the sportification of TKD and the many core changes that it had on the TKD that we now practice today would be even more naive. Sorry, I love TKD, but when something is proven false, I've gotta call Shenanigans. Nothing against our art, I just don't buy into fabricated, revisionist histories.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 14, 2008)

punisher73 said:


> I think it is Japanese Karate that was imported and then changed as time went on to be more politically acceptable.


 
Well yeah, that's kind of the point that I was making. The Japanese definitely did this (well, at least as far as importing is concerned. There were politically correct changes, but not anywhere near to the extent of TKD and for obvious reasons) - what I am saying is that the Koreans *did it too and that this is how TKD was born!* It wasn't some ancient method that was created on the peninsula and passed down from generation to generation as some would have you believe, it was imported to the peninsula very recently as Japanese karate and changed over time to be more politically correct, and to get it into the olympics as a matter of national pride. There is definitely a progession there...Okinawan Te - Japanese Karate - Korean Taekwondo. It is not a coincidence. It is about acknowledging the *actual* roots of the style, not the romantic fantasies of a past that didn't really exist.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 14, 2008)

My god!!! Have we really reached 940 views for this thread!? Man, I thought that this was more of a Taekwondoin-to-Taekwondoin issue. I didn't know that so many people were interested :lol:!


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## foot2face (Feb 14, 2008)

Your comments represents exactly what I referred to in my earlier post. You misinterpreted or over valued good historical evidence and developed a false opinion. 


SageGhost83 said:


> Seeing as how all of the founders held pretty high rank in Shotokan,


They didnt, 1/3 of the founding Kwans had no Shotokan lineage. Chang Moo Kwan and Kang Duk Kwan both shared a Shudokan and Chun-fa background. Moo Duk Kwan founder Hwang Kees formal training was most likely in a CMA. 



SageGhost83 said:


> the TKD that we practice today has been heavily altered due to the changes made to get it into the olympics, then what exactly were the deadly changes made by the soldiers?


Many of the changes that are wrongfully judged to be only sport oriented go back long before the Olympic quest for gold became part of TKD. There is evidence that the high kicks go back to the mid-late 50s, shortly after the Korean War. Full-contact sparring with protective gear can be traces back to the early 60s, when TKD was earning a fierce reputation in the Viet Nam War. It generated from dissatisfaction with the no/light-contact sparring generally practiced at the time. Many practitioner at the time, most of them soldiers, developed a preference for force on force training and believed sparring should more resemble a mock fight with practitioners havening to throw and land full power blows as well as defend against them. This is very similar to bogu kumite practiced by some Okinawan systems. Coincidently, or perhaps not so coincidently, Toyama Kanken, founder of Shudokan and instructor of Yoon Byung-in (founder of what became CMK) and Yoon Kwe-byung( of JidoKwan) was among the first of the Okinawan master who called for the use of kendo chest protectors while engaging in full-contact sparring.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 14, 2008)

foot2face said:


> Your comments represents exactly what I referred to in my earlier post. You misinterpreted or over valued good historical evidence and developed a false opinion.
> 
> They didnt, 1/3 of the founding Kwans had no Shotokan lineage. Chang Moo Kwan and Kang Duk Kwan both shared a Shudokan and Chun-fa background. Moo Duk Kwan founder Hwang Kees formal training was most likely in a CMA.
> 
> ...


 
Okay, Shudokan and Chuan-Fa. Where is the ancient korean connection that so many people are in such a hurry to claim? My main point is that we should acknowledge the japanese/okinawan roots and not deny them, and you have actually demostrated that quite nicely for me. What actual *techniques* did the soldiers contribute to the style? I understand about the brutal training that they engaged in, but what actual techs came out of it? I am not being a smart aleck, I really want to know. We all know the reputation of the Korean soldiers who fought in Nam, but what actual techniques were created and contributed to the style via these soldiers? As for the kicking, the koreans have always favored foot games within their own culture, perhaps this was an example of the style growing and forming its own korean flavor? I look forward to hearing from you.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 14, 2008)

How ironic, I am the one who is accused of having a false opinion. We put romanticism above hard evidence and we wonder why our style is one of the most criticised style in the world .


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 14, 2008)

By the way, f2f, that last post wasn't directed at you. More of an "in general" thing.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 15, 2008)

I've got a good question for you - has anyone seen Last Fearner since this thread has started? Foot2face is the only one who has presented a good counter viewpoint to the prevailing sentiment in here and it is backed up by actual places, names, and dates without having to resort to the "my instructor told me so and he is very highly ranked" line (not to say that the other posts weren't good). His posts are very well articulated and I am looking forward to his response, but I am thinking that maybe there are not enough people who share his viewpoint elaborating on here to make it extra interesting. Or maybe I have been coming off the wrong way and scaring them away. When did "Taekwondo's core goes beyond technique" become "SageGhost83 makes an *** of himself in a public internet forum" :rofl:?


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## Kwan Jang (Feb 15, 2008)

I have also noticed that I haven't seen LF around lately. though I don't spend a lot of time here myself. I have always enjoyed his posts and sharing knowledge with him even if I don't agree with his viewpoint on this particular issue.


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## IcemanSK (Feb 15, 2008)

LF has not posted much lately.


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## terryl965 (Feb 15, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> I've got a good question for you - has anyone seen Last Fearner since this thread has started? Foot2face is the only one who has presented a good counter viewpoint to the prevailing sentiment in here and it is backed up by actual places, names, and dates without having to resort to the "my instructor told me so and he is very highly ranked" line (not to say that the other posts weren't good). His posts are very well articulated and I am looking forward to his response, but I am thinking that maybe there are not enough people who share his viewpoint elaborating on here to make it extra interesting. Or maybe I have been coming off the wrong way and scaring them away. When did "Taekwondo's core goes beyond technique" become "SageGhost83 makes an *** of himself in a public internet forum" :rofl:?


 
No Lf feels like nobody respects his viewpoint and that they are always bashing him. I for one can appreciate his views even though sometime we do not agree with each other, he has alot of value here as well in the TKD community and wish he would spend more time explaining his tought for all of us.

LF if you are reading and not responding please do so we can hear your entire view point.

Sageghost83 you have not done anything except express your views. Thank you for being  asound member here.


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## Marginal (Feb 15, 2008)

Ninjamom said:


> OK, one more then I'll stop.
> 
> While the examples you give are certaqinly accurate for comparing the Silla Hwa Rang and the Tokugawa Shogunate, please remember that the Japanese and Koreans (mostly within the confines of their current geographical boundaries) faced each other in the mid Choseon period during the Imjin Waeran (1592-1598).  Seven years of constant warfare saw some heroic martial history of legendary proportions, from Admiral Yi Sun Shin and the famed 'Turtle Boats' to the most recent historically-verified 'warrior-monks' taking to the battlefield to rescue home and heartland.



Warrior monks? IIRC, it was mainly peasants led by a group of government officials (mainly Confucian scholars rather than warrior monks) that contributed most to the fighting force that was operating inland.


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## Ninjamom (Feb 15, 2008)

Actually, there were professional soldiers, peasants and landowners who mustered under their authority as volunteers, private guerrilla fighters who mustered their own troops and scavenged provision, and Korean monks under their own leadership contributing to the inland effort.

Notable among the 'warrior monks' was the Righteous Army of Ch'ungch'ong province.  Lead by Cho Heon, this group of volunteers included local peasants and a large contingent of Korean Buddhist monks under the leadership of Yonggyu.  Yonggyu's warrior monks were responsible for the liberation of Cheongju from the Japanese.  The righteous army and a second band of warrior monks were both defeated in separate battles trying to retake Kumsan, but the losses were so high that the Japanese ended up abandoning the site.

The Korean monastic community was originally asked to join the war effort by King Seonjo himself.  The monk Hyujeong was appointed as head over all warrior monks, and promptly sent a dispatch throughout the entire country asking monks to join the war effort.  Thousands did.

(see for instance "Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War 1592-1598" by Stephen Turnbull,Cassell & Co. Publishers, 2002)


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## jim777 (Feb 15, 2008)

My worry with these types of threads is that while they do serve a larger historical purpose, they also divide our small community here on MT in the KMA section. It's nice to know the historic connection between current TKD and Shotokan, but frankly I am better served by having 6th Dans posting here with their valuable insights on blocks, strikes, and combinations than I am losing those people over what happened with other people 40 or more years ago.

My fear when this thread started getting going was that it would cost us long time members. I hoped it would die off after 6 or 7 posts and so stayed out of it.
What matters most to me, and likely matters most to most of you as well, is where TKD is and where it is going. Isn't that really more important than where it's been?

I do not think anyone has been rude (or worse) here. I can easily see how some people may think that their years of knowledge and therefore their opinions have been cast aside as meaningless and simply wrong, however. I honestly hate to see that happen, and while there are no bad guys here there are bound to be hurt feelings anyway. I would HATE to lose Master Eisenhart from our community over this (as I have to assume we all would).

We should, I humbly put forth in the spirit of community, just let these TKD specific historical questions lie for a few weeks and concentrate on our common ground. (The kwans I mean, not the pre-20th century) We can get back to history questions later, as they will always come up anyway. Our TKD section is a vibrant, post filled section with many highly skilled artists compared to many of the other sections, and we should take a moment to be grateful for that, and do what we can to help preserve it as well.

Just a thought


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## terryl965 (Feb 15, 2008)

jim777 said:


> My worry with these types of threads is that while they do serve a larger historical purpose, they also divide our small community here on MT in the KMA section. It's nice to know the historic connection between current TKD and Shotokan, but frankly I am better served by having 6th Dans posting here with their valuable insights on blocks, strikes, and combinations than I am losing those people over what happened with other people 40 or more years ago.
> 
> My fear when this thread started getting going was that it would cost us long time members. I hoped it would die off after 6 or 7 posts and so stayed out of it.
> What matters most to me, and likely matters most to most of you as well, is where TKD is and where it is going. Isn't that really more important than where it's been?
> ...


 
Excellent Post Jim and I for one do not wish to loose anybody from the TKD community and would hope we do not. Like I said I enjoy knowledge from all the poster and even though we may not always agree, I respect them for there knowledge and commitment to TKD as a whole.


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## IcemanSK (Feb 15, 2008)

Indeed. There is much more that unites us than divides us.


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## exile (Feb 15, 2008)

jim777 said:


> My worry with these types of threads is that while they do serve a larger historical purpose, they also divide our small community here on MT in the KMA section. It's nice to know the historic connection between current TKD and Shotokan, but frankly I am better served by having 6th Dans posting here with their valuable insights on blocks, strikes, and combinations than I am losing those people over what happened with other people 40 or more years ago.



The purpose of delving into the historical connections of TKD with its O/J karate ancestor is not about 'what happened with other people'. It is to help recover some important _technical assets_ that are latent in the TKD hyung sets, in particular the combat-effective bunkai that are being rediscovered by our by now relatively distant cousins in Shotokan karate as part of the revival of careful, realistic bunkai study and training. The source of TKD in O/J karate allows us access to the same 'user's guide' that the Shotokan people are busy recovering for their own use. I have no interest at all in personalities, so far as MA training goes, or in historical anecdote for its own sake, but I fear that the value of much of the discussion in this thread will be lost if people come away from it thinking that it was about old anecdotal stuff that happened half a century ago. On the contrary, the TKD/karate common ancestry is a potential Rosetta Stone for us in trying to undertand the combat applications of our own hyung sets. Knowing, for example, that Eunbi is (unsurprisingly) the same as Empi, but with certain systematic modifactions in the use of leg techs which lead to much less sensible bunkai (as per here), allows us to better understand the combat significance of the movements in Eunbi without being misled by the later, stylistically-based modifications to the original movement set in the old Okinawan form.





jim777 said:


> My fear when this thread started getting going was that it would cost us long time members. I hoped it would die off after 6 or 7 posts and so stayed out of it.
> What matters most to me, and likely matters most to most of you as well, is where TKD is and where it is going. Isn't that really more important than where it's been?



Well, the OPer was (as one would expect, eh?) the one who began the thread, in the course of which he insinuated that the vast weight of historical evidence carried out by some of the best researchers in MAs (though he could care to dismiss them on grounds that seem to have reflected, mostly, his dislike of what they were saying) was connected with my relative juniority in TKD. Please reread the OP carefully. Let's be very clear about what was said, yes?



jim777 said:


> I do not think anyone has been rude (or worse) here. I can easily see how some people may think that their years of knowledge and therefore their opinions have been cast aside as meaningless and simply wrong, however. I honestly hate to see that happen, and while there are no bad guys here there are bound to be hurt feelings anyway. I would HATE to lose Master Eisenhart from our community over this (as I have to assume we all would).
> 
> We should, I humbly put forth in the spirit of community, just let these TKD specific historical questions lie for a few weeks and concentrate on our common ground. (The kwans I mean, not the pre-20th century) We can get back to history questions later, as they will always come up anyway. Our TKD section is a vibrant, post filled section with many highly skilled artists compared to many of the other sections, and we should take a moment to be grateful for that, and do what we can to help preserve it as well.
> 
> Just a thought



Well, _my_ thought is that if someone is going to be offended by a careful historical analysis because they don't like the conclusions, and someone else suggests that if the best-case historical hypothesis&#8212;a conclusion with important technical implications for the SD side of TKD, as I've suggested above&#8212;offends that person than perhaps we had better shut up about the history of TKD, then I have to question what the point of having a serious discussion board in the first place is. It's very nice to exchange pleasantries, but surely one of the points of someplace like MT is precisely so that we can have a pool of information and informed debate, without baseless hostility towards other members, addressing issues of content? One of the other significant subtexts in this discussion has been whether we should accept the premise that if a certain view of history makes someone (either as an individual or a group) feel good, it's really not very nice to challenge that view on the basis of actual _evidence_. And I think, again, that accepting that premise, and therefor abandoning a productive discussion just because it might have offended someone would, in the end, be exactly the wrong thing to do. 

But if you go to the members list, Jim, and check out the OPer's most recent visit, you'll see that his last visit to the site was the day of the OP itself. So it seems fairly _unlikely_ that his lack of reentry to the thread has anything to do with the subsequent development of the thread, wouldn't you say?


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## jim777 (Feb 15, 2008)

exile said:


> But if you go to the members list, Jim, and check out the OPer's most recent visit, you'll see that his last visit to the site was the day of the OP itself. So it seems fairly _unlikely_ that his lack of reentry to the thread has anything to do with the subsequent development of the thread, wouldn't you say?


 
I had gone to LF's last login, and that was what made me think we had driven off a member. To the specific question, I guess that depends on whether you have auto login turned on, or know how to clear your cache. I don't know. I generally read these these threads with some expectation of learning something, but this thread had a different vibe from the start. Either way, all I wanted to say was that I hope we don't lose members over it. That's my only point.


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## terryl965 (Feb 15, 2008)

jim777 said:


> I had gone to LF's last login, and that was what made me think we had driven off a member. To the specific question, I guess that depends on whether you have auto login turned on, or know how to clear your cache. I don't know. I generally read these these threads with some expectation of learning something, but this thread had a different vibe from the start. Either way, all I wanted to say was that I hope we don't lose members over it. That's my only point.


 
I beleive we can all agree on this.


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## exile (Feb 15, 2008)

jim777 said:


> I had gone to LF's last login, and that was what made me think we had driven off a member. To the specific question, I guess that depends on whether you have auto login turned on, or know how to clear your cache. I don't know. I generally read these these threads with some expectation of learning something, *but this thread had a different vibe from the start. *Either way, all I wanted to say was that I hope we don't lose members over it. That's my only point.



Again, Jim: the 'start', i.e., OP, of the thread you refer to was in large part an ad hominem attack on another member, rather than a rational confrontation of the throroughly researched results&#8212;carried out by people who have dotted every last i and crossed every last t&#8212;that that member reported and summarized. So yes, that is rather different from the way most threads start. As it happened, the other member in question chose to avoid responding to that ad hominem attack&#8212;why focus on so transparent a desperation move?&#8212;and instead tried to constrain the discussion to the substantive content at hand. And I think that's the way things went, fortunately: check out what happens in threads where the target of a gratuitous and obvious personal attack chooses to respond in kind, if you want to see something worth wringing your hands over. 

But the fact that I haven't chosen to make too much of it doesn't mean that I think that the OP is entitled to a free pass, or an alibi, to substitute personal sniping for rational (or even coherent) counterargument. And that's _my_ point. 

One more thing: clearing your cache will not affect in the least your login audit at MT, so far as I know. And even if you maintain your login indefinitely, as you can with the kind of broadband cable connection many of us have, any updating of the thread you do to check current content will, I believe, count as a login for purposes of the 'last visit' category. Lurking... well, that's something else entirely. That's why I said 'unlikely' rather than 'impossible'...


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## Marginal (Feb 15, 2008)

jim777 said:


> I had gone to LF's last login, and that was what made me think we had driven off a member. To the specific question, I guess that depends on whether you have auto login turned on, or know how to clear your cache. I don't know. I generally read these these threads with some expectation of learning something, but this thread had a different vibe from the start. Either way, all I wanted to say was that I hope we don't lose members over it. That's my only point.


LF tends to come and go. This isn't a new conversation for him, so I doubt hashing it out once more would drive him away.


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## terryl965 (Feb 15, 2008)

Marginal said:


> LF tends to come and go. This isn't a new conversation for him, so I doubt hashing it out once more would drive him away.


 
All I know is I want some food and not getting it. Seriously though we must know history of the Art that we study or at least in my view. I'm sure with anything people will believe what they choose to believe. Tae Kwon Do came from Okinawa karate and all of us know this, what we do not know is why do the Korean people feel the need to bring up that facts about 5000 year old form of Art. TKD started in the early fifties so at best it roots go about 55 years must people would be happy to know they have grown so much in that time frame. Well I'm done talk later.


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 15, 2008)

The OP was a snipe in my opinion, and I reacted to it by suggesting that such things should be handled in private rather than be made out into an entire thread. I didn't think that this thread would go on this long, either. However, I think that it is good to have a nice debate. I definitely wasn't trying to step on anyone's toes or anything like that through my own posts, and I would feel bad if I contributed to someone leaving MT. I haven't met anyone that I don't like on MT, and though our viewpoints often diverge, I really respect and enjoy reading the posts by the members of this site. I posted according to a lot of the hard, verified evidence that is backed up both within and outside of the country in question, and I did so because I felt that there were/are a lot of people who are being openly lied to concerning this subject within their art and that it is high time for the record to be set straight. I wasn't trying to be offensive or anything. As Taekwondoin, we take a lot of heat from the rest of the martial arts community and this history thing is one of the reasons why. I know that our own little corner of the net is not going to make a big difference in the larger world, but it would at least be a start, I guess. I was debating more on the principle of historical accuracy and respecting that accuracy even when it runs counter to what we are generally taught to believe in public, not just on history for its own sake. What happened back then is over and done with. Regardless of what happened back then, we are all a part of this thing now as brothers and sisters in TKD. I look at the status that our style holds today - as the largest growing martial art in the world and as a bonafied international olympic event, and I see that Taekwondo's brightest days are not only in our current time, but also in the years that lie ahead. Of course, as the people who represent this art, we have a responsibility to at least be truthful about our art and maintain its integrity, and to do our part to call out some of the shenanigans that go on within it and hopefully eliminate them (in our own spheres of practice, of course. Don't go on a witch hunt). Nothing major, more of like a "if you see trash on the ground where you are walking, then pick it up and throw it in the dumpster" kind of thing. Hey Ninjamom, you read Turnbull, too? I am a huge fan of his work. I really enjoyed his book on the Imjin wars. Really good stuff!


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## SageGhost83 (Feb 15, 2008)

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:.....I just noticed the hilarious irony of my signature and the subject of this thread. Maybe this would be a good time to update it. Btw, it is friday so I am buying a round for everyone :cheers:. Tae Kwon!


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## jim777 (Feb 16, 2008)

exile said:


> One more thing: clearing your cache will not affect in the least your login audit at MT, so far as I know. And even if you maintain your login indefinitely, as you can with the kind of broadband cable connection many of us have, any updating of the thread you do to check current content will, I believe, count as a login for purposes of the 'last visit' category. Lurking... well, that's something else entirely. That's why I said 'unlikely' rather than 'impossible'...


 
Clearing your cache would remove your auto login settings from your own browser, that's all I meant. It won't stop IP logging on the server side, as you point out.


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## Tez3 (Feb 16, 2008)

jim777 said:


> Clearing your cache would remove your auto login settings from your own browser, that's all I meant. It won't stop IP logging on the server side, as you point out.


 
Ok I don't mind arguments on the internet, I don't mind rude jokes or 'iffy' pictures but really, when you start taking technical I really have to complain         or take a computer course LOL!

I doubt very much the OP has left, we've had far bigger disagreements before and he's come back. I'm sure we'll have the pleasure again of crossing swords with LF, it's a genuine pleasure btw.


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## jim777 (Feb 16, 2008)

Tez3 said:


> Ok I don't mind arguments on the internet, I don't mind rude jokes or 'iffy' pictures but really, when you start taking technical I really have to complain  or take a computer course LOL!


 
My apologies  Some days it's tougher to leave the work at work than others! :lol:


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

Ok Folks, I'm back! That's right... its me... the infamous, hated (and often misunderstood) Last Fearner. I have been extremely busy, but I am glad to see this thread has generated a fairly healthy discussion on this topic.



terryl965 said:


> Lf feels like nobody respects his viewpoint and that they are always bashing him.


Actually, I often get positive feedback, and I appreciate the comments made by many within this thread. However, like everyone else, I receive some negative remarks also (in the case of this thread - two), such as this unsigned comment, *and you wonder why you're not respected around here* Well, I didn't wonder that, but perhaps I wonder why this person feels this way.. We can disagree with one another and still be polite about it. That doesn't mean that I am not going to take issue with someone who challenges me in a rude or condescending manner, so if some chose not to respect me because I call out those who argue with insults and poor attitudes - - then so be it.

I started this thread to address this issue in-depth, and to conform to the rules of the forum by not high-jacking F2F's thread. I would like to respectfully reply to some of the comments that have been contributed to this thread thus far, and do so with a clean slate! I mean no disrespect to anyone, and none of my following remarks are intended as an attack upon anyone, but rather as a healthy discussion about why some people believe in the origins of Taekwondo being older than the kwan era, and that the base of Taekwondo does not rest in Shotokan Karate.

I will break up my response into several different posts in the hopes that this will make it easier for viewers to read.

Chief Master D.J. Eisenhart


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

Tez3 said:


> Reading LF's OP and I mean no disrespect here it seems to me that TKD is his spiritual and entire life. he talks of it as if it were almost a religion, a quest for the Holy Grail.


I commend Tez for the patience it took to print this thread out and read through it, and for having the open mind to attempt to see the different perspective from which I view things. Thanks, Tez, and I look forward to any input you have on this subject.



Ninjamom said:


> Been following this discussion, and enjoying the mostly well-informed posts presented on the lack of historicity in modern TKD.
> In ancient Silla, there really was a group called the Hwa Rang that practiced martial skill, studied Confucian classics,and observed notable ethics and service to King and Country, and many of them did become famous generals and political leaders.


Ninjamom, you have really impressed me with your knowledge and research into Korea's history, and sorting out the actual historical events that shaped Korea, and established a social, and cultural identity unique to these people. Although you might not come to all of the same conclusions that I do, I can see that you give more weight and significance to the bigger picture, and the cultural history that was unique to Korea. I hope you continue to share your perspective.



foot2face said:


> Please understand, Im not trying to refute the information Exile put forth, I couldnt, I wouldnt. I find it very insightful and helpful in allowing me to better understand my system. The only issue I sometimes have with it is with regards to its relevance, where dose it really fit into the lager picture of TKD history. I fear some may give it too much weight and develop an opinion of TKD that is just as off the mark as that of those who buy into all the propaganda. I just think its prudent to remind ourselves that what we think we know pales in comparison to what we dont know. Again, I think its best to keep an open mind, take every thing with a grain of salt and be open to the possibility that what we know to be true now may not be true in the future.


F2F, I couldn't have said this better myself, and is exactly the concern that prompted me to start this thread. I don't specifically dispute what exile and the historians say about Kwan Taekwondo, I just disagree with applying that definition to the Korean National Taekwondo which was so named Taekwondo for the specific purpose of placing the indigenous Korean Martial Art techniques of kicking, and philosophy of the ancient warriors at the core of its meaning.


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

Exile, sir, with all due respect to you as a fellow Martial Artist, academic enthusiast, and historical researcher (of which I am very impressed with your knowledge and dedication), I ask you to relax for a moment, not construe my reply here as a hostile argument or attack, and consider an alternative point of view.

Sir, here is an analogy to help you, and others understand my point of view. You might have heard the expression seeing things through rose colored glasses. If everyone around you is looking at the world through tinted glasses, and one expert researcher decides to remove his glasses, he might see the world around him differently. He goes to his peers and convinces them to remove their glasses. After doing so, they see what he sees, and concur that the world they now see is not rose colored. The expert publishes his findings in a journal which is peer-reviewed by other experts who have removed their rose colored glasses.

You then read the journals and repeat the good news to others. Everything is not rose colored, you state, The sky is green, and the grass is blue. Some people refuse to believe your message, while you convince others to take off their glasses and see the truth. Of course, you are just the messenger bringing the truth to others as you have read it from the experts, and even experienced it yourself. Then, a guy like me comes along and says, actually, the sky and grass can be a variety of colors, but usually, the sky is blue, and the grass is green - - not the other way around. Although I could argue the point all day long, you will never agree because you are convinced by the evidence that the experts have put forth.

As it turns out, the majority of people, including the experts, are standing in a huge box with tinted windows. Although the experts have removed their rose-colored glasses, they are still viewing the world from one, distorted perspective. If someone, such as myself, has spent years traveling outside of the box, and has seen the world from a number of perspectives, my point of view would be different from yours and theirs.

Now, exile, sir, I am not saying that you and your experts are wrong on what you are saying about the Kwan era experience of Taekwondo, just that it is only one perspective of a larger world. It is not that I am right, and you are wrong, it is just that we are talking about two different things, and I would prefer that you avoid holding your definition of Taekwondo up as the only definition, and refrain from stating that your experts are right because of the peer-reviewed evidence they present, and that those who don't see it that way are kool-aid drinking idiots who lose their credibility by disagreeing with those experts.

Respectfully,
Chief Master D.J. Eisenhart


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

Here are the relevant facts in support of my position:​ 
1. Tribes of central and northern Asia are estimated to have migrated down into the peninsula now known as Korea, as far back as 30,000 B.C. From around 5,000 to 1,000 B.C., new Asian migration bleded with the aboriginal tribes. Over the next 3,000 years, they became a distinct culture in an area they called Choseon - Land of the morning calm.

2. Between the 1st Century B.C., and the 1st century A.D., specific boundaries were established for three main Kingdoms of Choseon. Armies were formed, and soldiers were trained to protect those territories. Some of this training included unarmed hand-to-hand combat and grappling such as Subak.

3. Over the next six centuries, Choseon's warriors fought off invasions, and the three Kingdoms united as the Silla Dynasty. At this time, the young boys were trained to blossom into manhood as Hwarang knights with combat skills, refined social education, and a well-documented code of ethics that became the heart of their native Martial Art. According to this philosophy, Martial Art is more than just specific fighting techniques, and is more of a way of life, set of values, and a moral conviction that upholds a warrior code.

4. Throughout this early development of Korea, the technique of fighting an opponent by using the advantages of kicking and stomping the legs became prominent, and was unique to the native Martial Art of Korea. This indigenous fighting system became known as T'ae Kyon (Romanized as Taekyeon) - the kicking method. 

5. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, indigenous Martial Art skills were outlawed along with every other aspect of native Korean culture, including the language, and their native Hangul script. However, the kicking method of T'ae Kyeon, and skills of Subak were taught covertly, and pre-occupation knowledge of ancient skills, philosophies, and warrior codes were remembered and recorded after WWII ended. If only a hand-full of survivors are known to have retained the former indigenous arts of Korea, it is this connection to the past that allows Korea to claim, with accuracy, that their history survived and is being revived in a new, modern Korea.

6. Amidst all of the confusion over Japanese influence and foreign Martial Art contamination, which resulted in a myriad of schools known as Kwan interpretating modern Korean Martial Art, the Korean government called upon historians and Martial Art experts to research Korea's past. They extracted the core beliefs, former philosophies, ancient warrior code, and the base foundation for the kicking art of Tae Kyeon, combined it all together and chose a new name of Taekwondo. Several of the Korean Kwan era leaders of Martial Art development also chose to use this same term of Taekwon-do to represent what they had learned and were teaching, thus the confusion over the two distinct meanings of the term Taekwondo.

Rather than spending a lot of time citing sources for statements of fairly common knowledge, I will simply provide a source if someone points out a specific statement they would like to challenge, and have verified through a credible source.


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

*Fence*​ 
I don't believe anyone can accurately pin-point the origin of Taekwondo, without a specific definition of the term.  Let me begin to explain my position about the definition of Taekwondo with this analogy.  I had a writing professor in college back in the 80's who began the semester by writing the word fence on the board.  He then asked the class, What part of speech is this ( noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.)?  After a few guesses, he told the class, None!  The majority of words can not be identified as any part of speech until they are used in a sentence.  As a noun, fence can mean a physical barrier, or divider between two pieces of property.  As a verb, it can refer to the activity of dueling with swords, foils or other such weapons.

My reason for the above story is that you must thoroughly, and accurately know the subject of which you are researching in order to identify if you are correct in finding pertinent evidence which is relevant to its history and origins.  Exile, consider this.  If you and some historical experts were to do scientific research into when the first fence existed, and your experts found no evidence of post holes, or fencing material dating before a specific time in history, you might draw certain conclusions as to its origins.  If you said fencing did not exist prior to such date (referring to the manufactured materials to build a fence), and I said that fencing existed longer ago than that, I might not be saying you and your experts are wrong as to your facts, just that you are using a different definition of the term fence or fencing.

The term Taekwon-do of which exile speaks, is a product of a relatively small group of individuals, within a very short time frame, that were almost entirely influenced by Japanese Martial Art for their own initial education on this subject.  For them, Taekwon-do (by that definition) began within their lifetime, and took on the form of what they learned from various teachers of mostly Japanese and some Chinese systems, re-structured and re-named Taekwon-do for their teaching, and organizational purposes.

This Kwan era concept started with these few men, and grew into a number of variations that each Kwan presented as their interpretation of what Taekwondo should be.  Chung Do Kwan had a different perspective from Jidokwan, and Jidokwan was not the same as General Choi's military Oh Do kwan, etc.  All of these Kwan variations can be traced back to their Kwan founder's personal experience, and arising out of the primarily Japanese influence on those individuals.

Conversely, what I have been taught as the Korean National definition of Taekwondo is not a lie, or re-writing of that particular history, but the use of the word Taekwondo for a different meaning.  There are no fence posts or building materials to be discovered here, and Japanese Kata have nothing to do with this definition.  The term Taekwondo is also defined as a way of life, as a philosophical belief system, and a method of training for self defense that focuses on a preference for distance, and kicking techniques that are derived from, and based upon the uniquely native skills of T'ae kyon.  This is the core of Korean National Taekwondo and it is purely Korean in origin. 

Although most of the various Kwan leaders eventually accepted the word Taekwon-do as an umbrella title, it meant something different to each of them, and certainly meant something more specific to General Choi who pushed to have his system, teaching methods, and curriculum recognized as the one true Taekwon-do.  Many who currently train in his ITF organization view Taekwon-do as General Choi's creation, and before his death, he was claiming that he was the Father of Taekwondo and that the Korean Government stole his art from him.

An interesting comparison to the confusion over the definition of Taekwondo, could be found in the development of Te (pronounced tay) in okinawa which was defined has the hand fighting.  When the hand techniques of China (reportedly stared by Zen-Buddhist monk Bodhidharma) reached Japan, many people called it Kara-te (not kuh rah' tee, but Karla - tay' )   According to famed Karate expert Gitchen Funakoshi, Kara was a common expression in Japan used to describe anything of value (pottery, furniture, etc) that came out of ancient China (particularly the T'ang Dynasty).

Thus the Japanese called the ancient Chinese Boxing Kara-te.  In time the term became generically applied by lay-persons to both Japanese and Chinese Martial Art.  A dispute arose over the definition since the Japanese people did not want to give the mistaken impression that their Martial Art originated in China.  It was suggested they change the characters used to write Kara from that which meant Ancient China to a different character meaning empty (same as the modern term used in singing Karaoke - pronounced karla - okay - meaning empty orchestra).  Since both were pronounced the same (Karate), there is still often confusion, but they have two completely differnt definitions, and are not talking about the same thing.

Perhaps we need a terminology clarification so that those who say Taekwon-do is based in Karate or has its roots in Shotokan, do not speak for all of Taekwondo, and can specify that they are talking about the limited definition of Kwan era Taekwondo.  Those who use the term Taekwondo as representing the more ancient roots, long standing philosophies, documented battle victories, Korean warrior codes of ethics, and native Korean kicking methods as a base and core of a modern national art can do so without being called liars, Kool-Aid drinkers re-writing history, or questioning their credibility as knowledgeable instructors and masters.


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

Here are my responses to some of the individual comments in this thread.



exile said:


> the 'start', i.e., OP, of the thread... was in large part an ad hominem attack on another member, rather than a rational confrontation of the throroughly researched results


No, exile, this thread was not started as an ad homineminemem attack on anyone (including you).  :ultracool  It was an opportunity for me to explain my position about a subject that you brought up in another thread - - that's all. You state your position, and I state mine. I don't criticize you for having a different point of view, and all I ask is that you don't criticize me because I disagree with you.

Often times, it is not so much what you say, exile, but how you say it. I am confident in my opinion and beliefs, the same as you are, and it is not because I am a naive, Kool-Aid drinker who just accepts a romanticized version because I like it, or because my instructor told me so. I believe you are an intelligent, educated person, and I give you credit for your dedication to historical research, but please give me a little more credit than that.



SageGhost83 said:


> The OP was a snipe in my opinion,...


No SageGhost, the OP was not a snipe, although I have been on snipe hunts before! 

The thing that I objected to is that within the previous thread by F2F, exile made a bold statement that TKD is based in Karate, of which I disagree. Rather than let this slip by for all future readers to accept as an undisputed fact, I replied with my own similar comment that TKD was not based in Karate. I would have been satisfied to leave it at that.... however, exile felt it was necessary to violate the rules of the forum and derail F2F's thread with a long diatribe about why his position was correct.

Exile further made a comment that those who believe contrary to his position (as supported by research) reflects rather poorly on the overall credibility of those making such claim. I think this type of comment is unnecessary, it is aside from the actual debate of the issue, and I take it as both a snipe and a disrespectful attack on me, personally.


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> I find it peculiar that the Korean name for their home country is Hanguk - Han = the people we commonly think of when referring to "the Chinese", and Guk = People/Person. Do we have yet another smoking gun ?


 


exile said:


> Nice point, SG!


 
Actually, this is the kind of misunderstanding that I believe leads to the misconstrued notions of Taekwondo's origins. When people believe they have things understood, and draw incorrect conclusions (no offense, SageGhost), they think they have a smoking gun. The term Han in Hanguk has nothing to do with the Han of China's Han Dynasty, as in Hanja (Chinese writing) or the Han River. Those are a different character in Hanja than Hanguk.

Han is another way to write the number one, like Ha Na in Korean. Guk means nation or country. Thus, Hanguk means Number One Country or First Nation which, to the Korean people, is their own country of Korea. Sorry, it has nothing to do with China - - no smoking gun here.



SageGhost83 said:


> You have 30 years in TKD, that is very impressive, but that does not make you a historian - and the issue here is history.


 
Actually, the issue here is the definition of what Taekwondo is, and what is at its core, its base, and foundation. You must first understand the art, in order to trace its path in history. If you seek the history of a butterfly, but do not understand that it once existed as a caterpillar, you will likely assume that the cocoon is the origin of its birth. The butterfly was, in fact, the caterpillar, but is given a new name when it emerges with wings and can fly. Taekwondo was all of Korean Martial Art history, culture, and warrior code prior to the cocoon of Japanese occupation, but was given the new name after it was liberated, and set free to grow and follow its own path.



SageGhost83 said:


> I would love to find out about old, indigenous Korean martial arts, but TKD is not one of them.


Your right, Taekwondo is not *one* of them, Taekwondo is *all* of them!



SageGhost83 said:


> Where is the ancient korean connection that so many people are in such a hurry to claim?
> ...What actual *techniques* did the soldiers contribute to the style?
> As for the kicking, the koreans have always favored foot games within their own culture, perhaps this was an example of the style growing and forming its own korean flavor? I look forward to hearing from you.


As a National Martial Art, the term defines whatever Martial Combat existed throughout all of Korea's history, whether we know the exact technical content, or can trace each step of its transition to modern times or not. 

As for any direct link to pre-occupation technical content that might be defined as a catalyst for today's Taekwondo, you mentioned the kicking that Koreans have always favored. Whether they were foot games, stomping techniques of self defense, or the remnants of an early combat system of kicking and other fighting skills, the mere knowledge and awareness of this concept has caused the Koreans to return to their earlier roots. The Kwan era Taekwondo is unavoidably brought into the mix, but as a supplement to their core national art.



SageGhost83 said:


> Ah, but TKD *was* derived from karate - the original katas were the same and a lot of the kibon is STILL the same.


Here again, is the confusion of identity when defining Taekwondo by the kata and other peripherals that the Kwan practitioners studied. Define Karate by Kata if you wish, but define Taekwondo by Poomsae, Hyung, Tul, or any similarity to Karate Kata, and you clearly are not fully understanding native Korean Taekwondo.


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

Steel Tiger said:


> what I find offensive is the suggestion that the processes of gaining an understanding of the past that have existed for at least 150 years are somehow less than hearsay and gossip garnered at a late night drinking session (that's what it was for all I know, I have no evidence to the contrary).


Only some of the information I learned over the past three decades were discussed during late night drinking sessions. On the other hand, when Iceman and I attended the USCDKA National conference in 2006, and the well respected Chung Do Kwan Grandmaster Hae Man Park presented a long slide-show of his own personal photos from the early Kwan era, and personally narrated the history he experienced, I don't classify these as less than hearsay and gossip.

When I was a color belt student in the 70's, I thought it was quite a privilege, and special opportunity to gain advanced knowledge and insights when Grandmasters such as Haeng Ung Lee of the ATA would hang around after testings and tournaments, and talk to us students. As a young Black Belt, I felt honored to spend more private, quality time with him. When I moved on from the ATA, and became a Master Instructor with the Jidokwan, my circle of resources expanded greatly.

Often times, after a tournament's end, Korean Grandmasters would join Black Belts and students at a restaurant for social hour. After that, American instructors would go their way, and the Koreans would go to a more confidential Korean restaurant. I was often invited, and found that I was the only non-Asian present. After hours, we would move on to a Korean bar until 3 or 4 in the morning. With many, many high ranking Korean Grandmasters drinking and socializing, I often received close personal advice on the art, philosophy, and history of Taekwondo (particularly the low-down on specific Kwans).

Some of the National events I attended wound up with the top Koreans who came from out of town sharing a motel suite or business conference room, and discussing Taekwondo business, and future plans for the sharing of Korean Taekwondo, and Olympic development until the wee hours of the morning. I was included in some of the discussions until they would begin talking only in Korean, and I would fall asleep on one of the beds. These were not drunken sessions, nor were they my instructor says so. I was privy to the confidential business discussions, and trusted with the personal insights of many different key figures in Taekwondo. 

However, this was my own personal experience that shaped many of my views, so take it for what you will. I know that there are other masters from the U.S (like Master Stoker) and in other countries who have had similar experiences.  We don't believe everything we are told blindly, but we do learn to value past experiences, and can piece together a better picture with more pieces of the puzzle.


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

Steel Tiger said:


> History is not about unverified statements. It is about evidence.
> ...That is history. It is evidence garnered through research and investigation.


I disagree. History is what it is, whether anyone witnessed it, or can verify it or not. Evidence is merely the confirmation of history for those who were not present when it occurred. Research, investigation, and evidence does not change history, just people's belief in what actually occurred.



Steel Tiger said:


> Peer-review. A group of college students joining hands and patting each other on the back is not peer-review.


I don't recall saying anything about joining hands,  but the fact is that this is peer-review - - that's why they call it peer-review. It is not on the same level of expertise, qualifications, and credibility of scientific and academic peer-review, but my point was that it is the same concept on a different level. Meaning, you have to trust the level of knowledge of those doing the review about the specific subject you are discussing. An expert in Martial Art does not equate an expert in history, nor does an expert historian equate an enlightened Martial Art Master who understands the subject enough to define what it is, in order to look for the evidence that supports the right argument (failing to find evidence of fence posts).



Steel Tiger said:


> History is a pursuit of truth, verifiable through evidence.


Again, I disagree! History is what happened - pure and simple. If a tree falls in the middle of the forest, and an earthquake destroys any evidence that the tree ever existed, this does not mean that the tree never fell. History is not the pursuit of truth - - the pursuit of truth is the verification of history. History does not change simply because we can not verify what happened through evidence.



Steel Tiger said:


> Saying something is true and not supporting that statement undermines one's entire position.


I disagree. not supporting a statement does not undermine one's position, nor does it change the truth. It just prevents us from verifying the facts, and makes it difficult to convince others. I know of many events in my own life that I can not support with evidence, but that does not make them any less true, and me saying that they are true does not undermine my position.



Steel Tiger said:


> Let me finish with a quote that I think is relevant to the study of history,
> Quote:
> There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth - not going all the way, and not starting. - Siddhartha Gautama


I will go along with the two mistakes presented here, but I disagree that there are only two mistakes. A third mistake is following the wrong path. One can chase false evidence all the way to the end, or get the correct evidence about the wrong subject, and make the mistake of thinking they have the correct answer.


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

exile said:


> I had to laugh when I read the comment about peer review in the OP, and I confess that my first thought was, hoo boy, have you ever put your foot in it... because the peer reviewers for Journal of Asian Martial Arts are among the top professional MA/cultural historians of their areas in the scholarly world. The current editorial board, from which the referees for JAMA submissions are chosen, includes the following:
> Dakin Burdick, Ph.D.; ...He holds a fourth dan in TKD, a third dan in Hapkido, a 2nd dan in iado
> Paul Cote, MS, Ph.D.; ...He is ranked Yondan (4th Dan) in Isshin-ryu Karate and Kobudo by the IWKA; certified as an Instructor (Shidoin) ...was promoted to Sandan (3rd Dan). He has also practiced and researched the Northern Chinese internal martial arts of xing-yi quan, bagua zhang, and taiji quan for the past 20 years.
> Barbara Davis, MA; responsible for China/Taijiquan, author of The Taijiquan Classics: an Annotated Translation; editor, The Taijiquan Journal.
> ...


No, exile, I did not put my foot in it. I said what I meant, and I meant what I said. While I acknowledge the advanced education of these historians, researchers, and experts of yours, I also note that you present, as a part of their credentials, their martial experience. You list their ranks as evidence of their expertise and qualifications to define Taekwondo and tell the world what its origin is, however as a 6th Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo, with more than 40 years experience myself, I am less impressed than you by credentials of 2nd, 3rd and 4th dans with 20 years or less experience in the Martial Art. 

This is not intended as a rank debate, and I agree that high rank does not equate historical knowldege, nor is it evidence of being right about anything, however you hold up Dakin Burdick, a fourth dan in Taekwondo, as an expert to me, a 6th Dan. While the Ph.D is impressive, and lends credibility and academic reliability, it does little to convince me that these people really understand the subject of Taekwondo in order to be held up as authorities on this particular topic. Since many of the experts listed are low ranking black belts in non-Korean systems, where is their peer-review qualifications for a Korean Martial Art debate? If a room full of legitimate 8th and 9th Degree Korean Grandmasters were debating the definition and origin of Taekwondo, I would have to sit silently to the side as a junior who could not compare to the level of understanding in most cases.

When I commented on college peer review, I intentionally drew a comparison of those college students who were on the same level of education as those they were reviewing. Even college professors, with Ph.D's, who have only a small amount of Martial Art experience, are only capable of understanding the in-depth philosophy, and definition of Korean Taekwondo as far as their rank, years of experience, and personal resources allow. There is nothing that indicates that their Ph.D's give them any more insight than myself, or any 3rd or 4th Dan student of mine. 

Some participants here have misunderstood my references to rank, and longevity in Taekwondo as though I am suggesting an automatic knowledge of history. I acknowledge that neither rank, nor time in training guarantees a more in-depth study of history, but I do feel that when rank is issued properly, according to an individual's actual understanding the subject above and beyond the skills to perform the art, then genuine higher ranking Masters have more credibility for interpreting and defining the art in question, in my opinion.

As to the weight that peer-reviewed research carries, keep in mind that the scientific, medical, and other academic fields are constatly revising their findings. If they publish a new finding that contradicts last years out-dated information, then what are we to say about the peer-reviewed experts of last year? If I were to have challenged them a year or two ago with the same contrary knowledge that we now have, they would argue, but our findings are peer-reviewed by experts in the field. 

Think about it - - The Earth is flat was peer-reviewed by other experts. Blood Letting to cure diseases was peer-reviewed by fellow experts in the medical field. Virtually everything we know today, replaced someone's peer-reviewed incorrect knowledge of the past.


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## Last Fearner (Feb 26, 2008)

tellner said:


> f2f, I'm afraid it doesn't wash. ...
> General Choi claims that his calligraphy teacher told him that Korean martial arts came from Tae Kyon? Once we put that claim under the microscope it cuts as much ice as a soap hacksaw.
> So do the cave paintings, the mythical Hwa Rang Super Warriors and all the rest.


What microscope is that? Has the personal account of General Choi's T'ae kyon past been absolutely disproven, or is it just that doubts have been raised, and it can not be confirmed. Where is it proven that the cave paintings did not reflect what was occurring in Korea as a Martial Art system, and who has labeled the Hwarang as a myth?



exile said:


> ...The person Choi identifies as his taekyon instructor turns out to be, very likely, an imaginary friend...
> ...The point is, there's contemporary evidence, and there's good evidence that by the time the Japanese began actively suppressing the MAs in Korea, the MAs they were suppressing largely consisted of the imported Japanese MAs judo and jiujitsu.


Exile, for a person who is a stickler for evidence to support his position, sir, you seem to present some not so air-tight arguments. You argue Choi's T'ae Kyon teacher was very likely an imaginary friend? This seems weak to call a person a liar on likely evidence from those who were not present at that time and place.

You also say that by the time of the Japanese occupation, the suppressed Martial Art largely consisted of imported Japanese MAs. This reminds me of when the whether man say that the whether will be mostly cloudy. Does this not also mean that it will be partly sunny? If the suppressed Martial Art in Korea largely consisted of Japanese MA, then does this not imply that some portion was native, and does not the term suppressed differ from eradicated? Do you not also agree that at least a few Taekyon students survived the occupation? The fact is that the kicking method existed before the Japanese influence, and it survived until after - - however little the number of survivors matters none for the extraction of a core technical content and philosophy.



exile said:


> Nonetheless, what Gm. Kim suggest in his January Black Belt interview
> *today the truth is coming out. Still some people try to make up some mysterious stories - claim their art is 2000 years old or from a monk in the mountains or something. But, if people are educated about history and lineage, they cannot be fooled. I believe Korea, like many other countries, had some type of martial arts being practiced before the 20th century. But after the Japanese occupation of Korea (1909-1945), indigenous martial arts were gone and influences from other places (Japan, Okinawa, China) were being taught.*


So this expert says that indigenous martial arts existed before the Japanese occupation, but were later gone, and replaced by other countries arts. As I think about the feasibility of this notion, I wonder about my own life. I am 48 years old. as a child, I studied wrestling, Judo, and Karate from age 5 up to my teen years, then switched to Taekwondo. If the U.S. was occupied by a foreign country starting 35 years ago today, I would have been 13 years old.

If I stopped all of my training at age 13, and was liberated tomorrow, I doubt that I would forget what I learned during those earlier years. If I had trained in another Martial Art during those 35 years (like I have done in Taekwondo) I am certain that I could cease doing Taekwondo, and go back to the system and approach I studied before. If there were others older then I (60, 70, and 80 years old) certainly they would be able to recall Martial Art training they did from age 5 or 10 until the age of 20, 30, or even 40 years old. I don't see how all of Korea's indigenous Martial Art would have been totally eradicated simply because an occupying army told the people not to practice it for 35 years.



exile said:


> But I think that that's where this sense of disappointment I was talking about arises from. There is this huge wedge of time that separates the really ancient warrior culture of ancient Korea.... from the corresponding 'chivalric' era in Japan.
> ...And that's really probably way too far back.
> ...My own sense is, it's just too long ago.


I believe that most mainstream Korean Grandmasters are not concerned about time, nor lineage, but rather cultural heritage and philosophical understanding. Taekyon, Hwarang and Subak existed, and it was their native history. The details of exact techniques and the structure of training methods or written training manuals are not as important as the core beliefs and shared philosophies of their ancestors, and a time gap does not prevent them from understanding this.



exile said:


> My critical point, the essential thing, is that the combat technique set of Okinawan karate is still there, in the TKD hyungs, whichas Kwan Jang puts it so wellrepresent respliced Okinawan kata sequences. In other words, as a guide to application, the Okinawan/Japanese origins of TKD guarantee that we have a kind of off-the-shelf set of bunkai incorporating the strategic principles and effective tactical resources of O/J karate.


Since this seems to be your critical point and essential thing, exile, I can see where your confusion rests about what Taekwondo is, and where it originates. You focus everything on Hyungs, Japanese Kata, and this obsession with bunkai. While Taekwondo teaches practical application of Poomsae techniques and sequences, the forms themselves, the diagrams they follow, and even their implied application are not at the heart of what Taekwondo is. Taekwondo's core and historical origins are built around something other than borrowed kata concepts and Japanese bunkai. What Taekwondo is based in, comes from something other than, and much older than kata.



exile said:


> My main interest in TKD is street defence, and in practiceas an effective combat systemI think the optimal application of TKD will probably look a lot like an application of Shotokan karate....


Here I believe you are absolutely mistaken. Practical application of TKD, in real life self defense, is much different than any other system of Martial Art, including Shotokan Karate. The application of Korean Taekwondo (not necessarily Kwan era developments) would be quite different from any variation of Karate.



exile said:


> The purpose of delving into the historical connections of TKD with its O/J karate ancestor is not about 'what happened with other people'. It is to help recover some important technical assets that are latent in the TKD hyung sets, in particular the combat-effective bunkai that are being rediscovered by our by now relatively distant cousins in Shotokan karate as part of the revival of careful, realistic bunkai study and training.


I think your obsession, and deep interest in Japanese bunkai leads you down a misguided path in regards to understanding Taekwondo, exile, and your attachment to the Kata / hyung connection clouds your judgment about Taekwondo's core concepts as well as its historical origins. This is not to say that practical application of Taekwondo techniques is not important, but Korean Taekwondo derives this knowledge and practices it in methods which differ from Kata practice. Practical application exists in modern Korean Taekwondo Poomsae, but not to the central focus and emphasis as Japanese Karate Kata, nor should it.



exile said:


> Well, the OPer was ... the one who began the thread, in the course of which he insinuated that the vast weight of historical evidence carried out by some of the best researchers in MAs .... was connected with my relative juniority in TKD


No, exile, any reference I make to your juniority in TKD, sir, has nothing to do with the vast weight of historical evidence about the Kwan era. It is my belief that those with higher degrees of legitimate rank (not the bogus masters that we have all seen), actually have a better comprehension of the subject of Taekwondo.

It is my personal opinion that your academic education might be vast and the experts you often quote are legitimate historians, but I believe that your lack of years and advanced rank in Taekwondo prevent you from having gained an enlightened insight as to what Taekwondo really is, and what the term means beyond a limited definition. No disrespect intended, but my experience as a teacher for 30 years is that most color belt student don't grasp the concept of Taekwondo the same as a Black Belt, nor a Black Belt the same as a life-long teacher, Master or Grandmaster of this art.

Exile, you and I just disagree on the definition of the term Taekwondo, and what it encompasses. Not that you are wrong, or I am wrong, but that we are talking about two different things, and it really should just be left at that, in my opinion.

This is the end of my lengthy response to the many replies of this controversial thread. I hope I have not bored the readers too greatly! I leave you all to rip it apart, and do what you will. I have training and teaching to tend to.

&#50504;&#45397;&#55176;&#44172;&#49464;&#50836;
Annyeonghigeseyo, :asian:
Chief Master D.J. Eisenhart


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## terryl965 (Feb 26, 2008)

Chief Master D.J. Eisenhart

Glad to see you are back with us and I personaaly would like to thank you for taking the time to answer everyone question and explaining your thoughts. I would hope we can all move forward on this subject with the respect all have shown so far.

Let me ask you a quick question if TKD was brought together in the fifties when all the Kwans was united how can it roots be TKD? I can see Okinawa Karate or Taekyon, but TKD roots started when they all came together under one umbella.

This question is not just directed to LF all can answer.

Next question General Choi was not the only one that help with this process, who would you say was side by side with him to make this as one? Who was behind the doors pushing for this to come as it did?

Thank you all in advance and one thing I can truely say TKD is more than an Art it is a way of life.


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## Errant108 (Feb 26, 2008)

Marginal said:


> Warrior monks? IIRC, it was mainly peasants led by a group of government officials (mainly Confucian scholars rather than warrior monks) that contributed most to the fighting force that was operating inland.



The role of Buddhist monks during the Imjinwoeran cannot be underestimated.  Despite Buddhism being persecuted at the hands of the Confucian government just before Hideyoshi's invasion, vast groups of monks who had taken refuge in the mountains came to the rescue of the nation.  The majority of the armies were armed with spears and Gyeom, a sickle-like weapon, similar to the Okinawan kama.

Many great masters distinguished themselves as generals, leading small armies of monks against larger Japanese forces.  The first victory when to Kihodang, who recaptured Chongju fort from the Japanese, using a force of only 600 monks.  He himself served his master Sosan-daesa, the Great Monk of the Western Mountain, who could be considered the Commander in Chief of the monastic forces.

Another one of Sosan-daesa's disciples, Samyung-daesa, gathered an army of 800 musaeng (warrior monks).  After saving the temples on Kumgangsan, he rejoined his master to take the offense against the Japanese. Samyung-daesa, not content to lead from the rear, was at the head of the army when they recaptured Pyongyang.  When the Japanese returned, it was Samyungdang who surrounded Kato Kiyomasa, and actually led infiltration parties to gather intelligence inside the Japanese camp.  Using this intelligence, he was able to sue for peace between the two nations.

It was during these talks that he distinguished himself even further.  Facing Kato Kiyomasa, he informed the warlord that the crown jewel of the Choson dynasty was Kato's head, and the people of Choson would not have peace until that head was cut off.  Word of his audacity spread through the Japanese ranks, and he was given the name Solbo by the Japanese, which means Jewel.  The negotiations succeeded, and Samyung-daesa secured the release of 300 Korean POWs.

It is not a coincidence that Confucian rule decreased martial strength in Korea and persecuted Buddhism at the same time.  Despite the persecutions suffered, musaeng rose up to help the nation in its time of need while the Confucians continued their intercene power struggles.  While the Confucians worked to oppress the people, the monks served their people and nation, rather than trying to increase their power.


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## Errant108 (Feb 26, 2008)

Last Fearner said:


> What microscope is that? Has the personal account of General Choi's T'ae kyon past been absolutely disproven, or is it just that doubts have been raised, and it can not be confirmed. Where is it proven that the cave paintings did not reflect what was occurring in Korea as a Martial Art system, and who has labeled the Hwarang as a myth?


 
The majority of modern scholarship IN KOREAN, has asserted that at best the Hwarang were a youth training corp, akin to the boy scouts.  The most unflattering scholarship adds that there are major overtones of what we today would consider homosexuality and pederasty to the Hwa Rang.  They were not a warrior class in any way, shape, or form.  Further, they died out more than a thousand years before Taegwondo developed, and no lineage of their technique or manual existed, therefore there can be no attribution of the Hwarang having any influence on any of the post-Occupation KMA, other than in the form of "inspiration".

As for Taegyeon's influence on Taegwondo, it has been repeated over and over from Song on down that none of the founders of the Gwan had any Taegyeon experience.  None of them have been tied to any legitimate Taegyeon instructors, and more importantly, Taegyeon technique cannot be found in Taegwondo.  Taegyeon has very distinctive movement, application, and mechanics. The commonly pointed to Taegwondo kicks arose out of modern Korean ingenuity rather than any sort of actual cross-pollination.

Scholars at Yongin University and others in Korea have been doing a great deal in the last decade to peal back government supported propoganda in order to promote the true history to Taegwondo.  None of them were able to tie any Taegwondo practitioners with any pre-Occupation KMA with any historical accuracy.



Last Fearner said:


> Taekyon, Hwarang and Subak existed, and it was their native history. The details of exact techniques and the structure of training methods or written training manuals are not as important as the core beliefs and shared philosophies of their ancestors, and a time gap does not prevent them from understanding this.



The time gap does present a major impediment.  I am not able to understand what others did in the past without some sort of reference to it.  Subak died out centuries ago.  No manuals exist, no pictures, no references.  We don't even know if it was an actual systematized combative system, or just a term describing hitting people with your hands.

The Hwarang, as I said, were a youth training corp.  We know they trained in methods of combat, and that some went on to distinguish themselves in military service, but there is no historical documentation as to what their martial practices actually were.  There is no transmission of technique or method through the centuries, and if there were, it would pre-date the Japanese koryu, some of the most easily documented martial arts in Asia.

Taegyeon exists, its history has been documented, and it bears absolutely no resemblance to Taegwondo in structure, technique, or application.  At most, its kicking methods were an inspiration for early Taegwondo practitioners who had no training in Taegyeon.



Last Fearner said:


> What Taekwondo is based in, comes from something other than, and much older than kata...This is not to say that practical application of Taekwondo techniques is not important, but Korean Taekwondo derives this knowledge and practices it in methods which differ from Kata practice.



What is that?  If you have documentation supporting this supposition, I would love to read it.



Last Fearner said:


> It is my personal opinion that your academic education might be vast and the experts you often quote are legitimate historians, but I believe that your lack of years and advanced rank in Taekwondo prevent you from having gained an enlightened insight as to what Taekwondo really is, and what the term means beyond a limited definition. No disrespect intended, but my experience as a teacher for 30 years is that most color belt student don't grasp the concept of Taekwondo the same as a Black Belt, nor a Black Belt the same as a life-long teacher, Master or Grandmaster of this art.



This is a combination of two fallacies.

Fallacies are flawed logic used to circumvent arguing based in logic and fact.

You use the fallacy of ad hominum to tell Exile that he cannot argue with you because he lacks understanding.  You justify your argument by using the fallacy of appeal to authority, using your rank to solidify your position.

Yet you do not offer any information.

What are these concepts of which you speak that Exile's lack of experience and rank do not allow him to grasp?

I could just as easily tell you that I have had Korean grandmasters of greater experience tell me that your position is contradicted, but without fact and logic what is the point?


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## exile (Feb 26, 2008)

Errant108 said:


> The majority of modern scholarship IN KOREAN, has asserted that at best the Hwarang were a youth training corp, akin to the boy scouts.  The most unflattering scholarship adds that there are major overtones of what we today would consider homosexuality and pederasty to the Hwa Rang.  They were not a warrior class in any way, shape, or form.  Further, they died out more than a thousand years before Taegwondo developed, and no lineage of their technique or manual existed, therefore there can be no attribution of the Hwarang having any influence on any of the post-Occupation KMA, other than in the form of "inspiration".
> 
> As for Taegyeon's influence on Taegwondo, it has been repeated over and over from Song on down that none of the founders of the Gwan had any Taegyeon experience.  None of them have been tied to any legitimate Taegyeon instructors, and more importantly, Taegyeon technique cannot be found in Taegwondo.  Taegyeon has very distinctive movement, application, and mechanics. The commonly pointed to Taegwondo kicks arose out of modern Korean ingenuity rather than any sort of actual cross-pollination.
> 
> ...



Wow...what else can be said? Errant has said it all, as plainly and straightforwardly as possible! 

I would just add that my comment on General Choi's putative taekyon teacher is based on the investigations of Robert Young, whose thorough, detailed and documented history of Taekyon in the 1993 volume of _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_, makes it clearbased on his own research and that of others who tried to identify this individual, that there is a very suspicious lack of evidence for his existence. And as Stuart A(nslow)  has noted in his recent book on ITF TKD forms, General Choi is on record, in print,  as contradicting himself royally on the subject of the relationship between Japanese karate and TKD, based on statements he made in three separate interviews in _Combat_ magazine between 1960 and 1990. 

As for the comments about my juniority not giving access to certain key concepts (which, if I had possessed them, would have enabled me to look back a century or more in time, an ability apparently restricted to advanced black belts (although not still more advanced black belts, or major Kwan leaders such as Gm. Kim, who disagree with the OP :lol)... well, I think, as I've said before, that most MT members recognize where that kind of tactic comes from. In poker, when you have lousy cards in your hand, you see if you can persuade the other players to fold by acting in a way that you hope will fool them into thinking you actually have a good hand; in other words, you posture a certain way and hope to be convincing. It's called _bluffing._ The comments about me personally are nothing more than that, so far as the historical record of TKD is concerned. I think it's clear to the MT community by nowafter so very many posts by the OPer which are full of such comments, but no appeal to documented facts, to contemporary or ancient records, to checkable information, and so onthat the whole content of his latest post is essentially bluff, and I appreciate very much Errant's carefully contructed post nailing it down as such.


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## Errant108 (Feb 26, 2008)

Last Fearner said:


> 1. Tribes of central and northern Asia are estimated to have migrated down into the peninsula now known as Korea, as far back as 30,000 B.C. From around 5,000 to 1,000 B.C., new Asian migration bleded with the aboriginal tribes. Over the next 3,000 years, they became a distinct culture in an area they called Choseon - &#8220;Land of the morning calm.&#8221;



This was not Joseon, but rather Gojoseon.



Last Fearner said:


> 2. Between the 1st Century B.C., and the 1st century A.D., specific boundaries were established for three main Kingdoms of Choseon. Armies were formed, and soldiers were trained to protect those territories. Some of this training included unarmed hand-to-hand combat and grappling such as Subak.



Please cite sources for this, preferably sources in Korean.

Also note that Subak did not mean grappling, but rather hand striking.



Last Fearner said:


> 3. Over the next six centuries, Choseon's warriors fought off invasions, and the three Kingdoms united as the Silla Dynasty. At this time, the young boys were trained to blossom into manhood as &#8220;Hwarang knights&#8221; with combat skills, refined social education, and a well-documented code of ethics that became the heart of their native Martial Art. According to this philosophy, Martial Art is more than just specific fighting techniques, and is more of a way of life, set of values, and a moral conviction that upholds a warrior code.



The Hwarang were not knights.  They were a group of noble youth selected for their beauty.  They had no authority, and were not a warrior corp in any shape or form.  The _Pungwoltto_ was an organization dedicated to training the youth in self-improvement, not as warriors.  They were young men between the ages of 14 & 18.  The kukson, the lead Hwarang, was considered a national figure and respected by the king.  They were a religious organization, serving to inspire reverence and devotion to Maitreya Buddha, not lead warriors into battle.  The so-called warrior code was actually lay Buddhist precepts for the entire nation, not just the Hwarang.  It was never an equivalent of Bushido, but was retroactively ascribed to be such by the Korean government after the occupation ended.



Last Fearner said:


> 4. Throughout this early development of Korea, the technique of fighting an opponent by using the advantages of kicking and stomping the legs became prominent, and was unique to the native Martial Art of Korea. This indigenous fighting system became known as &#8220;T'ae Kyon&#8221; (Romanized as &#8220;Taekyeon&#8221 - the &#8220;kicking method.&#8221;



The earliest reference to Taegyeon is in 1790 and all historical evidence only supports it being practiced during the Yi Dynasty.  Do you have sources to site for this information?



Last Fearner said:


> 5. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, indigenous Martial Art skills were outlawed along with every other aspect of native Korean culture, including the language, and their native Hangul script.



There is no historical basis for the claim that Korean martial arts were outlawed during the Japanese occupation.  No document has ever been uncovered in Japan or Korea stating that they were outlawed.



Last Fearner said:


> However, the kicking method of T'ae Kyeon, and skills of Subak were taught covertly, and pre-occupation knowledge of ancient skills, philosophies, and warrior codes were remembered and recorded after WWII ended.



Who taught subak?  It never made it out of the Samguk Shidae and there are no sources providing any information as to what it actually entailed.



Last Fearner said:


> If only a hand-full of survivors are known to have retained the former indigenous arts of Korea, it is this connection to the past that allows Korea to claim, with accuracy, that their history survived and is being revived in a new, modern Korea.



Much of the "survivors" have had their accounts discredited by Korean scholars, including professors in Taegwondo.



Last Fearner said:


> Amidst all of the confusion over Japanese influence and foreign Martial Art contamination, which resulted in a myriad of schools known as &#8220;Kwan&#8221; interpretating modern Korean Martial Art, the Korean government called upon historians and Martial Art experts to research Korea's past. They extracted the core beliefs, former philosophies, ancient warrior code, and the base foundation for the kicking art of Tae Kyeon, combined it all together and chose a new name of &#8220;Taekwondo.&#8221; Several of the Korean Kwan era leaders of Martial Art development also chose to use this same term of &#8220;Taekwon-do&#8221; to represent what they had learned and were teaching, thus the confusion over the two distinct meanings of the term &#8220;Taekwondo.&#8221;
> 
> Rather than spending a lot of time citing sources for statements of fairly common knowledge, I will simply provide a source if someone points out a specific statement they would like to challenge, and have verified through a credible source.




This is not common knowledge.  This is myth.



Last Fearner said:


> Your right, Taekwondo is not one of them, Taekwondo is all of them!



My art is not Taegwondo, and I challenge anyone who says so.


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## YoungMan (Feb 26, 2008)

I posted these links because I believe it was exile who stated that Taekkyon, the Korean art that many think has no relation to Tae Kwon Do, does not use any middle or high kicks. Watch these and judge for yourself if Taekkyon did or did not influence Taekwondo









 
And there was a Hwa Rang academy, because colleagues of mine have visited it. Trust me, if the Hwa Rang had been the effeminite "boy scouts" some make them out to be, we would have been told this.


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## Errant108 (Feb 26, 2008)

YoungMan said:


> I posted these links because I believe it was exile who stated that Taekkyon, the Korean art that many think has no relation to Tae Kwon Do, does not use any middle or high kicks. Watch these and judge for yourself if Taekkyon did or did not influence Taekwondo



Taegyeon may have served as inspiration for Taegwondo's high kicks, but this does not mean there was a transmission of technique.  Do you understand?



YoungMan said:


> And there was a Hwa Rang academy, because colleagues of mine have visited it. Trust me, if the Hwa Rang had been the effeminite "boy scouts" some make them out to be, we would have been told this.



Are you referring to the military Academy in Nowon-gu, Seoul?  It's a military school, not an actual training place used the by the historical Hwarang.

Unless you have any historical proof to contradict what I've posted, you may just be quoting propaganda you were told.  My research comes from collegiate research and Buddhist documents.


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## granfire (Feb 26, 2008)

Oh, Historic sources...the fun.

I majored in History in Highschool. It was a far cry from the pre-chewed 'facts' in the previous history books and let me tell you, I never came to the same conclusion everybody else did.

Bushido....lofty ideas, but also developed after the Samurai class basically had outlived their usefulness as actual fighting warriors.

I would guess the answer, the truth to be somewhere in the middle. 

Korea has a long history of combat and war fare, not just China and Japan. Too bad if you try to find anything about Korea you can't find much beyond literature about the North and post war South. So us non-Hangul reading lay people are at a disadvantage and have to rely on translated sources, including the tint the translator naturally gives his work.

I was very surprised to learn that Korean is spoken in large parts of Manchuria...an accidental discovery as I came across a book about languages and how they relate...I wanted to check if it is true that Korean is closer related to Finish and Hungarian then to the languages spoken by their imidiate neighbors....seems to be true from what I can tell....

There is also another point to consider: The fact that you can find rules and lofty ideas in historical scrips often also indicates that the reality more then likely looked more like the opposite. When you read the table rules of the mideval knights, you have to take into consideration that the actual behavior necessitated the formulation of the rule. A rooting hog probably was more appetizing to observe...

Like the modern day Boyscouts have their share of shady individuals, one as to assume the past demography was not any different, not even taking into consideration that the social context of the acceptable conduct has also greatly changed, and it takes no time at all - in a historic perspective - to do that, much less then a generation, which is generally measured as 30-35 years. Let's not forget that male on male relation ships were also comnmon in the glorified era of the cultured Greek....

One has to be careful to apply moder moral values to cultures in the past.

But that's just my point of view, like I said, I hardly ever come to the same results as everybody else...


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## Ninjamom (Feb 26, 2008)

YoungMan said:


> ......Watch these and judge for yourself if Taekkyon did or did not influence Taekwondo


based on the historical references I have been able to find (cited all through this thread), I would have to say that the high kicks in modern Taekkyon are there becasue Taekwondo influenced it, and not the other way around.

Here is a link to a video clip showing the footwork for a modern Taekkyon practitioner.  Note the similarity to Chinese longfist and bagua styles.




 
Similarly, there is a Korean MA called 'Si Pal Gi', which despite the name being traced to an 18th century military manual, is a modern reconstruction based on Chinese kung fu.

My point is this: using a name that is centuries old *does not* give weight to any argument that the techniques are hundreds of years old.



> And there was a Hwa Rang academy, because colleagues of mine have visited it. Trust me, if the Hwa Rang had been the effeminite "boy scouts" some make them out to be, we would have been told this.


Please don't take offense at the names given to explain a difficult concept.  I would use the 'Boy Scouts' phrase to describe Hwa Rang (or maybe 'Peace Corp' or 'Vista Volunteer', for you older folks out there), because the Hwa Rang were different than the Samurai class that developed in Japan in several very important ways:
1. Membership in the Hwarang was not hereditary.  Unlike samurai, no one was 'born' a hwa rang.  As far as I can find in written sources, members agreed to a royal appointment.
2. Martial Training was not the focal point of Hwa rang membership.  All Samurai (even the accountants) could carry swords.  Hwa Rang members were schooled in ethics and Buddhist and Confucian classics (before there was such a great 'either-or' divide between the two philosophies), and roamed the country to help with education and community service projects.  They were servants of the king and the community.
3. Hwa Rang membership was not permanent.  Service was temporary.  Unlike samurai (who were born samurai and died samurai), the Hwa Rang was truly a 'youth corp' (hence the references to 'boy scouts').


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## Brian R. VanCise (Feb 26, 2008)

Remember folks, even if the system was founded in the fifties does not invalidate that it is a Korean Martial Art that is effective when practiced right.


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## Ninjamom (Feb 26, 2008)

.........


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## Errant108 (Feb 26, 2008)

Brian R. VanCise said:


> Remember folks, even if the system was founded in the fifties does not invalidate that it is a Korean Martial Art that is effective when practiced right.



Practicing it right does not validate it in terms of historicity.


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## terryl965 (Feb 26, 2008)

Brian R. VanCise said:


> Remember folks, even if the system was founded in the fifties does not invalidate that it is a Korean Martial Art that is effective when practiced right.


 

Brian I believe people want more so they can say, I'm training in a Art that is thousands of years old. Me I pick TKD because of the instructor not because of the Art, I had no Ideal what TKD was. I did Okinawa Karate and Korean Karate, which some says is TKD. All I personally know is the TKD that I teach has everything one could want and more. I also relize that there is alot of just sport TKD out there same as Judo and Karate and other Arts. Do we not train for us if so who really cares what others may think, why does this bother so many? What is the real reason behind so many Lies and untruths that surrounds the Art I love.

This is becomming a waste of time and I have people to train and training for myself and family. I hope we all can come together is a single stage and join hands and sing out load. We are TKD brothers no matter what and we love each other for that.


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## Errant108 (Feb 26, 2008)

terryl965 said:


> I hope we all can come together is a single stage and join hands and sing out load.



Yes, but my song is 2000 years old and handed down from opera singers during the Dingdong dynasty.  You cannot compete with it with your modern pop music.:boing2:


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## Ninjamom (Feb 26, 2008)

SUMMARY SO FAR: exile (as have others) has made many excellent, well-documented, well-researched posts showing historical evidence for the lack of connection between Korean arts, ancient and modern.  LF has made many impassioned pleas from personal knowledge and experience proffering a rich historical connection between Korean arts, ancient and modern.  

Can I take a step back and suggest that we are mostly arguing about two different things?  I would like to put up two short lists, and invite others to add, subtract, and/or throw rocks as appropriate.  Here is &#8216;The TKD World According to Ninjamom&#8217;:

*I. PART ONE: There is NO Historical Evidence or Indication that ANY of these elements of Taekwondo are related to ANY ancient Korean martial practices*:

>...a. Specific techniques: Specific kicks, specific strikes, and even the names for these strikes and kicks translated into Korean, appear to be direct imports from Shotokan karate.  This means their applications/usage is also derived directly from Shotokan.

>...b. Specific Stances: Specific stances, including their names, translated into Korean, appear to be directly imported from Shotokan karate.  The closest to an ancient reference for a stance used in modern TKD that I have found is the horseriding stance.  I have found this one stance documented in the Muye Dobo Tongji, but interestingly, only in the chapter dedicated to Japanese sword techniques.  

>...c. Specific forms/poomsae: The first Taekwondo forms practiced in the 1950&#8217;s were direct imports of the Shotokan forms.  I think everyone on this thread agrees to this fact.  These forms evolved from their Japanese roots.  New ones were created in Korea, inspired by ancient arts, manuals, and elements of Korean culture.

>...d. Uniforms, Belts, and Other Superficial Elements: The uniform used in modern Taekwondo is based on the Japanese _gi_, not the traditional Korean _hanbok_.  The use of colored belts to signify rank and advancement is a Japanese innovation, not even found in Shotokan&#8217;s Okinawan roots.  The placement of flags or a central focus for bowing at the front of a class is imported from Shotokan, as is the convention of lining up by belt-rank.

>...e. Organizational Structure: World governing bodies over regional bodies over local member associations, over local schools/kwans/dojangs/dojo is probably more a Western innovation for practical reasons than a Japanese/Shotokan connection, but it is definitely NOT rooted in ancient Korean martial practice.

When most outsiders *look *at TKD, these are the things they *see*.  When most students *sign up *for martial arts instruction, these are the things they *want*.  When I *practice *TKD on a day-to-day basis, these are the things I *experience*.  If these are the *only *elements of Taekwondo, *then there is no link from this modern art to any ancient Korean martial practice.  *

BUT WAIT, There&#8217;s MORE!

*II. PART TWO: There are UNDENIABLE links between these elements of modern Taekwondo practice and ancient Korean culture*:

>...a. Confucian respect: The teacher/student relationship in Taekwondo did not need to be imported from anywhere.  The ancient roots to this &#8216;culture of respect&#8217; run as deep in Korea as Confucianism and Buddhism.  It is characterized in modern Taekwondo&#8217;s emphasis on respect for the Instructor and for fellow-students.  It is observed in a simple bow, but manifested in daily attitude and loyalty to school, art, and teacher.

>...b. Love of Country:  The Confucian ideal of Patriotism is deeply embedded in modern Taekwondo practice, as well.  (Why else would a bunch of Yanks, Brits, Aussies, and other-assorted folks care at all (let alone so passionately) about whether an art is Korean, Japanese, or anything else?).  It is shown in ancient Korea through the national symbols &#8211; the &#8216;everwhite&#8217; Mount Jangbaek, root of the GoChoseon nation; Keumgangsan, the immoveable mountain; Mugungwa, the flower symbolizing Korean independence, uniqueness, and survival/defiance in the face of occupation (think &#8216;Edelweiss&#8217; in the &#8216;Sound of Music&#8217.  It is shown in modern Taekwondo practice through the respect given in any nation to the Korean flag, in the use of Korean terminology and counting, and to the extent that the individual school incorporates it, other elements of Korean philosophy and culture.

>...c. Service: The earliest Korean people, Baedal, believed they were founded by the son of God for two purposes: the instruction in the law of heaven (i.e., God&#8217;s law), and the benefit of all mankind.  This element of the Korean culture has survived intact for nearly 5000 years.  This is why the ancient Silla HwaRang were organized for community service (benefit of mankind).  The incorporation of this element of ancient Korean culture is at the discretion of the individual dojang, but because this thread runs so deeply in Korean culture, I will be bold to say that, if you have a Korean instructor, your dojang honors community service.  Our dojang hosts community events, donates money from our tournaments to community charities, reviews our school students&#8217; report cards and rewards their progress, and awards individual students for their activities outside the dojang in service to the community.

>...d. Scholarship: While this dates to later Korean neo-Confucianism (15th century and later), the love the Korean culture has for scholarly activities is undeniable.  In modern Taekwondo practice, this is part of the reason why you must study terminology and cultural elements for your black belt test, or (as I assume most here have to do) write an essay on Taekwondo history, practice, importance, or other topic.  It is why most dojangs also incorporate some teaching on Korean philosophy, or at least the purposes of martial training.  This is why the World Headquarters for the WTF sponsors essay contest for students and organizes cultural trips to study TKD in Korea at Korean universities.

When Last Fearner discusses his Taekwondo, I think he is incorporating many more of this second category of cultural elements in his working definition of TKD.  In truth, he can rightly say that the culture that spawned the Hwa Rang, the Koguryeo Empire, and Admiral Yi Sun Shin also gave birth to modern Taekwondo practice.  This is the major link that I see.  It is the only link that I see.  But it is still a link, and a vital one at that.

Personally, I see Taekwondo as an element of Korean culture.  Its modern forms and features are unrelated to ancient martial practices.  However, it has given me a desire to understand and learn more about the Korean people and culture that has made modern Taekwondo a distinctly &#8216;Korean&#8217; martial art.

I hope this makes sense.  I also hope you excuse this overly-long post.


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## Errant108 (Feb 26, 2008)

Great post, Mom.


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## exile (Feb 26, 2008)

Errant108 said:


> Great post, Mom.



Absolutely, completely, totally.... 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			











One of the very best&#8212;is _greatest_ too strong a word???&#8212;posts I've ever read on MT, on _any_ topic.


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## Brian R. VanCise (Feb 26, 2008)

That is a great post Ninjamom!


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## Marginal (Feb 26, 2008)

Ninjamom said:


> When Last Fearner discusses his Taekwondo, I think he is incorporating many more of this second category of cultural elements in his working definition of TKD.  In truth, he can rightly say that the culture that spawned the Hwa Rang, the Koguryeo Empire, and Admiral Yi Sun Shin also gave birth to modern Taekwondo practice.  This is the major link that I see.  It is the only link that I see.  But it is still a link, and a vital one at that.


It's just Korean post-colonialism he's offering.


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## jim777 (Feb 26, 2008)

Post of the year NinjaMom


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## Errant108 (Feb 26, 2008)

Marginal said:


> It's just Korean neocolonialism he's offering.



Neocolonialism?

Perhaps the term you're looking for is post-Colonialism.


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## terryl965 (Feb 26, 2008)

Errant108 said:


> Neocolonialism?
> 
> Perhaps the term you're looking for is post-Colonialism.


 

I do not understand I thought we was talking about Tae Kwon Do History


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## Marginal (Feb 26, 2008)

Errant108 said:


> Neocolonialism?
> 
> Perhaps the term you're looking for is post-Colonialism.


You are correct, sir.

Terry, 

IMO... The concept of post-colonialism ties back into why the history of TKD was presented as being thousands of years old in the first place. Quite a few countries started breaking out histories and feats to showcase their cultural distinctiveness, to prove that the nation and people were not inferior to their conquerors once the occupiers withdrew and they were left to rebuild their nations. They were trying to knit together a national identity that would neatly wash away the Japanese annexation of Korea. How better to accomplish that then to show the world the rich string of pearls listing Korean accomplishments both militaristic and cultural?  Gaps in the string were filled, and meshing a 2000 year history of various military achievements into TKD made a handy thread to give the Korean list a narrative unity. 

If one wants to call TKD an umbrella term for every time a Korean waved a spear at a foreigner or had an idea, have at it. The problem with that approach is that it essentially renders TKD as any kind of a descriptive term for the MA that is practiced now meaningless.


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## Ninjamom (Feb 27, 2008)

You guys are WAY too kind!  It is always nice to receive a compliment, but to receive compliments from folks that I admire and respect so much makes it mean that much more to me.

I am honored and privileged to share this board with you all.


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## Last Fearner (Mar 1, 2008)

terryl965 said:


> Chief Master D.J. Eisenhart
> 
> Glad to see you are back with us


Thank you, Master Stoker!



terryl965 said:


> I personaaly would like to thank you for taking the time to answer everyone question and explaining your thoughts.


You are welcome.



terryl965 said:


> I would hope we can all move forward on this subject with the respect all have shown so far.


I hope so too!



terryl965 said:


> Let me ask you a quick question if TKD was brought together in the fifties when all the Kwans was united how can it roots be TKD? I can see Okinawa Karate or Taekyon, but TKD roots started when they all came together under one umbella.


 
Master Stoker, I think you hit the key point in the first part of your question - - *if* TKD was brought together in the fifties. This is the crux of the discrepancy over defining what Taekwondo is, thus where and when it originated. From my perspective, there are three ways in which you can define Taekwondo.

The first one is the most common interpretation, which is the Kwan era development. In this interpretation, researchers focus on the fact that the term Taekwondo was first coined in 1955 (as far as we know), and was used by many of the main Kwan Founders to describe their curriculum. 

The difference here being that the Kwan leaders were teaching a variety of influences from various Japanese and Chinese backgrounds, and didn't change their curriculum to conform to a mold that Taekwon-do represented, but rather accepted the term to represent every Korean teacher's interpretation of Korean Martial Art. General Choi, on the other hand, felt that his unique mixture of his early kicking training in T'ae Kyon plus what he learned in Shotokan Karate gave birth to a new concept which he labeled as Taekwon-do.

The second definition of the term Taekwondo comes from the official reorganizing, and re-naming of Korea's indigenous Martial Art. Here, all one has to do is to verify that Korea had ancient warriors who defended their country with a variety of skills, including unarmed combat, and that those warriors studied a program which included spiritual enlightenment, social and moral obligations, and a code of ethics that combined with a variety of techniques to form a native Korean Martial Art.

At the core of the technical content, research indicates that these historical Martial Artists used some hand fighting, some kicking, and some grappling or wrestling skills. Exactly what techniques were used is not completely recorded and preserved for us to copy an exact classroom curriculum, but the major portion of a Martial Art is not the number of techniques one can demonstrate. Taekwondo is drawn from the more important aspects of being a Martial Artist by this definition, which was recorded in the code of the Hwarang (I'll get to that subject later). 

We, as Taekwondoists, don't have to duplicate the exact method of stomping, kicking, or knocking down of our opponents in the same way that early Tae Kyeon fighters did centuries ago in order to retain the concept of kicking as a primary method of self defense. Techniques evolve, and methodology is updated, but the core concept of Korea's National Martial Art of Taekwondo does, in fact, come from its predecessor, Tae Kyeon, even if modern versions do not appear to apply the kicks in the same way.

When the Korean government asked, in 1955, what is in our native history as far as warrior training, unarmed combat, and Martial Art? they found evidence of Subak, Tae Kyon, Hwarang, Tangsudo, and other native arts. They decided to extract this and exclude any recent Japanese influence for the purpose of identifying their past arts, re-grouped all of them together and said this history belongs to us as a nation, and we will call our past indigenous Martial Art training, collectively as an all inclusive title of native Korean Martial Art, by the new term of Taekwondo.

Now, add back in to that everything that those current Kwan teachers had learned in their lifetime, then you have Taekwondo plus! The plus is anything relevant to self defense training - - as someone has said here before, if it was used on me yesterday, it is Taekwondo today!

This brings me to the third definition of Taekwondo, which is the personal definition. This is where each practitioner defines Taekwondo to describe what it means to them. There is no right or wrong answer here, but there is both good and bad that comes from this definition, and a misuse of this personal identity can result in a false representation of true Taekwondo.

The good is that Taekwondo is a living, growing, changing art that adapts to the modern times, and to each individual who practices it. The bad thing is that people can be poorly trained, or not trained in Taekwondo at all, misuse any knowledge they have, and redefine the term Taekwondo to mean whatever they want it to mean. They can remove the moral and ethical elements, apply the fighting skills to street combat, gang member, and criminal activities, and still call what they do Taekwondo because they studied from some 8th or 9th degree Korean.

I teach the native Korean Martial Art that stems from, and is based in the Korean culture, social attitudes, philosophy, and code of conduct found in the Hwarang, and the technical concepts of Subak, and Tae Kyeon. I practice my own interpretation for me, as everyone does, and I adopt any modern knowledge that improves on the core principles of my original, native Korean Martial Art.



terryl965 said:


> Next question General Choi was not the only one that help with this process, who would you say was side by side with him to make this as one? Who was behind the doors pushing for this to come as it did?


 
This question can be simple or complex, but I will simply say that every person in Korea's history who contributed to defending the country, preserving the culture, and teaching the skills of Martial Art brought this unique concept to the 20th century. Those of the Kwan era, and all of us as students and teachers, each did our part to carry it through to the 21st century, adding to it, and making it what it is today, but we did so standing on the shoulders of those who lived before the Japanese occupation, and those who survived that horrible time.



terryl965 said:


> Thank you all in advance and one thing I can truely say TKD is more than an Art it is a way of life.


 
Absolutely, 100% true, Master Stoker!!!


----------



## Last Fearner (Mar 1, 2008)

Errant108 said:


> The majority of modern scholarship IN KOREAN, has asserted that at best the Hwarang were a youth training corp, akin to the boy scouts.


 
Well, Errant, welcome to the discussion. I believe your reference to the majority of modern scholarship IN KOREAN is rather vague, but it matters not. First, Since you draw the comparison between the Hwarang and the boy scouts, let me point out a few facts to you. I would consider comparring the Hwarang to the Boy Scouts as more of a compliment, and a support of its acurate lable of a Martial Art or military training corps. I grew up in the boy scouts, more than 15 years from age 5 to 21. My father was a scoutmaster, and I eventually became one also.

The Boys Scouts were first started in England by Sir Robert Baden-Powell, a British soldier who became a General, and was knighted in 1909. The express purpose of the Boy Scouts was to prepare young boys for man-hood, teach them proper social skills, survival skills, and to be outdoorsman and frontiersman. It was based on the American models of the Sons of Daniel Boone and the Woodcraft Indians.

When I was in the Army, I found that almost everything we did in Basic Training, to prepare for combat, I had already done in the Boy Scouts. Dressing in uniform, passing inspections, marching, long hikes, bivouacs, camping skills, and even shooting firearms. The only difference was the size and destructive capability of the weapons. As Robin Williams said in the movie Good Morning Vietnam, the only difference between the Army and the Boy Scouts is The Boys Scouts don't have heavy artillery. I was a field artillery surveyor, so I can attest to that.



Errant108 said:


> The most unflattering scholarship adds that there are major overtones of what we today would consider homosexuality and pederasty to the Hwa Rang.


 
I don't know what proof you have of this, but I think others have already addressed your comments by stating that we should not apply today's judgments on past cultures. Furthermore, the actions of some do not reflect the core beliefs of all, and the Hwarang training was about preparation for life and combat, not sexual preferences. Anyone's attempt to diminish the reputation and contributions of the Hwarang to modern Martial Art based on such judgments, should reconsider the validity of such arguments.



Errant108 said:


> They were not a warrior class in any way, shape, or form.


 
Really? If that were so, then please explain the wording of the Hwarang Code.

Code of the Hwarang
(Sesok Ogye)

 Loyalty to king
 Obedience to parents
 Trust among friends
 Never retreat in battle 
 Justice in killing

In all my years in the Boy Scouts, I don't remember any motto, oath, or code that dealt with never retreating in battle nor discussing the justifications of killing in the context of a warrior - - a Martial Artist, who has the ability to do so at a whim, but the responsibility not to. These youth were training for combat, plain and simple, and many were noted to have become soldiers and generals based on this training as a first step to their military training.




Errant108 said:


> Further, they died out more than a thousand years before Taegwondo developed, and no lineage of their technique or manual existed, therefore there can be no attribution of the Hwarang having any influence on any of the post-Occupation KMA, other than in the form of "inspiration".


 
Well, Errant, that is your personal supposition. Yes, all those people died long ago. However, what they believed in, and the focus of their training was well documented. The Hwarang contributes less to the technical aspect of modern Taekwondo than it does the moral, ethical, social, and artistic aspect (the do), but to reduce its influence to mere inspiration is lacking insight - - to say the least.




Errant108 said:


> As for Taegyeon's influence on Taegwondo, it has been repeated over and over from Song on down that none of the founders of the Gwan had any Taegyeon experience.


 
Regardless of who says it, one must provide proof that individuals such as General Choi had no native Martial Art training as a youth, unless you intend to call reputable people liars based on your doubts. Nevertheless, your focus of Tae Kyeon's direct connection to the Kwan Taekwondo only serves to deny the truth that Tae kyeon existed as a kicking art in Korea's past, belonged to the country of Korea, and was renamed Taekwondo, by the Korean government, as it began a new chapter in history.



Errant108 said:


> more importantly, Taegyeon technique cannot be found in Taegwondo. Taegyeon has very distinctive movement, application, and mechanics.


 
Now it seems that you claim some clear understanding about Tae Kyeon's technical curriculum as it was taught before the occupation, during the occupation, and since then. If id didn't survive, how would you know this? Tae Kyeon promoted kicking, the use of the legs as weapons, regardless of what kicks or at what targets.

If ten thousand Tae Kyeon masters existed at the start of the occupation, and all of them survived to pass on their authentic knowledge of ancient Tae Kyeon, that does not mean that the next generation of students or instructors must kick the same way, or refrain from enhancing the art with additional kicks. The new name of Taekwondo reflects the changes and combination of curriculum for modern times, so don't bother looking for the differences, just focus on the fact that Tae Kyeon was Korean Kicking, and Taekwondo carries that concept on in a modern method.



Last Fearner said:


> What Taekwondo is based in, comes from something other than, and much older than kata...This is not to say that practical application of Taekwondo techniques is not important, but Korean Taekwondo derives this knowledge and practices it in methods which differ from Kata practice.


 


Errant108 said:


> What is that? If you have documentation supporting this supposition, I would love to read it.


 
Well, Errant, perhaps therein lies your problem. You would love to read about it. Learning the philosophies, and techniques of Taekwondo does not come from books, and my insights into this art did not come from a conversation over the internet. If you want to learn what the core training of Taekwondo is, and how we teach it differently than focusing on Kata like Karate, I suggest you first become a student of Taekwondo, then study from a genuine Master for three or four decades. Even if it were possible for me to tell you the answer you seek here, I wouldn't. It took me three decades to learn it, and I think it should take others just as long.



Last Fearner said:


> It is my personal opinion that your academic education might be vast and the experts you often quote are legitimate historians, but I believe that your lack of years and advanced rank in Taekwondo prevent you from having gained an enlightened insight as to what Taekwondo really is, and what the term means beyond a limited definition. No disrespect intended, but my experience as a teacher for 30 years is that most color belt student don't grasp the concept of Taekwondo the same as a Black Belt, nor a Black Belt the same as a life-long teacher, Master or Grandmaster of this art.


 


Errant108 said:


> This is a combination of two fallacies.
> 
> Fallacies are flawed logic used to circumvent arguing based in logic and fact.


 
Thanks for your explanation of what a fallacy is, but not necessary. The comment you quoted neither circumvents the argument, nor does it contain any false notions, incorrect beliefs, nor is it deceptive.



Errant108 said:


> You use the fallacy of ad hominum...


 
Oh Jeeze! Another exile, ad infinitum! Actually, the term is ad hominem (not hominum), and I am not directing the argument away from logic to play on emotions or personal considerations. I am giving the reason that I believe exile does not understand my position.



Errant108 said:


> to tell Exile that he cannot argue with you because he lacks understanding. You justify your argument by using the fallacy of appeal to authority, using your rank to solidify your position.


 
You seem to misunderstand. I never said that exile could not argue with me (that's a fallacy on your part). What I was explaining was that I believe the academic knowledge of exile and his experts are legitimate, but lead to narrow conclusions because they *lack an advanced understanding of the art of Taekwondo*, and that I believe the advanced understanding comes to an individual only *after decades of training and guidance* from an instructor who has attained an enlightened mind, yet it might never come to an individual. This is not a fallacy either. It is an explanation as to why people don't always completely understand the art of Taekwondo.

I am not holding my rank up as proof of my understanding, but by achieving my rank legitimately, I have spent many years under the instruction of insightful Masters in order to gain this advanced understanding. Therein lies the correlation between my rank, and my own personal experience which resulted in an understanding that is not commonly attained at a low rank. This is not an insult or about my ego, nor is it an ad hominem attack on anyone. It is just my personal observation about those who have more experience over those that don't.

I believe exile's inability to see connections between modern Taekwondo and ancient Korean Martial Art is because he lacks a full understanding of what Korean Taekwondo is (that's logic, even if you disagree with it), and I further believe his lack of full understanding is due to lack of time studying the art as well as his limited sources of information (again based in logic - not fallacy). Martial Art education is an education of life - not just fighting, and Taekwondo teaches to seek enlightenment. When the light comes on, you begin to understand. No one knows when the light will come on for each person.


----------



## terryl965 (Mar 1, 2008)

Thank you Chief Master Eisenhart For answering all the question and taking the time to do it. :asian:


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## Last Fearner (Mar 1, 2008)

Errant108 said:


> This was not Joseon, but rather Gojoseon.


 
Are you kidding me??? Sir, I would like to respond to your comments with polite, passive replies, but it appears that you are not offering a different point of view, or even questioning my answers, but rather you are correcting me as a professor over a student, setting the record straight. Are you trying to come off here as some kind of intellectual expert on Korea while correcting me on something that is not wrong?? I can't believe that no one else catches your mistakes and jumps in here with a correction. This is as bad as SageGhost's claim that the han of hangeuk (meaning the country of Korea) came from the Han of the Chinese Han Dynasty. I proved that wrong, and those proposing the alleged smoking gun just quietly swept that error under the rug.

Errant, here's a little history lesson for you. Choseon (Joson or Joseon as an alternative spellings) was the name given to the peninsula at the time of its founding by the legendary Dangun (also Tan'gun) , and was called Choseon throughout Korea's early development (pre-Three Kingdoms period) up until the Yi Dynasty (1392 to 1910).

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Places/Place/325083

*Legend has it, that Korea was first established by Tan'gun Wang'gom in 2333 B.C., who named the new kingdom Choson, "Land of the Morning Calm", and established his capital at Asadal, today's P'yong'yang.*

After the Kingdoms were united, there came the Silla Dynasty. Following that was the Koryeo (Ko - lryaw - often spelled Koryo) Dynasty. Koryeo, derrived its name from the former Koguryeo Kingdom, and is where we get the Western pronunciation of today's Korea. Then, in 1392 came the Choseon, or Yi Dynasty (Yi after its founder, Yi Songgye). He named it Choseon (or Joseon) after the original Choseon of the legendary Dangun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Korea

*Main article: Joseon Dynasty*
_*In 1392 a Korean general, Yi Seonggye, was sent to China to campaign against the Ming Dynasty, but instead he returned to overthrow the Goryeo king and establish a new dynasty. He named it the Joseon Dynasty in honor of the previous Joseon before (Gojoseon is the first Joseon. "Go" was added to distinguish between the two).*_

You see, Errant, it was in contrast to this new, Choseon Dynasty, that Koreans began to refer to the original Choseon as Kochoseon (or Gojoseon) meaning old Choseon (or ancient Joseon). So don't correct me on the use of the term Choseon as it was, in fact, originally applied to the territory at that time that I referenced. You don't have an old Choseon until a new Choseon comes along, and I was not talking about a modern perspective of us looking back through two Choseon periods. It was originally called Choseon (Joseon) just as I said, so please get your facts straight, sir.




Errant108 said:


> Please cite sources for this, preferably sources in Korean.


 
Please indicate exactly what part you want sources cited, and what do you mean by sources in Korean? You want sources only written in Hangukmal? Why? A reliable source is sufficient, regardless of the language. Please specify what you think is wrong in my statement so that I don't have to waste time citing every piece of common knowledge, or things that you can find in most history books on Korea.




Errant108 said:


> Also note that Subak did not mean grappling, but rather hand striking.


 
Please note that I did not say Subak meant grappling. I was referring the hand-to-hand combat in that sentence, while some experts do believe that Subak training also included grappling. The meaning of the word Subak was never mentioned, so why are you attempting to correcting it?



Errant108 said:


> The Hwarang were not knights.


 
I can't even begin to list the number of expert citations that use the term knights in connection with the Hwarang youth group (nor am I going to waste my time doing so). Anyone, of any expertise on this subject knows that the term knights as applied here does not have the same connotation as that of a royal knighthood from a sovereign. This is not a Korean term, and they did not use it at that time, however, check the dictionary for multiple meanings: 

knight: A man belonging to an order or brotherhood. A defender, champion, or zealous upholder of a cause or principle (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000).

I would say that the Hwarang youth definitely fit this description - - and then some. 




Errant108 said:


> The earliest reference to Taegyeon is in 1790 and all historical evidence only supports it being practiced during the Yi Dynasty. Do you have sources to site for this information?


 
I didn't specify when they first started kicking each other, nor did I say when it was first recorded in history, so I don't see what you are challenging, nor what you need a citation for.




Errant108 said:


> There is no historical basis for the claim that Korean martial arts were outlawed during the Japanese occupation. No document has ever been uncovered in Japan or Korea stating that they were outlawed.


 
You know, Errant, I have often wondered this myself, and I would love to see any official document that was printed and distributed during the occupation that specifically states the outlawing of native Korean Martial Art. However, this is really not the point here. I am not going to waste my time linking numerous sources and citations of experts and personal accounts of those who lived through the occupation and stated that the native Martial Art was banned. I am not avoiding providing citations where needed, but you seem to be blanketly contradicting everything I say, without actually proving that I said anything wrong. You can do your own homework on this, as it is stated over and over by survivors of the occupation. 

One who undergoes the reality of an occupying force in their country does not need a written document or decree to verify that they are not permitted to do something. If Japanese soldiers and officials told them they could not teach or practice their own Martial Art, then they didn't do it. This personal experience has been repeated by many, thus documentation is just for your own personal confirmation, and might not even exist. Continue the search for proof, if you wish, but I find it presumptuous to deny it occurred simply because there no written decree can be found decades later.




Errant108 said:


> Who taught subak? It never made it out of the Samguk Shidae and there are no sources providing any information as to what it actually entailed.


 
http://www.napataekwondo.com/tkdhistory/

*The Japanese colonial government, using military force, banned all cultural activities, including team sports and the practice of martial arts. In an attempt to destroy the Korean identity, the Japanese banned the teaching of the Korean language in schools and attempted to change Korean family names. Some martial arts instructors continued to practice their skills in secrecy, and in this way the Korean martial arts were kept alive. One man in particular, Master Song Duk Ki, learned Subak during the later part of the Joseon dynasty from Master Yim Ho, and continued to teach during the Japanese occupation. *

http://www.taekkyon.or.kr/en/

*During the Japanese colonial period, Taekkyon has been banned and therefore has almost vanished. Fortunately one old-man called Song Duk-Ki(1893~1987) did survive and could hand it down to us.*

I don't know if there are others who knew Subak before the occupation, or taught if after, or who they learned if from throughout history, but it does not take a rocket scientist to know that if unarmed hand-to-hand combat existed in Korea's history, and we teach unarmed self-defense today, that we can call it Subak because that is what Subak means.




Errant108 said:


> Much of the "survivors" have had their accounts discredited by Korean scholars, including professors in Taegwondo.


 
Vague references. Please tell me who has been discredited by whom, and what is the evidence of such conclusions. What was said by the survivor that was alleged to be a lie, and what proof was used to discredit them?



Errant108 said:


> This is not common knowledge. This is myth.


 
If you are going to call something a myth, or call someone a liar, please provide the specifics of your proof, and don't tell me the burden of proof is on me. Everything I said has been said by experts before, and is considered common knowledge among Korean Martial Artists, whether you agree with it or not. If you disagree, prove it wrong.



Errant108 said:


> My art is not Taegwondo, and I challenge anyone who says so.


 
Errant, I never said your art was Taegwondo, but if you are not studying Taekwondo, then why are you arguing the definition or interpretation of what Taekwondo is or is not. My statement indicated a truth that many do not grasp because they are focused on a specific curriculum, technical content, and believe in labeling an art as a style with organizational ties and registered trademark names.

The sky and the land belong to all of us, but we mark off territories. If a river runs through the country of Korea, it is Korea's river, even if the water flows from outside the country. They have the right to name that river anything they want. The history of Korean Martial Art belongs to the nation. They have a right to name it whatever they want.

If you or any organization wants to claim a special curriculum as being your unique style and call it something else, that's up to you, but the term Taekwondo was, and is a new name for all of Korea's ancient Martial Art skills and philosophies, whether you like it or not.


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## Last Fearner (Mar 1, 2008)

Ninjamom said:


> SUMMARY SO FAR:
> 
> *I. PART ONE: There is NO Historical Evidence or Indication that ANY of these elements of Taekwondo are related to ANY ancient Korean martial practices*:
> 
> ...


 
Ninjamom, I agree with everyone else that this is one of the best posts on this subject, and you are exactly right that there are two different things being discussed. This is the distinction that I attempt to make so that everyone does not accept one perspective as the only perspective. My perspective is that there is more than one legitimate perspective.


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## Tez3 (Mar 1, 2008)

Just a very small point but while we are discussing historical accuracy can I just remind you that Lord Baden Powell started the Boy Scout movement in *Great Britain (or the United Kingdom)* not just England. I'm not hijacking the thread to give you a long expanation of why non Brits manage to upset us by getting our nationalities wrong but in the light of this particular discussion on historical accuracy I thought I'd point it out...again.
And in the interests of accuracy why are you all writing Korea instead of the more correct and I believe preferred Corea?


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## exile (Mar 1, 2008)

Last Fearner said:


> If you are going to call something a myth, or call someone a liar, please provide the specifics of your proof, and don't tell me the burden of proof is _on me. Everything I said has been said by experts before, and is considered common knowledge among Korean Martial Artists, whether you agree with it or not. If you disagree, prove it wrong.
> _




If you had actually _ read _any of the critical histories of Taekyon, LF, including the work of Young, Henning and Capener, instead of ignoring the actual documentation they possess in favor of nasty insinuations about such historians based, so far as I can see, on nothing, you'd realize that that the specifics have already been provided in many threads&#8212;_including the words of Song Duk Ki himself_&#8212;to show that Taekyon has nothing whatever to do with TKD beyond the fact that legs were involved in both activities. I've had a rather hectic time of it lately here, but since you persist in ignoring the historical evidence (which you imply you've read, but whose import you refuse to confront so totally that I think it's a safer bet that you haven't) I'm going to have to reassemble some of the material I've already posted, including not just Song Duk Ki's testimony but the comments by Lee Yong-Bak, Chairman of the Korean Taekyon Research Association, one of the handful of living Koreans who actually learned Taekyon from Song Duk Ki and probably the outstanding Korean expert on Taekyon&#8212;and yes, we'll also take a look, I think, at what LYB and other Taekyon proponents and historical researchers say about the existence of General Choi's supposedly famous instructor 'Han Il dong'.  The fact is that Errant's comments are right on target and you have not even begun to meet the burden of proof that you need to to establish the relevance of Taekyon itself for _any_ aspect of the TKD technique set at any point in its history. And one of the reasons why this discussion cannot seem to get beyond this point is that you consistently refuse to address the documentary history, instead relying on an authority over historical matters you have not earned; rather, you insist that matters of historical fact are somehow revealed to you (in a manner that escapes, and apparently does not require, external verification to carry conviction).  



			
				Last Fearner said:
			
		

> because they lack an advanced understanding of the art of Taekwondo, and that I believe the advanced understanding comes to an individual only after decades of training and guidance from an instructor who has attained an enlightened mind, yet it might never come to an individual.



But we are not talking about 'understanding' the art of Taekwondo. We are talking about unraveling the _history_ of the art. Expertise in the use of the gladius does not give you knowledge of Roman military history. Expertise in the use of the katana does not mean that your opinion on the development of samurai budo during the Castle Era carries any weight on its own. Being a gifted painter does not give you the slightest insight into the way Picasso's use of the bull icon in his paintings evolved. In each of these cases, there are two different things involved. And you consistently seek to conflate them.


Finally, just as in the case with me, Steve Capener, the MA historians I've cited, and various others who have challenged your picture of the historical development of the KMAs and have provided detailed arguments and evidence that you refuse to confront, you seek both to change the content of the argument with Errant and dismiss the relevance of his knowlege by unfounded, derogatory implications:



			
				Last Fearner said:
			
		

> You would love to &#8220;read&#8221; about it. Learning the philosophies, and techniques of Taekwondo does not come from books, and my insights into this art did not come from a conversation over the internet.



&#8212;implying, of course that the issue is the 'philosophy and techniques' of TKD, rather than its history (and therefore that the relevant content of Errant's comments come from 'conversation over the internet'&#8212;whereas they appear to be founded on the same historical studies, with fully public sources, documentation and results, that mine are). Errant is challenging you on the historical evidence. He is not talking about whatever personal views of the philosophy of the art you have, any more than, say, Manuel Adrogué, a very competent historical scholar specializing in the _Muyi Dobo Tong Ji_, who has written probably the best analysis of its history and content extant in his 2003 _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_, does not try to back up his opinion by appealing to some special, priviledged 'understanding' he acquired in the course of earning his fifth dan in TKD; rather, Adrogué appeals to philological evidence of a very detailed kind to document his demonstration the the MDTJ provides no support in the least for any 'indigenous' ancient KMA, or any preview of 'modern' Taekyon, or TKD, or anything at all supporting 'ancient' indigenous MAs. He understands that when history is the issue, what counts is historical evidence, and all the appeal to special 'understanding' of TKD is, in that domain, irrelevant. What on earth does one's philosophy, or technical experties, or 'understanding' of TKD have to do with the empirical, strictly historical issue of whether the TKD roundhouse or rear-leg side kick came into TKD's technique set on the basis of a line of transmission going back to the last practitioners of Taekyon in the early middle 20th century?? None, any more than a complete native speaker competence in the Basque language, and a certain perspective on its literary culture,  would give you the slightest basis for a sound judgment about whether Basque is ultimately related to the languages of the Caucasus. 

Later on today, I'll post the assembled documentation on Taekyon I've promised, even though it shouldn't be necessary at this point. And then, perhaps,  it will be useful to review the question of what is involved when practitioners claim that their particular 'understanding' of their MA, or of a phrase like 'martial art(ist)', or anything else, has some universal truth that trumps others' understanding, without either specifying the content of that understanding or explaining clearly just why any detached, objective observer would find reason to agree with that claim.


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## exile (Mar 2, 2008)

OK, so now, let's get specific. Last Fearner responded to a post of Errant's in which the latter challenged pretty much every assertion that LF had made about TKD history, identifying these as myths, and here is LF's response:



			
				Last Fearner said:
			
		

> If you are going to call something a myth, or call someone a liar, please provide the specifics of your proof, and don't tell me the burden of proof is on me. Everything I said has been said by experts before, and is considered common knowledge among Korean Martial Artists, whether you agree with it or not. If you disagree, prove it wrong.



In fact, as I indicated in my previous post, the proof that LF asks for has already been pointed out, many times, on MT, in many threads, and LF has never addressed it (in what follows, all references, unless separately provided, are given here). LF doesn't identify what 'experts' he's talking about who've 'said everything [he's] said', but the experts that have actually published detailed, documented surveys of the history of Taekyon and its relationship to TKD have agreed with _nothing_ that LF has said. And among those experts are Song Duk-ki, the man named a Human Cultural Asset by the Korean government in 1987 for preserving, on his own, the 20th century link to the 19th century foot-fighting game taekkyon. Song Duk Ki was recognized in his lifetime as the undisputed master and authority on Taekyon, and what did he have to say about it that bears on LF's completely unsupported assertion that 



			
				Last Fearner said:
			
		

> Tae kyeon existed as a kicking art in Korea's past, belonged to the country of Korea, and was renamed Taekwondo, by the Korean government, as it began a new chapter in history.



?? Well, as Errant noted, you have to know Korean to find out, because Song Duk Ki published a book _in Korean_, _Jeon tong mu sul tae kyon_ (1983: Seo Rim Mun Hwa Sa)which, while LF apparently has not read (reading it would require a knowledge of Korean), the historian and journalist Robert Young, and the KMA researcher, WTF coach and Korean university professor Steven Capener have both read&#8212;one of the virtues of the fluency in Korean that Errant was referring to, you see&#8212;and this is what SDK had to say:


 Taekyon was never thought of as anything other than a game, which was played as a gambling activity on a regular basis (if LF wishes to verify this statement, he can check up on p.8 of the original Korean text);
 it was played exclusively around Seoul (same page);
 as of 1958, _there were exactly three other serious taekyon practitioners in Korea_ besides SDK, one of whom, his own teacher, was in his late 80s at least at that point and largely inactive (check out p. 21 for SDK's assssment of the situation; he was unaware of the third one, apparently).

(Capener 1995, Young 1993). SDK's book noted that there had been classes, taught on an informal basis, that had been taught by a few 19th century figures, to a few students (SDK's teacher had taught taekyon to a grand total of _10 students_ since 1880, and apart from SDK, none of these were active by the time of the famous demonstration for Syngman Rhee in 1958. As Capener points out, Yi Yong Bok's history of Taekyon, published in 1995 and making heavy use of interview material with SDK, reports the latter's lament that, as Capener puts it, 'in spite of searching in "100 directions", he was unable to locate even one person versed in t'aekkyon with whom he could demonstrate.' As Capener goes on to note trenchantly, '[And this] in spite of hundreds of t'aegwondo schools throughout the country', which had grown up in what was, as SDK himself points out, an essentially complete vacuum so far as knowledge of taekkyon was concerned.

But there's more. Capener notes that 'both t'aekkyon and p'yon ssaum [an organized rock-fighting game played between two village teams] are listed in a book called _Korean Games_ written in 1895 by an American scholar named Stuart Culin who describes t'aekkyon as a game in which the object is to kick the opponent's leg out from under him or catch the opponent's kick and thrown him to the ground. _He goes on to say that the game was also played in Japan_' (my emphasis; ethnographies of Siberian and Inuit aboriginal groups report similar kinds of leg-wrestling/kicking/unbalancing games).  And that point is underscored by the comment of Lee Yong-bok, who studied Taekyon with SDK and is regarded as his senior student, and who is the Chairman of the Tae Kyon Research Association, in a 1992 interview with Robert Young, that 'Tae kyon has traditionally emphasized stepping and stamping techniques directed at the opponent's lower legs and feet'. The reality then&#8212;as opposed to the wishful thinking that the above quotation from Last Fearner expresses&#8212;is that by the accounts of the people who actually practiced taekkyon and maintained it in a kind of 'museum' of folk practice through the 20th century, there was essentially no taekkyon activity going on, or being taught, at the time when the Kwan founders came home and started teaching the Japanese karate they had learned in Tokyo and elsewhere; that the taekkyon that SKD and the two or three other taekkyon practitioners alive at the time had learned was, by their own account, nothing but a folk game; and that the leg tactics of that game had nothing at all to do with the combat use of the feet in TKD (a point often echoed by those who have actually seen taekkyon demonstrated, e.g., Dave Beck, who notes here that 'from the examples I've seen most of the techniques are sweeps, reaps, kicks to unbalance, and throat strikes. The techniques differ from those in TKD.' But don't take _his_ word for it; apart from Lee Yong-bok, another Taekyon Research Association member, Chung Kyeong-hwa, informed Robert Young, in a recorded interview in 1990, that he and other `experts deny that taekwondo has incorporated any taekyon techniques but are reluctant to publically say so in Korea because of the negative repurcussion of mud-slinging.' (Young, 1993))  

So when LF says to Terry, 



			
				Last Fearner said:
			
		

> We, as Taekwondoists, don't have to duplicate the exact method of stomping, kicking, or knocking down of our opponents in the same way that early Tae Kyeon fighters did centuries ago in order to retain the concept of kicking as a primary method of self defense. Techniques evolve, and methodology is updated, but the core concept of Korea's National Martial Art of &#8220;Taekwondo&#8221; does, in fact, come from its predecessor, Tae Kyeon, even if modern versions do not appear to apply the kicks in the same way.



just what is he talking about? Taekkyon 'fighters'?? 'Centuries ago'? Contestants in village games (SDK's description, remember!) are heroic knightly 'fighters'?? And forget about 'centuries ago';  even the most _recent_ forms of Taekkyon (whose connections with anything earlier are a closed book to LF, and everyone else, because there are no records of just what the original game was like) have, according to actual Taekkyon practitioners, no connections to the recognizably Shotokan/Shudokan techs of the original Kwans. (Bear in mind that LF, who chastises Errant for making statements based on a putative reading-knowledge-only of TKD, has been making all kinds of statements about a physical technique set that, so far as one can judge from his own previous statements, he has no practical knowledge of, certainly nothing to rival the leaders of the the current Taekyon group that includes the very small number of people SDK ever taught. Whose opinion has any weight at all here&#8212;SDK and his chief student, or a westerner born long after they were, who was nowhere at all during the events in question, has no firsthand knowledge of _any_ of this, and does not even seem to be aware that SDK himself wrote a memoir making all these points clear, along lines which contradict pretty much everything that native-born American has been saying about Taekyon?? You see, this is game two can play at... :wink1. Or again: TKD came from Taekyon because they both involve kicking?? So does Long Fist Chuan Fa, with its full extension kicks, that is the empty hand art represented in the _Muye Dobu Ton Ji_, as well as the jujitsu that was taught in Korea since the early days of the Occupation. As Simon O'Neil points out, all we can infer from the prevalence in kicking in TKD is that Koreans like to kick. This is the basis for portentous historical claims of technical continuity over millenia?? Or take this bit:  'Techniques evolve and methodology is updated??' What is this supposed to mean? The current practitioners of taekkyon, as noted above, identify TKD as a _completely different technique set from theirs_, one that grew up and took hold in Korea at a time&#8212;to repeat, as apparently necessary&#8212;when the number of practicing 'Taekyon fighters'&#8212;was effectively nil, and when Song Duk Ki himself insists, in his own book on taekkyon, that the activity was a competitive game, not a martial art, fighting system or anything else of the kind. So far as I can see, the foregoing paragraph, making vague assertions as though there were some definite content, with no support or even clear meaning, is just the sort of thing that I was referring to when I referred to one of LF's previous posts as _bluff_: a confident statement offered as though it were strongly supported, but without any support given, or clear content that could interact with facts in any kind of interesting way.  

Now let's come back to General Choi, and LF's comment to Errant that



			
				Last Fearner said:
			
		

> Regardless of who says it, one must provide proof that individuals such as General Choi had no native Martial Art training as a youth, unless you intend to call reputable people liars based on your doubts.



This, it should be noted, is said about the guy who used his authority in the Korean military to strongarm leading members of rival kwans into switching sides and joining the Oh Do Kwan or face a distinctly hazardous posting at the DMZ, as vs. the soft berth he offered them if they, um, _cooperated_ (see a more detailed description of how the General operated here (Gm. Kim Pyung-Soo was chief instructor of the Chong-Moo Kwan in the late 1950s); and who also, as Stuart Anslow noted in his recent book on the Ch'ang Hon hyungs, flagrantly contradicted himself in print&#8212;three separate interviews in _Combat_ magazine over three decades&#8212;about the role of Shotokan karate in the formations of TKD, starting out with the assertion that it had been indispensible and concluding, in his last interview, that TKD and karate had essentially nothing to do with each other. And we're supposed to find it unthinkable that the General might have made up his taekyon training?? Especially when you consider that no one has been able to confirm the existence of the alleged 'famous' calligraphy teacher and taekyon practitioner Han Il-dong that Gen. Choi claimed had taught him taekkyon? Lee Yong-bok and Chung Kyeong-hwa of the Taekyon Research Association both told Robert Young, in his recorded interviews with them in 1990, that they had consulted the teaching records of the three instructors who had offered classes in taekkyon and found no one of that name on any of the lists, or any record of his existence,  and he was unknown to any of the handful of surviving 20th century teachers linking the then-current taekkyon to the 19th century foot game. So yes, there is _plenty_ of reason to be skeptical that such a person existed&#8212;_especially_ because, as Capener pointedly notes, Song Duk-ki and others identified Taekkyon as entirely Seoul-based, whereas Han Il-dong supposedly learned and taught taekkyon in Hamgyongdo province, a place where there is no record of taekkyon ever having been played. Finally, there _is_ that little problem with Gen. Choi's story&#8212;you know, the point that Gm. Kim Pyung-soo made in his _Black Belt_ interview with our own Robert McLain, the bit where he says that

_In the early days [General Choi] was teaching the same karate forms as the other kwans, such as Pyung Ahn, Bassai Tae, Kon Sang Kun, etc. Then in the late 1950&#8217;s he came up with a story about martial arts links to Korguryo dynasty, Silla Dynasty, 2000 years of tradition, etc. He created new forms and gave each form a name related to something in Korean history, such as a scholar&#8217;s name or a famous Korean patriot&#8217;s name. He called his system, &#8220;Taekwondo.&#8221; He was trying to get away from the connection to the Japanese - trying to make something patriotic. He wanted everyone to follow this new line and give up their previous training._​
(And General Choi is not alone in this practice; as we now know, after a lifetime of claiming that the Pyang-Ahn hyungs were completely independent of anything Japanese, and that they had originated in China where he had learned them, Hwang Ki in his last book admitted that he had learned them from... Japanese karate manuals he found in Korea! See John Hancock's memoir here for the whole (or at least part of the) unappetizing story. Why on earth should we be surprised when we find as much evidence as we have in the case of Gen. Choi that people fabricated stories out of whole cloth to support their ambitions and undermine their opponents? These people were plaster _saints??_)

So now: exactly which 'experts' have confirmed, with detailed evidence, LF's version of the story, as he claims they do? _Who, exactly??_ I've named my sources, and identified the basis for their sources and their claims to knowledge. 'Common knowledge?' This is actually kind of funny, because in connection with an earlier post of mine on the importance of the fact that the historical sources I cite have mostly appeared in peer-reviewed venues, LF comments dismissively that 



			
				Last Fearner said:
			
		

> Think about it - - &#8220;The Earth is flat&#8221; was peer-reviewed by other experts. &#8220;Blood Letting&#8221; to cure diseases was &#8220;peer-reviewed&#8221; by fellow experts in the medical field. Virtually everything we know today, replaced someone's &#8220;peer-reviewed&#8221; incorrect knowledge of the past.



To anyone who knows anything about the history of academic publishing, this comment is so absurdly off-base that it's actually funny. The first peer-reviewed journal ever was a medical journal, _Medical Essays and Observations_, published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (see Benos et al., _Advances in Physiology Education_, 31.145&#8211;152, 2007), 200 years after the Copernican revolution, and you can bet the farm that they did not publish any peer reviewed article to the effect that the earth was flat. And _MEO_ was a unique publication for generations; scientific publishing did not adapt the peer-review system on a wide scale until the early 20th century. What `The Earth is flat' reflected was not peer reviewed research, but exactly that 'common knowledge' that LF seems to believe is a substitute for critical examination of the facts.

The fact is, neither LF nor anyone else possesses a time machine, and therefore his assertions about what 'ancient Korean martial arts' consisted of has not even the smallest basis in fact, _because there are no records of those arts_. The earliest encyclopædic compendium of Korean MAs, the _Muye Dobu Ton Ji_, has been shown conclusively to consist almost entirely of a translation of a 250 year earlier Chinese military manual, _The New Book of Effective Discipline_, written by a Han general (as Henning (2000) and Adrogué (2003) could have told him), and the MDTJ's small chapter on empty-hand techniques is, unsurprisingly, almost certainly Long Fist chuan fa, just as the weapons techs reflect Chinese military practice (apart from a small appendix on Japanese sword techs). Assertions that TKD is the descendent of 'ancient' Korean techs have no support, run aground on the factual evidence we do possess, and are, ultimately, recyled myth, just as Errant asserts.

This is just a very small sample of the full range of evidence, focusing just on the issue of taekkyon. There is much more to be said about the real history of TKD, vs. the kind of nationalist mythmongering that Gen. Choi pioneered in the post-Korean War era, with undocumented and undocumentable references to military practice in the Three Kingdoms era, the Hwarang and all sorts of other stuff about which nothing whatever can be asserted plausible, because there is no evidence at all that sheds any light on unarmed martial combat from that era: no records, no documents, no manuals, not even crude pictures.  But I think what I've noted above is representative of the issues, and gives a good idea of why LF's responses to Errant are completely inadequate to shift the burden of proof that he indeed does bear, and persistently refuses to meet by providing actual _evidence_ for his position. The real problem with LF's posts, ultimately, is reflected in the following passage, in which LF refers to the academic credentials of my sources:



			
				Last Fearner said:
			
		

> While I acknowledge the advanced education of these historians, researchers, and experts of yours, I also note that you present, as a part of their credentials, their &#8220;martial&#8221; experience. You list their ranks as evidence of their expertise and qualifications to define Taekwondo and tell the world what its origin is, however as *a 6th Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo, with more than 40 years experience myself, I am less impressed than you by credentials of 2nd, 3rd and 4th dans with 20 years or less experience in the Martial Art.*



Really? Well, then I suppose that compared with the opinions of Gm. Kim Byung Soo and Gm. Sihak Henry Cho, both of whom are Korean 9th Dans with well over a century of MA experience between them, both of whom were present at the beginning of the Kwan era and who saw that history firsthand, and both of whom dismiss the role of taekyon in the formation of TKD as nationalist mythology, LF's own opinion is pretty marginal, eh? By his own logic, no? But in fact, that logic itself has no credibility, because it confuses technical knowledge of an activity with knowledge of the history of that activity. Getting a dan rank does not give you the slightest authority in terms of the history of your art, any more than winning the Tchaikowsky Competition gives the winner a knowledge of the evolution of the piano. Rank in Taekwondo is rank in Taekwondo; it does not give you the language and historical research skills, or the factual base, necessary to carry out the difficult and exacting craft of historical research. LF has no more authority in that respect than anyone else who has not done the work that the people I cite have done, and made public; when it comes to historical analysis, those people are the 9th dans and LF is the white belt. Provide facts, provide evidence, provide documentation; those are what count, not your belt or dan rank, when it's a question of historical accuracy. And if you _can't _do that, don't pretend you _can_.


----------



## SageGhost83 (Mar 2, 2008)

You see folks, what is going on here is pretty simple. One individual (LF) decided to pick a "fight" with another individual (exile) and he got his behind handed to him. So now, that individual is posturing and trying to compensate by leveling snide comments at yet another individual (errant). Rather than just admitting that he was mistaken, he just keeps digging his shoes deeper and deeper into the pile of dog excrement that he willingly stepped into in the first place. In the realm of academia and history, one's belt rank in a martial art doesn't mean squat. Either you have the evidence and documentation to back up your claims or you are just spewing hogwash. Some people are tired of chasing fantasies and they want the truth, not something that is just there to make them feel better at night. It is pretty clear to see who has presented the most verifiable truth, and it is pretty clear to see who keeps arguing in favor of a fantasy in the hopes that doing so will make it come true when it really won't. Gentlemen, I believe that the horse has learned its lesson by now. No reason to continue beating it. Unless you think that the horse is a magical horse even though it has been proven to be a regular horse and you believe that beating it enough times will somehow make it a magical horse even though there is no such thing as a magical horse :wink2:.


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## rmclain (Mar 2, 2008)

I would like to "throw in" that Grandmaster Kim Byung-soo was a personal friend of Song Duk Ki in Korea.  Their photo, taken at Kyong Bok Palace, can be found in a museum in Seoul and was used at one of the Olympics (I forget which one).  Kim Pyung-soo was also instrumental in getting Song Duk Ki recognized as a cultural asset for Korea.  Here are some photos:

This photo was used at the Olympics: http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/songsoo.html

Some misc photos: http://www.kimsookarate.com/gallery-old-days/song-duk-ki.html

R. McLain


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## Ninjamom (Mar 2, 2008)

I notice GM Son Duk Ki's uniform follows closer to the traditional hanbok than the gi.

Thanks for the pics, Robert!

ADDED ON EDIT: I had heard that Subak was originally a game as well (or had evolved into such by the 1800's).  Anyone have any more information on this pro/con?


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## SageGhost83 (Mar 2, 2008)

Ninjamom said:


> I notice GM Son Duk Ki's uniform follows closer to the traditional hanbok than the gi.
> 
> Thanks for the pics, Robert!
> 
> ADDED ON EDIT: I had heard that Subak was originally a game as well (or had evolved into such by the 1800's). Anyone have any more information on this pro/con?


 
Interesting, I have heard that Subak was a game in the same vein as Taekkyon, too. I have also heard that it was a generic name like "hand-to-hand combat" or something. So many stories out there concerning Subak, until we get the hard evidence, who knows?


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## exile (Mar 3, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> Interesting, I have heard that Subak was a game in the same vein as Taekkyon, too.* I have also heard that it was a generic name like "hand-to-hand combat" or something. *So many stories out there concerning Subak, until we get the hard evidence, who knows?



That's the position of Marc Tedeschi, in his encyclopædic _Taekwondo: Traditions&#8211;Philosophy&#8211;Technique_ (Weatherhill: 2004, p. 27), noting that in the earliest era, 

_Korean martial arts did not possess a single umbrella-name. Instead, it is believed that specific skills were grouped into technique areas, which were labelled using generic terms. Some of these terms are:

...
Su Bak (punching and butting)
...

Note that these are not the names of specific martial arts styles or systems, although they are often used incorrectly in this context._​
I'm not 100% convinced by Tedeschi's grouping translations, but it's food for a lot of thought. Etymologically, subak itself appears to derive directly from Chinese; the source, Chinese _shoubo/shoupai_ is a generic term meaning _boxing_; it doesn't&#8212;as I've heard in some notably uninformed comments somewhere or other&#8212;mean unarmed combat generally (wrestling had a completely different name, _kakjo_, in Korean). Early Korean combat terms often are simply loans from Chinese (e.g., as Chinese _chuan fa_ was borrowed into Korean as _kwan bop_; and no, Chinese did not borrow vocabulary from its own tribute states, of which Korea was merely one of many, at that time). It seems clear that the emphasis in subak was on strictly boxing, hand-striking techniques; as Henning notes in 'Traditional Korean Martial Arts' (_Journal of Asian Martial Arts_ 9.1, p.10),

_Although there are no descriptive Korean references to the martial arts prior to the Koryo History... its citations provide evidence that the Koreans had maintained a strict distinction between wrestling and boxing in the military_​
where the boxing in question was just shoubai ---> subak. Note that this 'earliest descriptive reference' was published in 1451. There were no earlier records that mention the KMAs, period.

The point about subak as a sport is interesting; Henning notes further that the _Veritable Records of the Yi Dynasty_, also published in the fifteenth century, mention a 'military sport _subak_... probably akin to boxing' (p.10).  And, chiming in with SageGhost's speculation, Henning mentions that 

_Outside the military, as in China, boxing was practiced by the common folk on festive occasions. For example, competitive boxing bouts were held in the seventh month... in Unjin County, near the border of North Cholla and South Chungchong Provinces
_​

(p. 11). Given that Henning's work establishes that subak was simply the Korean loan form from Chinese for boxing, this passage makes it very clear that subak was a competitive folk sport as well as a military sport.


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## SageGhost83 (Mar 3, 2008)

exile said:


> That's the position of Marc Tedeschi, in his encyclopædic _Taekwondo: TraditionsPhilosophyTechnique_ (Weatherhill: 2004, p. 27), noting that in the earliest era,
> 
> _Korean martial arts did not possess a single umbrella-name. Instead, it is believed that specific skills were grouped into technique areas, which were labelled using generic terms. Some of these terms are:_​
> 
> ...


 
Ok, that's where I heard it. Thanks for clearing that up for me, Exile. You are the best!


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## Last Fearner (Mar 9, 2008)

Edit:

On second thought....

Never mind!

I've ticked too many people off with some of my posts lately, so I'm just going to leave it alone!

Sorry for the offense to Bob, Shesula, Exile, the staff at MT, and others

Bye all!


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## Last Fearner (Mar 9, 2008)

Exile, I won't debate the issue further, becase you and I just get too intense about what we believe, and I have offended too many here already.  I think we are both right from different perspectives, but I am not as skilled as some in conveying the proper tone as I do in person.  Anyhow here is a link as to why I am not as confident in peer-reviewed material as you are.

http://advan.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/31/2/145

Respects, and take care
Chief Master D.J. Eisenhart


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## exile (Mar 9, 2008)

Last Fearner said:


> At that times people learned techniques from their experiences of fighting against the beasts whose defensive and offensive motions were also the subject of analysis. It is believed that this was exactly the true grounding of today's Taekwondo. Whose names have descended from "subak","Taekkyon", "takkyon" and so on.&#8221;
> 
> According to the scholars of history, a man of virtue who never recoils from a fighting means the word "sonbae", which is a member of the warrior's corps. Later a history book on the old Chosun dynasty described the lift of Koguryo days, saying; "people gathered on march 10 every year at a site of ritual, where they enjoyed a sword dance, archery, subak(taekyon) contests and so on" , implying that subak(Taekwondo) was one of the popular events for the ritual in the Koguryo days. It also said "sonbaes lived in groups, learning history and literary arts at home and going out to construct roads and fortresses for the benefits of society, always devoting themselves to the nations.&#8221;



A 'history book' is cited, no name provided, no information which would allow any verification, with subak mentioned, and '(taekyon)' inserted in parentheses&#8212;without any identification of the relationship between that insertion and any textual source that this unnamed 'history book' is basing its claims on??  What is this 'history book', who is the author, what is the date, and whose interpolation is the name taekyon at that point in the text? Is it in the book? An editorial comment by the KKW publicist who wrote the cited piece? _Who knows?_ And in either case, what is the KKW's story based on? The fact that a given source that you cite says _X_ is not in itself any better evidence than you yourself citing it, if neither you _nor_ your source can provide the evidence base. Here, one person is citing someing written by another person, who in turn is appealing to something allegedly written by someone else... and at no point do we actually have an evidence, based on either material culture, or earlier documentation based on the firsthand experience of someone who was eminently in a position to know, letters, or memoirs of participants in the events under consideration, or... _any_ of the primary materials of well-supported history...

Instead, what we have is an unnamed, unattributed, undated 'history book', with not a single relevant fact in the cited passage, referred to by a Korean government agency that, in one incarnation or another, has been pushing an 'ancient Korean' source of TKD for most of the past forty years.  And this is _evidence?_. What is the book, when was it written, what are its documentary sources? I've cited the records that people who aren't pushing a party line rely on to establish their conclusions: named, dated sources and documents, old or modern. An allusion to an apparently anonymous 'history book' doesn't count as evidence.

Anyone who wants to establish that taekyon, or any other putatively ancient activity, is linked to Taekwondo in any way has to do the following in order to make the case:

(i) provide actual evidence of the ancientness of the activity;

(ii) document that it had _some_ kind of martial content;

(iii) show that it was indeed transmitted over the time period in question;

(iv) show that it was actually learned by any of the people who founded the first modern KMA schools in Korea, the Kwans; and

(v) show that any of the techniques that were part of this supposedly ancient art (as per (ii)) were actually incorporated in the technique set of TKD.

And this unattributed allusion from the nerve center of the Korean 'party line' on its 'ancient warrior art' is supposed to even _begin_ to satisfy (i)&#8212;(iv)??



Last Fearner said:


> You see, SageGhost - I am not standing alone on this issue. There are many top level expert authorities who hold the same view as I do, and for good reason.



_Many_?? An unsupported claim by the KKW is 'many'? And the KKW is an 'expert authority'? Without a single piece of actual _historical_ documentation for its claims? That's what we're supposed to take seriously, when not one of the points in (i)&#8212;(v) has even begun to be addressed? 

_This_ is supposed to be an argument on behalf of 'ancient taekyon' as an influence on modern TKD??


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## exile (Mar 9, 2008)

Last Fearner said:


> Exile, I won't debate the issue further, becase you and I just get too intense about what we believe, and I have offended too many here already.  I think we are both right from different perspectives, but I am not as skilled as some in conveying the proper tone as I do in person.  Anyhow here is a link as to why I am not as confident in peer-reviewed material as you are.
> 
> http://advan.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/31/2/145
> 
> ...



But look, _of course_ peer review is no guarantee of infallibility&#8212;who could believe it was? In the same way that vaccination against flu is no guarantee that you won't get flu, or&#8212;maybe a better analogy&#8212;a screening test for a particular cancer does not guarantee that you don't have that type of cancer. The point is not that peer-review guarantees truth, but that it minimizes the chance of fallacy, misattribution, empirical errors and so on. 

I spend many hours every academic year as a referee for a number of major publications in my own field. And most of my colleagues do as well. Our purpose in doing so is to try to make sure that what goes 'on the record'  is as well-supported as it can be. But a much greater amount of stuff than I'd like that I think is dead wrong, or at least very questionable, still gets published. No process can guarantee truth, but peer review minimizes the chance that flagrant error will creep into the final product. Every time I read something in a top-level journal that I think has serious problems, my response is, just picture what it would be like without the vetting that peer review provides. 

Now the people who have written on the subject, many of them both historical scholars and well-trained MAs with advanced rank (so please, let's not have any of this 'they may know history but they don't know TKD' kind of dismissal; Manuel Adrogué, who is has one of the strongest positions on the whole issue, is a fifth-dan TKD under a Korean Gm., and I very much doubt his next dan promotion will cause him to embrace a Three Kingdoms lineage for TKD) have produced translations of crucial documents&#8212;of which there are in fact very few bearing on the issue; there are, e.g., literally _no_ actual _descriptions_ of any KMA technical content, what people are actually doing, until the 14th century&#8212;and identified key players and ethnographic and historical sources contemporary with the various practices they refer to, as well as reviewing Chinese and Japanese sources, in the original language of these records, and bringing them to bear on the Korean-internal evidence. And they have professional knowledge of the background history of the Asian societies and cultures to which the MAs belong. Does this guarantee that they are correct? How could it _guarantee_ that, and who ever said it did?? What it does guarantee is that every submission is held up to scrutiny by a group of people who have professional competence in the area and are&#8212;if I and my colleagues are typical, which we are&#8212;happy to explain in detail just where the submission has gone wrong, why so-and-so is ignoring a crucial bit of evidence that invalidates his or her assumption in arguing such and such a point, and so on. Factual claims that are unsupported by demonstrable evidence proportional to the strength of those claims are red-circled and nixed: if you can't provide a ground of empirical support, you don't get the make the claim. That's what distinguishes scholarly history from, say, the approved Korean government line on the history of TKD.  The submission will be corrected or revised to answer the objections raised; if that can't be done, the submission simply doesn't appear. (Editors are also charged with the task of correcting for biased refereeing, and the ones who last in their jobs do that task very well, so checks and balances are in place in the established journals which academic institutions agree are the 'A' list publications in each field, the ones that are make-or-break for tenure and promotion, in the normal course of things.) What does appear in print has been given a major acid test (based on the facts and reasoning presented, with the reputation or academic rank or whatever playing no role in the double-blind reviewing process), and no significant flaws have emerged. Anyone who wants to dispute the results had better be able to emerge unscathed from a pretty stern going-over at the same level of critical intensity. _That's_ the point of peer review.

Your heart surgery or lung biopsy reflects this same process of peer review in the medical profession (where it started, as I indicated in a prior post). It is state of the art, precisely because what comes out in medical research journals today, surviving the hardest vetting that can be brought to bear, is what determines how operations are conducted and diseases diagnosed tomorrow. Which would you prefer: subjecting yourself to a life/death medical situation where the procedure reflected the state of current knowledge based on peer reviewed research, or a procedure based on unattributed echoes of 'common knowledge' and preconceptions, without any effort to sort sound results from sloppiness, fraudulent data-creation, or the _idées fixes_ of people with agendas to push? The whole point of peer review is that it weeds out as much error as possible; it does not guarantee that no error remains.

The _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_ rejects 90% of its submissions. This in itself doesn't guarantee that the conclusions of the people who've published on this topic in _JAMA_ have to be right; what it does suggest, extremely strongly, is that no challenge to their conclusions that hasn't passed the same level of intense scrutiny can have remotely the same credibility that their conclusions do. That's the whole intention of peer review: get the strongest result possible, and thereby force the level of the argumentation and debate that undergirds all progress in any field to the highest level possible. We know vastly more than we knew a thousand years ago because, repeatedly, ideas competed (in spite of powerful organization's efforts to impose a 'party line' on the field of inquiry) and the ones which tested out best&#8212;which met the canon of evidence better than their competitors&#8212;were adopted as the threshold for further thinking. Peer review has come to play an indispensible part of that process in the contemporary era. In the case of the point at issue, and the historical scholars I've cited in presenting my case, the burden of proof is on anyone who wishes to challenge their conclusions to show support for an alternative story&#8212;based on either new data or a more plausible interpretation of old data (as vs. a series of _what if...?  what if...?_ caveats that themselves have no independent motivation)&#8212;which passes the same level of scrutiny that their work has. So far, nothing that has been presented here on MT, or in the propaganda mills of the Korean TKD directorate or its American branch plants (the USA Taekwondo site I linked to earlier) has even begun to do that.

Anyone who wants to evaluate my last statement can simply go to the sources I've cited, and read them, and compare the work of people like Young, Capener, Burdick, Henning, Adrogué&#8212;and the others I've provided citations for&#8212;to the arguments that have been adduced in support of a generation-to-generation link between ancient KMAs (whose technical content, so far as empty-hand techs we still have no clue about, other than that, as Henning stresses, they were almost certainly heavily CMA-based) and modern TKD. Read the arguments on both sides, compare the strength, authenticity and explicitness of the evidence, the verifiability of the reasoning presented, and make up your own mind.


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## tellner (Mar 9, 2008)

LF, you've been knocked down, touched "to the blood" repeatedly, put in joint locks and neck cranks and not once laid a glove on the guy. It's time to tap before you embarrass yourself any further. You've rejected evidence and logic in favor of "I want to believe" at every turn and have passed up a number of opportunities to say "You may have a point. I'm not a historian." Just let it go.


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## Last Fearner (Mar 10, 2008)

I don't think my previous post in this thread conveyed what I was trying to say, but what I meant was that I have behaved very poorly in several of my posts. I got carried away, and let the heat of the discussion get to me. I am truly sorry for my conduct, which is not characteristic of me in real-life (not that this isn't real-life, but you know what I mean - - I think - I hope!) 

Anyhow, to exile, even though I disagree in part with the application of your conclusions, I should not have responded to you in such a discourteous and disrespectful manner. I most sincerely apologize to you, sir! :asian:

Also, to all other individuals of whom I addressed harshly, and to the reading public and all the members here at Martial Talk, I apologize for my rude behavior, and I am sorry if I offended anyone.

I think my concerns about internet posting was having its greatest negative affect on me, as this dinosaur has not adjusted well to this modern medium. I have chosen to step back for a while so that I can center myself once again, and get my priorities straight. MT did just fine before I came along, and I am sure it will get along just fine without me. :mst:

The staff and members here are all wonderful people with many knowledgeable contributors. This is truly a great site among all others on the internet, and many people come here just to relax and have some fun among friends - - as it should be! 
:cheers:

Take care all!

Respectfully,
Darwin J. Eisenhart


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## SageGhost83 (May 3, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> You see folks, what is going on here is pretty simple. One individual (LF) decided to pick a "fight" with another individual (exile) and he got his behind handed to him. So now, that individual is posturing and trying to compensate by leveling snide comments at yet another individual (errant). Rather than just admitting that he was mistaken, he just keeps digging his shoes deeper and deeper into the pile of dog excrement that he willingly stepped into in the first place. In the realm of academia and history, one's belt rank in a martial art doesn't mean squat. Either you have the evidence and documentation to back up your claims or you are just spewing hogwash. Some people are tired of chasing fantasies and they want the truth, not something that is just there to make them feel better at night. It is pretty clear to see who has presented the most verifiable truth, and it is pretty clear to see who keeps arguing in favor of a fantasy in the hopes that doing so will make it come true when it really won't. Gentlemen, I believe that the horse has learned its lesson by now. No reason to continue beating it. Unless you think that the horse is a magical horse even though it has been proven to be a regular horse and you believe that beating it enough times will somehow make it a magical horse even though there is no such thing as a magical horse :wink2:.


 
It appears that someone thought that I was being rude in the above post, so to whoever decided to send the bad rep without even identifying themselves or at least PM'ing me, I am sorry that I came off as being so rude, it was not my intention at all. I was being tongue n' cheek - note the laughing smiley in the post title. I will definitely mind my words in the future:waah::asian:.


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## Twin Fist (May 3, 2008)

What a long, convoluted story.....

ok, lemme get this right.

As of say 1950, there were pretty much NO native Korean Martial Arts being practiced, right?

TKD was just Shotokan under a new name. To me that is self evident from the kata.......

Now, i have read here on MT that Joo bang Lee's HRD is just In Huk Suh's KSW re-named. Is that right?

where did KSW come from?

Where did Hapkido come from?


my brain hurts now.........


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## exile (May 3, 2008)

Twin Fist said:


> What a long, convoluted story.....
> 
> ok, lemme get this right.
> 
> ...



A good place to start on this is Robert Young's article on taekkyon, which has some very good source material on other KMAs (in the context of an extended demonstration that taekkyon has not contributed materially to the technique set of any of them). The specs are

Young, Robert W. 1993. The history and development of Tae Kyon. _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_ 2.2, pp. 45-69.

Young's article has some problems, and needs to be read in the context of later studies of the issue, but it's a landmark study, based in many cases on recorded inteviews with the leaders of contemporary taekkyon.


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## SageGhost83 (May 3, 2008)

Twin Fist said:


> What a long, convoluted story.....
> 
> ok, lemme get this right.
> 
> ...


 
For the most part, yes. Korean martial arts had gone into decline after the peninsula had been unified. As a matter of fact, the KMA were heavily suppressed by the leaders of Korea and the people considered the practice of Korean martial arts to be a barbaric practice. So a large portion of the old Korean arts went into decline and even vanished entirely. Then there was the Japanese occupation and what amounted to a major cultural genocide - whatever KMA were still around after the purge were systematically eliminated by the new Japanese purge. Very little, if anything, survived from the combination of Korea's own rejection of its martial arts due to a new wave of peace on the peninsula and Japan's cultural genocide of all things Korean. The vast majority of KMA today are derived from Japanese martial arts. TKD/TSD from Japanese Karate, Hapkido/Hwarangdo from Aikido, and Kumdo from Japanese Kendo. I'll let someone else tackle KSW for you, but from my knowledge, it is more of a modern eclectic system that was created in 1958 and draws from many different martial arts that were being practiced at the time, along with more modern stuff today. I wouldn't trust JBL, he is another Korean martial arts icon who has mastered the art of blatant contradiction. Basically, he took Hapkido, added a bunch of weapons and a myth about mountain monks to it then he changed the name. Taekkyon was still being played, but it was a game and not a martial art, so I don't think that we can technically count that as being an example of Korean martial prowess. It wasn't TKD's precursor, either. Did some ancient KMA survive? Probably on a smaller level and for a short while, but they certainly aren't around today because you can bet your dobok that the practitioners would've went straight to the government to reap the fame and fortune of being the ones to preserve authentic Korean martial arts from ancient times in a country that is still trying to re-establish its cultural identity. My brain hurts, too. Korean martial arts history is a headache in and of itself.


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## Twin Fist (May 3, 2008)

you know, if it happens slowly enough, a brain bleed kinda tickles..............


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## bluekey88 (May 5, 2008)

SageGhost83 said:


> For the most part, yes. Korean martial arts had gone into decline after the peninsula had been unified. As a matter of fact, the KMA were heavily suppressed by the leaders of Korea and the people considered the practice of Korean martial arts to be a barbaric practice. So a large portion of the old Korean arts went into decline and even vanished entirely. Then there was the Japanese occupation and what amounted to a major cultural genocide - whatever KMA were still around after the purge were systematically eliminated by the new Japanese purge. Very little, if anything, survived from the combination of Korea's own rejection of its martial arts due to a new wave of peace on the peninsula and Japan's cultural genocide of all things Korean. The vast majority of KMA today are derived from Japanese martial arts. TKD/TSD from Japanese Karate, *Hapkido/Hwarangdo from Aikido*, and Kumdo from Japanese Kendo. I'll let someone else tackle KSW for you, but from my knowledge, it is more of a modern eclectic system that was created in 1958 and draws from many different martial arts that were being practiced at the time, along with more modern stuff today. I wouldn't trust JBL, he is another Korean martial arts icon who has mastered the art of blatant contradiction. Basically, he took Hapkido, added a bunch of weapons and a myth about mountain monks to it then he changed the name. Taekkyon was still being played, but it was a game and not a martial art, so I don't think that we can technically count that as being an example of Korean martial prowess. It wasn't TKD's precursor, either. Did some ancient KMA survive? Probably on a smaller level and for a short while, but they certainly aren't around today because you can bet your dobok that the practitioners would've went straight to the government to reap the fame and fortune of being the ones to preserve authentic Korean martial arts from ancient times in a country that is still trying to re-establish its cultural identity. My brain hurts, too. Korean martial arts history is a headache in and of itself.


 
While I generally agree with the gist of this post...I wanted throw a monkey wrnech in the hapkido/aikdo history side of things.  

There is a LOT of controversy over HKD history.  But, as I understand things, HKD was not derived from Aikido.  Rather they are close cousins (similar to TKD and Shotokan Karate).  Aikido was derived primarily from Daito-ryu Akikijujitsu (DRJ).  One of the founders of HKD also claims lineage from DRJ...but there is some controversy in the DRJ crowd over records.  Anyhoo, given the "look" of HKD and it's similarity to Aikido (and the fact that ueshiba sensei never claimed to have taught any of the HKD guys) that it probably does derive from DRJ rather than Aikido.

It is also a possibility that KSW and Hwarangdo may be derived from HKD (there are records that the fouders of these arts studied HKD in the early days).  Another controversial point.  It is unlikely that either art actually dates back to the Hwarang warriors for all th eresons mentioned in this and other threads.  I'll let HKD, KSW and HRD guys speak to the specifics (pro and con).

The bottom line is that it seems many KMA's suffer from very merky and controvertial historical issues.  

Peace,
Erik


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## YoungMan (May 5, 2008)

What is known is that Yong Sul Choi, Hapkido's founder, was taken to Japan during the Korean Occupation as a young boy to live at Sogaku Takeda's house. In what capacity we don't know. He lived there for quite a while. it was unlikely that Takeda would have taught him directly, as that most likely would have been frowned upon. Bottom line: Choi picked up Takeda's technique, but how is unknown.


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