# Bassai and the Snake



## Makalakumu

Bassai means "penetrate the fortress" in Japanese and has nothing to do with the snake or any kind of snake style of kung fu in its Okinawan or Japanese lineages (as far as I know).  Yet in TSD, Bassai is commonly referred to as "the snake" form.  I'm wondering where this comes from.


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## Muwubu16858

If he weren't deceased, I'd tell you to ask GM Hwang Kee...I don't know why, but only in Moo Duk Kwan based styles of TSD do you see snake representing Bassai.


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## FieldDiscipline

Muwubu16858 said:


> only in Moo Duk Kwan based styles of TSD...



Please forgive my ignorance but I am curious what other kwan styles of TSD exist?  I had always thought the MDK _was_ Tang Soo Do.


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## JT_the_Ninja

Both palche so and palche deh (bassai) hyung are said to represent the snake. The first move is the likely source of this, with the windup to strike. Part of the philosophy through the whole form is supposed to be keeping the body relaxed until the moment just before impact, to save energy. A snake can be completely coiled up one moment and striking the next. The historicity of this is best left up to historians, I guess.


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## rmclain

FieldDiscipline said:


> Please forgive my ignorance but I am curious what other kwan styles of TSD exist? I had always thought the MDK _was_ Tang Soo Do.


 
None anymore, except as honorary associations.  

But before the unification process began in the 1960's, most other kwan martial arts were referred to as Tang Soo Do, Tae Soo Do, Kong Soo Do, or Kwop Bup.  The name "Tang Soo Do" was not unique to MDK.  It is just that the MDK organization has kept "Tang Soo Do" in the name over the years, so most people associate that name with MDK.

Hwang Kee made up lots of stories.  So, probably he told his students that certain animals were linked to some forms he taught.

R. McLain


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## exile

David Beck's excellent `Controversial TKD FAQs' page (here), which I've found to be consistently accurate and well-documented, says that Byung-Jik Ro, founder of the Song Moo Kwan, originally called the art he taught Tang Soo Do; he also was involved in the formation of the Korean Kongsoodo Association, where he held the position of chief instructor and director of the rank promotion committe, according to Dakin Burdick, suggesting that the kwan founders treated Tang Soo Do and Kong Soo Do as essentially interchangeable (not unreasonable, since the two terms are, as has been repeatedly noted, simply the respective translations for the two different transliterations of Kara te). He went with the majority at the time of the initial split in 1961, when HK left the KTA and never went back. 

The whole story is very difficult to get in anything like clear formsmost of the accounts I've read are partisan and self-serving in the extreme and show a remarkable disdain for historical consistency and documentation!but as RMcl says, the term tangsoodo does seem to have been in very common use for the generic `Kwan-era' KMA, gradually acquiring more and more political baggage as the mind-bogglingly fractious history of KMA in the postwar era continued to evolve...


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## MBuzzy

Right now, the "Official" Moo Duk Kwan organization is the Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan.  I say official, because they have gone to great lengths to copyright portions of their name and teachings.  Soo Bahk Do, though was formerly known as Tang Soo Do and is still basically the same style.  There are many Tang Soo Do practitioners who practice Moo Duk Kwan also. 

Until recently, I had used the terms Soo Bahk Do and Tang Soo Do interchangably, but being involved with SBD now I am seeing more and more differences.  But both share the name Moo Duk Kwan.

 I have also heard that there are Tae Kwon Do organizations who refer to themselves as Moo Duk Kwan, but I have no more details on them than that.


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## FieldDiscipline

Thanks for the input, I'm aware that a lot of the (now) TKD kwans were initially named TSD, in fact I argued that point reference the Chung Do Kwan over the weekend.  I'm also aware that there exist TKD Moo Duk Kwan schools.  I understand this to be due a split when Hwang Kee rejected the KTA.

I was led to ask the question by this post though:



Muwubu16858 said:


> If he weren't deceased, I'd tell you to ask GM Hwang Kee...I don't know why, but *only in Moo Duk Kwan based styles of TSD* do you see snake representing Bassai.



It seemed to suggest that _now_ there exists schools of TSD descended from other kwans.


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## Tez3

While we don't belong to any organisation the TSD we do is from Grand Master Kang UK Lee. His biography says he joined Moo Duk Kwan in 1949, in 1956 he was the TSD (Moo Duk Kwan) instrustor at Police HQ in Seoul, 1964-1972 he was Chief Instructor of the Central Moo Duk Kwan Gymnasium and Director of the Korean Soo Bahk Do Assoc. In 1975 he was the President of the UK YSD (Soo Bahk) Do Assoc.

His book states that " the origins of Tang Soo Do as we know it can be traced back to the period of the Three Kingdoms in Korea, Shilla 57 BC-935 AD. Paekjae 18 BC-660 BC and Koguryo 37 BC -668 Ad. Many relics of TSD (Soo Bahk Kee) from this era survive to the present day...."

His description of "Ba Sa Hee" hyung "Ba See Hee hyung was devised approx 450 years ago. It is based on the art of boxing and has undergone many changes while evolving into its present form. It was practised by the Buddhist monks at the So Lim Sa temple situated in the Ha Nam region of China and consists of carefully selected moves from the So Lim techniques, which are executed with the effiecient use of force and speed. The name of the originator is not known. Ba Sa Hee symbolises the cobra."


To be honest it means very little to me, the hyungs are so similiar to my beloved Wado's katas ( only made simpler if you known what I mean?) that it is obvious that the truth is somewhat murky to say the least!


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## FieldDiscipline

Hi again Tez,

I've just been reading about him actually on the United Kingdom Tang Soo (Soo Bahk) Do Federation website.

I still dont know what the fifth belt was for btw


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## Chizikunbo

Tez3 said:


> While we don't belong to any organisation the TSD we do is from Grand Master Kang UK Lee. His biography says he joined Moo Duk Kwan in 1949, in 1956 he was the TSD (Moo Duk Kwan) instrustor at Police HQ in Seoul, 1964-1972 he was Chief Instructor of the Central Moo Duk Kwan Gymnasium and Director of the Korean Soo Bahk Do Assoc. In 1975 he was the President of the UK YSD (Soo Bahk) Do Assoc.
> 
> His book states that " the origins of Tang Soo Do as we know it can be traced back to the period of the Three Kingdoms in Korea, Shilla 57 BC-935 AD. Paekjae 18 BC-660 BC and Koguryo 37 BC -668 Ad. Many relics of TSD (Soo Bahk Kee) from this era survive to the present day...."
> 
> His description of "Ba Sa Hee" hyung "Ba See Hee hyung was devised approx 450 years ago. It is based on the art of boxing and has undergone many changes while evolving into its present form. It was practised by the Buddhist monks at the So Lim Sa temple situated in the Ha Nam region of China and consists of carefully selected moves from the So Lim techniques, which are executed with the effiecient use of force and speed. The name of the originator is not known. Ba Sa Hee symbolises the cobra."
> 
> 
> To be honest it means very little to me, the hyungs are so similiar to my beloved Wado's katas ( only made simpler if you known what I mean?) that it is obvious that the truth is somewhat murky to say the least!



Kang Uk Lee's book has many inaccuracies...
Only in the Moo Duk Kwan do we find the snake representing the form Bal Sae (Bassai, as many other forms similar, Ship Soo -the bear, Pyong Ahn - the turtle etc. These were innovations and characteristics devised by GM Hwang Kee founder of the MDK and go back no further than that. These characteristics as applied by GM are cumbersome in that they lead students away from the true history of the forms. These should only be looked at with regards to the spirit of the form as understood by GM Hwang Kee, no more, no less...Look to Japan to begin your research into the history, then Okinawa, China etc..
Happy Hunting!
--josh


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## exile

Chizikunbo said:


> Kang Uk Lee's book has many inaccuracies...



You said it, Josh. For one thing, he repeats thoroughly debunked pseudohistory about the evidence base for `ancient' KMAs, managing to cram into a couple of pages the standard myths about the physical, documentary and philological data cited for these ancient lineages (I've summarized these in a different thread here, if anyone wants to follow this point upevery last little ounce of detail is there, so there's no point in dwelling on it). There isn't even a little bit of critical reflection on the nature of these specious arguments. I know that people tend to regard anything supporting their agenda as good news, but in the end, this sort of thing comes back to bite you on the ***: you lose credibility because people, once they look at the facts from a broader and deeper knowledge base, start thinking: if he's got this stuff so badly messed up, just how reliable is he on the technical side? You can't help it, you start being unwilling to give an author who makes these kinds of elementary errorsincluding ignoring research (such as Dakain Burdick's, already mentioned) that was readily available, in print or e-accessible, at least two years before their book appearsthe benefit of any doubt at all. 



Chizikunbo said:


> Only in the Moo Duk Kwan do we find the snake representing the form Bal Sae (Bassai, as many other forms similar, Ship Soo -the bear, Pyong Ahn - the turtle etc. These were innovations and characteristics devised by GM Hwang Kee founder of the MDK and go back no further than that. These characteristics as applied by GM are cumbersome in that they lead students away from the true history of the forms. These should only be looked at with regards to the spirit of the form as understood by GM Hwang Kee, no more, no less...Look to Japan to begin your research into the history, then Okinawa, China etc..
> Happy Hunting!
> --josh



I think Josh's point summarizes the situation very well, and all I want to do here is bring up a possible explanation for the snake/Bassai (and other animal linkages) unique to HK's tradition in the development of the MAs. So here goes...

HK was particularly avid to dissociate the KMAs from identification with the hated Japanese occupiers. He therefore emphasized the origins of his interpretation of the KMAs with the Chinese, another victim nation of Japanese racist genocide; but he came to grief, as we are all pretty much aware, over his attempt to pass off the Pyung-Ahn forms as Chinese in origin... at least, that's what he appeared to be claiming, in his earlier assertions that he had brought them back from China. This seems totally absurd, given the fact that the Pyung-Ahns, transparently related to the Pinan katas (though their sequence reflect the Heian ordering) are known, and abundantly documented, to be the product of Anko Itosu's thinking, maybe his greatest single creative work. But as pointed out by John Hancock in this article, there is a way for both solid history and HK's assertions to be reconciled, though it implies a very high degree of disingenousness on HK's part: yes, he brought the Pinans back from China, _but he did not learn them from exposure to CMAs._ Rather, he learned them from an acquaintance of his when he was stationed as a railway worker in Manchuriathe somewhat enigmatic Gogen Yamaguchi, the Cat, founder of the Japanese avatar of Gojo-Ryu, who was well aware of the Pinans and other Okinawan kata, and was serving as an intelligence officer in Manchuria, stationed in the same specific area where HK was working. You can read Hancock's detailed, well-supported arguments in the link I provided; I myself find them quite convincing, and so does Dakin Burdick, who cites them in his seminal 1997 _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_ article, `People and events of Taekwondo's formative years'. The crucial point is that HK in a sense succeeededby formulating things in a way which inevitably would lead people to draw false conclusionsin telling something like the truth while making it seem as though Tang Soo Do owed nothing to Japanese sources for its technical content, particularly its hyungs. 

This is where the snake, and other animal iconography in HK's treatment of the TSD hyungs, comes in, I believe. In  marked contrast to the Japanese kata, the use of animal names and other naturalistic imagery is a marked feature of Chinese hsing patterns. I very strongly suspect that, as part of the disingenousness already documented in the way HK told a deliberately misleading story about the source of the Pyung-Ahn hyungs, he created out of whole cloth the snake/Bassai association and other animal name associations with TSD forms specifically to reinforce the Han/Korean connection in his art and obscure the historically demonstrable origins of the postward KMAs in the Okinawan/Japanese fighting systems grouped together under the rubric Karate, one interpretation of which translates directly into Korean as Tang Soo Do. The end result has nothing to do with martial content and everything to do with the political symbolism which different Asian martial arts came to embody in the wake of Japanese colonial expansion and defeat in the postwar era... and I seriously doubt that any significance _beyond_ this for the snake/Bassai connection in TSD is going to emerge.


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## FieldDiscipline

exile said:


> _he did not learn them from exposure to CMAs._ Rather, he learned them from an acquaintance of his when he was stationed as a railway worker in Manchuria&#8212;the somewhat enigmatic Gogen Yamaguchi, the Cat, founder of the Japanese avatar of Gojo-Ryu, who was well aware of the Pinans and other Okinawan kata, and was serving as an intelligence officer in Manchuria, stationed in the same specific area where HK was working.



I have definately read, and I'm trying to recall where, that if you look at dates, ages etc. HK cant have learned from Yamaguchi.  He learned these kata from a book he found at the railway library.

As you may have noticed I am far from the historian of TSD or Karate but I definately remember reading it, and given the interest on this board for debunking the history of the KMAs its well worth bearing in mind.


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## FieldDiscipline

> Hwang Kee published his latest book and in it admitted that he had not learned the forms in China at all, but from studying Japanese karate books in Korea.



Uh huh.  That'll be that bit then.


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## exile

FieldDiscipline said:


> I have definately read, and I'm trying to recall where, that if you look at dates, ages etc. HK cant have learned from Yamaguchi.  He learned these kata from a book he found at the railway library.



A couple of points, FD. First, is it possible that what you read wasn't about claims involving not HK and YG, but HK and Gichin Funakoshi? Hancock says that 

_In 1995 1 attended a regional gathering of tang soo do black belts. During a discussion with one talented young man, I was told that the black belts in his organization were taught that the pyong ahn series was created by Hwang Kee and Funakoshi Gichin. The story goes that Funakoshi and Hwang traveled to China with other martial arts masters, where they studied the Chinese arts. Together they created the pyong ahn forms, and then each returned to his respective country and taught his own version.

...This story could have gone unchallenged indefinitely as long as the black belts in that organization never questioned its validity and continued to repeat it to younger generations. But a simple fact check quickly proved it to be a fallacy.

First, while Hwang Kee did travel to China, there is no indication he was part of a group of karate masters. Second, Funakoshi never traveled to China; he was an Okinawan who relocated to Japan, where he lived out his life. Third, Hwang and Funakoshi were not contemporaries in the sense that the story implies. Funakoshi was born in 1868. In 1927 he relocated to Japan, where he remained until his death in 1957. Hwang was born in 1914 just north of Seoul. In 1935, following completion of high school, Hwang traveled to China as part of his job and remained there until 1937. By this time, Funakoshi was 70 years old, while Hwang was only 24. That would hardly make them contemporaries.

Nonetheless, some people have perpetuated the rumor that Hwang Kee studied under Funakoshi at his shotokan karate school. As far as I have been able to discover, Hwang and Funakoshi never trained together, nor even ever met each other._​

The facts involving HK and YG are a little less clear. YG was only five years older than HK; HK's dates in Manchuria were 1935&#8211;37, and then again in 1941, though it's not clear for how long, while GY didn't go there till 1938, and spent the rest of the war there, so the issue would have been, could any contact have come in 1941?

But yes, it's true that HK confesses later in his book that he got the whole Pinan kata set second-hand. I have to apologize for being (inadvertently) misleading here: the version of Hancock's article I saw came out in print in 1994, and I just assumed that the web version of the article was the same as the one that had appeared in _Inside tang so do_ (3.2, p.17). But when I rechecked the web version, which is much more recent, I saw that Hancock himself withdrew from the conclusion that HK learned the forms from YK, because just after the article appeared, HK's book came out.  So mea culpa on this.

But what this actually means&#8212;assuming that HK was indeed telling the truth _at last_ &#8212;is that, if HK himself was the source of the story that he had `brought the [Pyung Ahn hyungs] back from China', as HK's own son insisted to Hancock, then he wasn't just being disingenuous, but was completely fabricating the Chinese connection. And fabricating Chinese-style names for Bassai and other hyungs taken over directly from Okinawan/Japanese kata would simply be more of the same. The whole point was to cover over TSD's origins in O/J karate with a Chinese-tinged facade, and imposing animal style names or associations on Japanese kata which completely lacked these would be part of the show.


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## Makalakumu

This would have never happened today.  With the internet, we are so much more connected to so much more knowledge.  If anyone nowadays would have cooked up this kind of story, they'd be exposed rather quickly.


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## FieldDiscipline

That was what I had read.  Thanks for clearing that up Exile, informative as always.  

Shame though isnt it, that so much has been based on lies and half truths.


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## rmclain

FieldDiscipline said:


> That was what I had read. Thanks for clearing that up Exile, informative as always.
> 
> Shame though isnt it, that so much has been based on lies and half truths.


 
As far as people are genuinely interested and try hard to find the truth, they will eventually find it.  Nowadays, more of us are interested in finding backgrounds and lineage of the early pre-tkd arts following WWII.  I'm appreciative of the research everyone is doing here.

Even in our Chayon-Ryu system, Grandmaster Kim Pyung-soo originally thought our karate lineage was to Kenwa Mabuni (Shito-Ryu) for a long time.  His teachers never told him these things.  But, just as many of you here have it, he had a genuine interest to research the background.  He found out (from two instructor's directories written by Toyama Kanken, 1st: early 1950's, 2nd: 1959), plus from Master Kim Ki-whang who was a junior friend to Yoon Byung-in (our senior Master) at Nihon University, that our karate lineage is actually Shudokan from Toyama Kanken.  Finally, he verified these things by tracking down and visiting with Yoon Byung-in's family in Korea these past 2 years.  (Yoon Byung-in disappeared during the Korean War in August 1950, and even his senior students have speculated his background and what happened to him during this time.  Now we know.)

So, even some of the old-days Masters are finding the history  for themselves nowadays.

I applaud the sincere efforts here.  Please keep it up.

R. McLain


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## exile

upnorthkyosa said:


> This would have never happened today.  With the internet, we are so much more connected to so much more knowledge.  If anyone nowadays would have cooked up this kind of story, they'd be exposed rather quickly.



This is correct, I believe&#8212;misinformation of course travels more quickly now because of the web, but correction and critique travels just as fast. The whole world is now kind of carrying out `peer review'.




FieldDiscipline said:


> That was what I had read.  Thanks for clearing that up Exile, informative as always.



You're very kind, FD, but I've been feeling lousy all morning that I hadn't `kept up' with the last stage of the story, instead of just assuming that Hancock's two articles had exactly the same content. And I'm also a bit troubled that Burdick, who's normally so careful with sources, didn't twig to HK's admission&#8212;his 1997 article only references Hancock's earlier one, not the current web version; but while Hancock at least has the excuse that HK's book came out a year after his first article in _Inside Taekwondo_, Burdick's _JAMA_ paper came out in 1997, two years _after_ HK's book. And the _JAMA_ reviewers didn't catch the problem either...I guess it just goes to show how careful you have to be in keeping track of new information... the HK/GY story now needs to be retired as an interesting hypothesis that didn't pan out. 

It's clear from his later, web article that Hancock wasn't out to `get' HK at all&#8212;he knew that the Pyung-Ahns came from Itosu's Pinan set, he knew that HK had claimed to have `brought them back from China', and what he really wanted was a way to reconcile the two so that the truth wouldn't reflect completely badly on HK and the `official' story. If H. had been right about HK getting the Pyung-Ahns from GY, then it meant at least that HK's story, the one H. got from HK's son, was at least literally true. You can tell, reading the later web article, that H. was very disappointed that the more benign interpretation he'd been advocating based on the alleged HK/GY connection didn't hold up. 



upnorthkyosa said:


> Shame though isnt it, that so much has been based on lies and half truths.



I know! It's so disheartening, because it means that until you plunge into all that muck and try to sort out what is supported by reliable evidence and what isn't, you're kind of at sea about what to believe. And the history is important, I've always thought, so far as understanding the technical content. But it can become a full-time job in itself...

Anyway, to try to make up for my own gaffe in the HK/GY story, I offer this  interesting link to Iain Abernethy's blog site, where he makes the somewhat shocking claim that *`Pinan' should not be translated as `Peaceful Mind'*, and explains why he thinks that's a mistranslation. There's been an awful lot of controversy about just what `Bassai' means, and now it turns out that the Pinans may also be controversial so far as the kata set name goes. Just more food for thought...

... have to look on the bright side,  I guess&#8212;if we all knew the whole truth, there wouldn't be that much to talk about, eh?


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## FieldDiscipline

Indeed.  Its a good thing people are investigating now, before the last traces of the truth die out.  At least we can pass on what we know.


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## Muwubu16858

Looks like the whole topic of the post changed because you didn't understand what I was trying to write. I was just saying that Hwang Kee wrote that Bassai was snake form, however, I haven't seen any other style of Karate (Tang Soo or Kong Soo) use the snake to represent it. 

On another note, Tang SOo is just the korean pronounciation of Tode, or Karate, using the original characters of the name Tang(from Tang dynasty CHina) and Soo(hand, "te" in Japan and Okinawa). Some older styles in Okinawa use the old name still, just different pronounciation.


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## exile

Muwubu16858 said:


> Looks like the whole topic of the post changed because you didn't understand what I was trying to write. I was just saying that Hwang Kee wrote that Bassai was snake form, however, I haven't seen any other style of Karate (Tang Soo or Kong Soo) use the snake to represent it.



And what _I'm_ saying, Muwubu, is that there is good reason to believe that the _reason_ HK `wrote that Bassai was snake form', when no other style of karate&#8212;Okinawan, Japanese or Korean&#8212;makes that association is because HK had a particular agenda, which was to minimize or wipe out the Japanese associations with the hyungs he taught and to substitute Chinese associations instead, in order to help cancel out the memories of a hated occupier and also, very likely, to increase the credibility of the `ancient KMA' associations of Tang Soo Do (given the links between China and Korea in the Three Kingdoms era); and that's where the discussion of his original fabrication of the Chinese origin of the Pyung-Ahns comes in. And that by introducing the `snake' meaning, he was consciously using the Chinese naming convention of linking techniques and hsing forms to animals in order to add further support to the supposed Chinese roots of the TSD practiced in the MDK. And that other schools of Tae Soo Do (which eventually split into TSD and TKD) either didn't have the same denial program (Song Moo Kwan, e.g.) or carried it out in a somewhat different fashion (à la General Choi's Oh Do Kwan, etc.) And that _that's_ why Hwang Kee's development of what was once Tang/Kong/Tae Soo Do includes the snake/Bassai identification but other TMAs which have Bassai in their repertoire do not. Now this suggestion might be right or it might be wrong, but can you please point out exactly where any of what I've said represents a misunderstanding of the original question? Or how the `topic' of the OP has changed? 



Muwubu16858 said:


> On another note, Tang SOo is just the korean pronounciation of Tode, or Karate, using the original characters of the name Tang(from Tang dynasty CHina) and Soo(hand, "te" in Japan and Okinawa). Some older styles in Okinawa use the old name still, just different pronounciation.



This point has been repeatedly noted in threads going back several years on MT by many different posters.



FieldDiscipline said:


> Indeed.  Its a good thing people are investigating now, before the last traces of the truth die out.  At least we can pass on what we know.



Yes, I agree, we're running out of time fast. The first generation students of the original Kwan founders are getting very, very long in the tooth, and their memories can't be expected to be all that reliable at this point. And crucial questions&#8212;such as, `did you guys actually study bunkai for your forms? How did you approach kicking? What kinds of training for combat did you do, apart from sparring...' and so on, things really important to understand the transition from the Shotokan to the Kwan-era roots of the KMAs and then the separate developments after the splits in the early 1960s&#8212;may never get answered if people don't start going after the answers right now. These fellows are getting pretty thin on the ground as it is...


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## Muwubu16858

sorry, didn't catch what was being said....sucks cuz my teacher always has me rushing around for him, so sometimes I can only skim. Ok. Sorry. I'll read more thoroughlynext time


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## exile

Muwubu16858 said:


> sorry, didn't catch what was being said....sucks cuz my teacher always has me rushing around for him, so sometimes I can only skim. Ok. Sorry. I'll read more thoroughlynext time



Not a problem, M... probably the stuff about the Pyung-Ahns didn't seem to be germane to the discussion at times. But I really do think it shows how careful you have to be about any particular thing that HK did... I believe he really was driven for much of his life by that agenda.

What I'm actually kind of surprised about is that he _did_ admit, near the end of his life, the truth about where he got the Pyung-Ahns from. Hard for me to imagine why he would have 'fessed up.


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## Don Daly

I case anybody is interested.  I have found a Chinese Seh Quan (Snake Fist) form that, for those of us who know the old Moo Duk Kwan Bassai, is obviously an expanded / modern Wushu influenced version from the same root form (see Chinese Roots of Tang Soo Do on Don Daly's YouTube account.)  Yes Grandmaster Hwang Kee was more motivated to emphasize pre-Okinawan Chinese sources for the Okinawan Kata he used, due to his solely Korean/Chinese MA background (unlike most the original Kwan founders who took pride in their Japanese black belts and masters ranks).  However, GM Hwang Kee was a researcher, often found in the library, and proud of his father who had been recognized by the Korean King as a scholar.  GM Hwang Kee could see the snake style similarities behind Matsumura & Itosu's Okinawanized Patsai (Escape the Fortress) and chose to emphasize the Bai She (White Snake) and She Quan roots from the Southern Shaolin Temple in his explanation.  Matsumura is well known as a no nonsense instructor who once firmly discouraged King Sho from using fancy techniques.  Our Shuri-te version of Bassai has eliminated all but the most practical techniques and as such is probably shorter and less acrobatic than the original Shaolin form.  No doubt the modern She Quan on YouTube is much expanded from the original Shaolin form, but the sequences and style is still recognizable in Bassai.  Most of the techniques of Bassai are easily converted to snake style Chi Sao drills that I have used with my Jeet Kune Do instructor.  Of course Chin Na and Shuai Jiao techniques are also present which are essentially the same as Hapkido / Aiki-jujitsu interpretations.


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## TimoS

Don Daly said:


> see Chinese Roots of Tang Soo Do on Don Daly's YouTube account.


Couldn't find the channel


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## Tez3

I miss Exile.


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## Don Daly

TimoS said:


> Couldn't find the channel


My YouTube in under my name Don Daly.  The playlist is called Chinese Roots. The specific form is listed as Snake Fist 1, Snake Fist 2, Snake Fist 3, and Snake Fist 4.  Snake Fist 1 shows the whole form, once in Chinese and again with English.  The next 3 videos show the details of the 27 subroutines.  About 2/3 of these link to Bassai with most in the same order, but with additional techniques added to some.  If you do not already know the Tang Soo Do version of Bassai (based on Hwang Kee's interpretation of Funikoshi's 1922 version), then you will not be able to see the connection.  It seem's obvious to me that Hwang Kee had seen or read about the source form and recognized the link.


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## TimoS

Ok, finally found the video. While I am not familiar with TSD version of Passai/Bassai, I found one on YouTube and it looks just like a koreanized version of one of the Passai versions, maybe the so called Itosu Passai. This, on the other hand, 
[yt]26pMFQVd__4[/yt]
has nothing to do with it. _Some_ moves may look a bit similar, but that is more of a co-incidence. So, no connection to Passai whatsoever.


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## Don Daly

TimoS said:


> Ok, finally found the video. While I am not familiar with TSD version of Passai/Bassai, I found one on YouTube and it looks just like a koreanized version of one of the Passai versions, maybe the so called Itosu Passai. This, on the other hand,
> [yt]26pMFQVd__4[/yt]
> has nothing to do with it. _Some_ moves may look a bit similar, but that is more of a co-incidence. So, no connection to Passai whatsoever.



Hwang Kee "Koreanized" the Bassai taught by Gichin Funakoshi in his 1922 book _To-te Kyukyu Kenpo_.   Since that time Bassai has been modified and "Japanized" in Shotokan Karate, while in Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan it has been influenced by Hwang Kee's discoveries in the Muye Dobo Tongi of Chinese-Korean arts of Soo Bahk / Kwon Bop.  

Most scholars agree that the Bassai form (probably originally Bai She) was taught to Bushi Matsumura by a Chinese master.  Since Matsumura traveled to many parts of China including Beijing, and learned various styles from Chinese masters including those residing in, or visiting Okinawa, it is short sighted to limit his knowledge to just White Crane styles.  Especially since the Southern Shaolin Temple was famous for Snake Style (She Quan) which spread throughout China. 

We do know that Matsumura made or modified katas developing them for practical training of the Shuri officials/bodyguards and it would be logical to assume that it was Bushi Matsumura who renamed the kata Patsai (meaning "Escape the Fortress/Castle").  His student Anko Itosu modified them further for their use in the Okinawan middle-schools.  Later they were modified by Gichin Funakoshi to "Japanize" them for Shotokan.

I have done a thorough comparison of the techniques of the She Quan form and the Old Moo Duk Kwan Bassai form.  They have a definite correlation.  A few techniques are in a different sequence and there are many added techniques in each She Quan subroutine, but for those who are not already closed-minded on the subject, and take the time to compare the She Quan subroutines with the steps of Bassai, the pattern is evident.

I am currently writing up a comparison that I will share when I am finished.

The old Masters like Hwang Kee had much more knowledge than many modern martial artists are willing to admit.


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## TimoS

I've read many researchers' findings and none of them claim this connection. So I'd like to see some of this research. After all, if many claim it, it must be available somewhere online. As for what Passai means, you do realize that the characters were chosen much later than the actual kata? It might mean what you said it means or it might not. Some Okinawan styles ("mine" included don't use kanji at all, instead writing almost all the kata names in katakana). Also, the connection between Matsumura and Itosu is anything but clear, read e.g. here: FightingArts.com - Examining Yasutsune Itosu - Part 1 The Man And His Lineage


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## Don Daly

Thank you for the reading recommendation, I am always willing to learn more.  I would like to recommend _Shotokan's Secret, Expanded Edition_ from Black Belt Books. --- Bruce D. Clayton, Ph.D.  and _Bubishi, The Classic Manual of Combat _by Patrick McCarthy.

Like I said before, "In case anybody is interested", which of course implies the willingness to actually examine the evidence thoroughly.  So for those who wish to examine it more thoroughly themselves, there it is.  For those who do not have the time to do this, but are still interested, I will present more later.

For those who are not interested, but just want to argue, you will have the last word because I am not interested in an argument.  I have shared this for fellow scholars to check out honestly and will leave it at that.


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## TimoS

Don Daly said:


> Thank you for the reading recommendation, I am always willing to learn more.  I would like to recommend _Shotokan's Secret, Expanded Edition_ from Black Belt Books. --- Bruce D. Clayton, Ph.D.  and _Bubishi, The Classic Manual of Combat _by Patrick McCarthy.
> .


I have McCarthy and his work doesn't support your hypothesis. As for Clayton, I am familiar with his work and it is more a work of fiction than actual research. The "Shotokan's Secret" is widely discredited by those who have done some actual research


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## clfsean

Don Daly said:


> My YouTube in under my name Don Daly.  The playlist is called Chinese Roots. The specific form is listed as Snake Fist 1, Snake Fist 2, Snake Fist 3, and Snake Fist 4.  Snake Fist 1 shows the whole form, once in Chinese and again with English.  The next 3 videos show the details of the 27 subroutines.  About 2/3 of these link to Bassai with most in the same order, but with additional techniques added to some.  If you do not already know the Tang Soo Do version of Bassai (based on Hwang Kee's interpretation of Funikoshi's 1922 version), then you will not be able to see the connection.  It seem's obvious to me that Hwang Kee had seen or read about the source form and recognized the link.



I went looking for your channel & didn't find it. Could you provide a link? I'd be really interested in seeing this Snake vids you mention.


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## TimoS

clfsean said:


> I went looking for your channel & didn't find it. Could you provide a link? I'd be really interested in seeing this Snake vids you mention.


For some reason I also had trouble finding it, but here's the link to the first video:


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## clfsean

TimoS said:


> For some reason I also had trouble finding it, but here's the link to the first video:



Gotcha. Thanks for the link! 

This is modern PRC performance wushu.


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## Don Daly

clfsean said:


> Gotcha. Thanks for the link!
> 
> This is modern PRC performance wushu.


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## Don Daly

clfsean said:


> Gotcha. Thanks for the link!
> 
> This is modern PRC performance wushu.



Yes this is.  If you read my post (ignoring TimoS misrepresentation of what I said) you will see that I stated that this is a modern Wushu form.  I believe it will be evident to other Moo Duk Kwan and Tang Soo Do masters, if they do *their own analysis*, that this is an *greatly expanded* version of an ancient root form.  From actually comparing the subroutines of this form (explained and named in Snake Fist 2, 3 & 4) I have found evidence that the both came from an ancient Chinese root form (probably called Bai She Quan - White Snake Fist).


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## Don Daly

TimoS said:


> For some reason I also had trouble finding it, but here's the link to the first video:



Thank you for putting Snake Fist 1 on here, I wasn't sure that it was ok for me to put other peoples videos on here.  BTW, I never said that I developed my hypothesis from any book or person other than Hwang Kee and other Tang Soo Do authors that had been influenced by him.

I also stated that Passai (Patsai/Pal Che/ Bassai) as done in Moo Duk Kwan and old style American Tang Soo Do appears to be a shortened (no flourish) version of the same *ancient root form, *NOT this Wushu version.

The article on the internet that you referred too is an old one that I had read before.  It has several mistakes including saying that there is no known picture of Anko Itosu.  In McCarthy's 2008 _Bubishi_, not only is there a portrait of him on page 74, their is a photograph of him on page 33.  As for Dr. Bruce D. Clayton, he is a well respected researcher and brilliant scholar.  Although he is definitely biased towards Shotokan, he presents his theories with logic and evidence.


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## clfsean

Don Daly said:


> Yes this is.  If you read my post (ignoring TimoS misrepresentation of what I said) you will see that I stated that this is a modern Wushu form.  I believe it will be evident to other Moo Duk Kwan and Tang Soo Do masters, if they do *their own analysis*, that this is an *greatly expanded* version of an ancient root form.  From actually comparing the subroutines of this form (explained and named in Snake Fist 2, 3 & 4) I have found evidence that the both came from an ancient Chinese root form (probably called Bai She Quan - White Snake Fist).



Do you have any evidence (factual, verifiable with lineage) of that set? Even the Chinese can't agree if Snake ever actually existed outside of a handful of techniques & exercises. There are a few styles I've seen that have Snake sets, but those are mainly named such & with a couple of techniques that can be outwardly identified as a "snake" but instead work the set as a skill & attribute builder.

FWIW I spent the first 15 years of my MA career in MDK TDK. I learned Bassai. I is remarkably like Shotokan's Bassai-Dai & from what I've seen of MDK TSD.

Just curious!

Thanks!


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## TimoS

Don Daly said:


> I also stated that Passai (Patsai/Pal Che/ Bassai) as done in Moo Duk Kwan and old style American Tang Soo Do appears to be a shortened (no flourish) version of the same *ancient root form, *NOT this Wushu version.


Well it's not, they are not even remotely alike. Unless the Bassai you are referring is totally unlike it's modern form or any of the Bassai/Passai to be found in Japan or Okinawa.


> The article on the internet that you referred too is an old one that I had read before.  It has several mistakes including saying that there is no known picture of Anko Itosu.  In McCarthy's 2008 _Bubishi_, not only is there a portrait of him on page 74, their is a photograph of him on page 33.  As for Dr. Bruce D. Clayton, he is a well respected researcher and brilliant scholar.  Although he is definitely biased towards Shotokan, he presents his theories with logic and evidence.


Evidence such as that the reason for Naifachi/Tekki sidestepping? That it's so that the king or some other high official is behind the bodyguard and therefore he has to step only sideways. 
Or how about the claim that Azato and Itosu didn't teach Funakoshi the kata bunkai? That was apparently because they were preparing the next generation of guards in case the king returned to Okinawa. But they were pledged to secrecy and because the trainees were not sworn bodyguards, Azato and Itosu could not tell them what the techniques were for because that would have broken their vow of silence. But the last Okinawan king died in 1901, releasing them from their vow. Where's the evidence for that? And if I remember correctly, the reason for Gankaku's/Chinto's straight line embusen is that it was for fighting in the narrow staircases of the Shuri castle. None of these claims hold water
As for the article I linked and Itosu's picture, I'm not sure which years edition of the Bubishi I have, but in my version there's a drawing of Itosu and, like all the photographs, it is _assumed_ that it is of Itosu, so the article is correct on that one. What else is wrong on the article in your opinion?


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## OldKarateGuy

Don Daly said:


> My YouTube in under my name Don Daly.  The playlist is called Chinese Roots. ... If you do not already know the Tang Soo Do version of Bassai (based on Hwang Kee's interpretation of Funikoshi's 1922 version)...


With all due respect, I must agree with Timos. I watched the videos you mentioned and see nothing there to match up with either version of Bassai (that is, the modern TSD version or the shotokan Bassai Dai). I'll link here to a video from the '50's of Hwang Kee's school in Seoul. At the 25'01" mark, a student performs Bassai. If anything, that version, only about 10 or 15 years into GM Kee's teaching career, looks even more like the Funakoshi kata than today's does. I would suggest that Kee himself says that he was self-taught, and that his forms came from a book of Japanese karate, and incorporate changes, as Kee puts it in his book, of hip rotation, for instance, which reflect the intrinsic nature of Korean MA (?). However, his saying so might be interpreted as his disagreeing with (or not getting) the concept (from Japanese karate) of reverse rotation, which is not present in at least some styles of modern TSD.
There's no shame in appropriating MA technique and making it your own. I mean, hasn't everyone along the line done exactly that, according to legend, as far back as the Shaolin monks learning from an Indian? So this sense of martial arts masters trying to shoehorn some kind of nationalistic originality into an art, because of war or politics, is pretty common. Thus, the renaming of the Japanese/Okinanwan/originally Chinese kata in the 1930's from ethnic Chinese based names to more PC titles (i.e. Naihanchi = Tekki, Kushanku = Kanku Dai, etc).
I kind of think that trying to attribute to Kee research into esoteric Chinese arts and then his hiding the ancient moves in the Pyung Ahn forms, which look just like the Pinan/Heian kata, or the Bassai and Bassai Dai/Sho, is a bit of a reach. But of course, each to his/her own, and disproving is just as difficult as proving. It's an interesting premise, I'll grant.


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## TSDTexan

TimoS said:


> Well it's not, they are not even remotely alike. Unless the Bassai you are referring is totally unlike it's modern form or any of the Bassai/Passai to be found in Japan or Okinawa.
> 
> Evidence such as that the reason for Naifachi/Tekki sidestepping? That it's so that the king or some other high official is behind the bodyguard and therefore he has to step only sideways.
> Or how about the claim that Azato and Itosu didn't teach Funakoshi the kata bunkai? That was apparently because they were preparing the next generation of guards in case the king returned to Okinawa. But they were pledged to secrecy and because the trainees were not sworn bodyguards, Azato and Itosu could not tell them what the techniques were for because that would have broken their vow of silence. But the last Okinawan king died in 1901, releasing them from their vow. Where's the evidence for that? And if I remember correctly, the reason for Gankaku's/Chinto's straight line embusen is that it was for fighting in the narrow staircases of the Shuri castle. None of these claims hold water
> As for the article I linked and Itosu's picture, I'm not sure which years edition of the Bubishi I have, but in my version there's a drawing of Itosu and, like all the photographs, it is _assumed_ that it is of Itosu, so the article is correct on that one. What else is wrong on the article in your opinion?



This actually was put to rest sometime ago, The individual who donated the photograph was Kinjō Hiroshi.


It was only in 2006 that Kinjō donated the group photo to the Okinawa Prefectural Library.

There, as a result of a detailed comparison and verification carried out by Kadekaru Tooru, chief specialist from the Okinawa Prefectural Office of Historically Important Documents, the mysterious person on the group photo was finally positively identified as being Itosu Ankō.

In other words: Kinjō had good reason to believe it was Itosu all the time. He just waited for a nonbiased second expert opinion, which he found in 2006 in Kadekaru Tooru.

As Kinjō stated himself,
“From Kadekaru Tooru I have received special cooperation in connection with identifying the photo of Itosu Ankō” -Kinjō 2011: p. 299

One of the reasons for Kadekaru Tooru’s assessment was that he digitized the photo and used computer enhancement to reveal more detail. When he closely inspected the hands of the mysterious person in the photo he found what he considers to be Makiwara calousses.

A colorized and modified update to the group photo.





.


 
.


 
.


 

.

There are more than enough photos of him to put this to rest.


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