# Korean Terminology



## Kaygee (Jun 19, 2012)

Excuse my ignorance, but from what I hear from the number of "very limited" martial artists that I know, they find it odd that commands are given to us in Korean.

Which got me wondering, does anyone know what the point is behind that? Why does an instructor say to you, "ha dan mahkee, sang dan mahkee, tro, chung dan kong kyuck and then tells everyone to watch their stances or does other corrections in English? So, only the commands for hand and foot technquies are given in Korean, and I am unsure why.

Let me make it clear, it doesn't matter to me......I know my terminology well....you can pretty much throw anything at me and I know it (trust me, my isntructors have tried to stump me), I am just wondering why this seems to be a tradition in this art.

Thanks!


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## Gemini (Jun 19, 2012)

I'm sure there's a deeper darker reason, but we always practiced it in sparring. Using it in competition, we could give command with telling the opponents what we were saying. You'd be surprised how few people actually know Korean commands.


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## Instructor (Jun 19, 2012)

Kee ma ja sae kong kyuck 

Back in the day we heard quite a bit Korean in the Dojang but not so much these days.  The thinking back then was, what if someday you go to Korea and train there you need to know what they are saying.

Frankly they are an interesting people I wouldn't mind just taking a Korean Language class for the fun of it.

My feeling overall is that if I have an English speaking class (and I do) then English is the language to speak.  I did add Google Translator to Hapkido Online for students who speak other languages.  No idea how I change the audio though. 

Jon


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## MasterPistella (Jun 19, 2012)

The reason we do it (in any federation I've belonged to) is so that if you go to another school to train, you will be able to follow along. I've had friends who don't teach the Korean and then their students go to work out when they are away or they have taken class with me & have to watch the first couple of moves to catch on.


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## Grenadier (Jun 21, 2012)

MasterPistella said:


> The reason we do it (in any federation I've belonged to) is so that if you go to another school to train, you will be able to follow along. I've had friends who don't teach the Korean and then their students go to work out when they are away or they have taken class with me & have to watch the first couple of moves to catch on.



This is an excellent reason for learning the language.   

I've had some well-trained folks (in the art of Karate) from other countries come into my Karate dojo, and their knowledge of the English language was quite limited.  However, they were able to take my advanced classes without any problems, since I try to give commands in Japanese in that class.


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## Viper720 (Jul 2, 2012)

I agree with the above.

We were always told that Tang Soo Do Is practiced all over the World, so its important to have a constant running throughout that in order to communicate effectively with visiting members. So if we all speak Korean in the class then no matter where you are from you can understand what to do (to a certain degree anyway)

In our classes we use Korean for all of the technique, sometimes including movement/direction, stance etc.. So again, any non-english student who knew their Korean could take part in any class and follow along with ease


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