# Soo Bahk & Tang question



## Ian wallace (Apr 3, 2007)

I was just wondering how soo bahk was like as a style if it was anything like Tang soo do we train today? also what is the chinese conection Within Tang Soo Do as?


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## MBuzzy (Apr 3, 2007)

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47631

Here is a link to another thread along the same lines.  But the very short answer is that Soo Bahk Do and Tang Soo Do are virtually the same art.  There are some differences in the forms that they practice and some minor differences in techniques, but they are descended from the same place.

As for the chinese connection - the only connection that I personnally know of is that GM Hwang Kee trained in China for a time, but there are many on this board who are much more knowledgeable.


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## exile (Apr 4, 2007)

MBuzzy said:


> http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47631
> 
> Here is a link to another thread along the same lines.  But the very short answer is that Soo Bahk Do and Tang Soo Do are virtually the same art.  There are some differences in the forms that they practice and some minor differences in techniques, but they are descended from the same place.
> 
> As for the chinese connection - the only connection that I personnally know of is that GM Hwang Kee trained in China for a time, but there are many on this board who are much more knowledgeable.



Good post, MBand I've read several independent accounts of HK's martial arts development which strongly suggest that he was at least as much influenced by the Okinawan linear-art style due largely to Matsumura as he was by the better-publicized Chinese components of his TSD...


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## MBuzzy (Apr 4, 2007)

So are there any historical or accurate accounts of how long he trained in China or the arts in which he trained?  

It is easy to see the Okinawan influence, in our Hyung alone, but it seems that the chinese influence is more hidden...


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## exile (Apr 4, 2007)

MBuzzy said:


> So are there any historical or accurate accounts of how long he trained in China or the arts in which he trained?



It's not 100% clear. This much seems to be known: HK worked as a laborer on the railroad lines in Manchuria in the later 1930s. There is some suggestion that he studied Chinese guoshu during that time. But Robert Shipley, and American serviceman Tang Soo Doist who trained at the Osan base in Korea, wrote in a letter to _Black Belt_ in the 1970s that HK seems to also have studied with Yamaguchi Gogen, a Japanese intelligence officer stationed in Manchuria who founded the Japanese Goju-kai style, which itself, as I understand it, incorporates substantial amounts of Okinawan technical content. The two were both stationed near the Russian border and HK mentions somewhere or other that he and YG were friends. 



MBuzzy said:


> It is easy to see the Okinawan influence, in our Hyung alone, but it seems that the chinese influence is more hidden...



I can't avoid the suspicion that like others, and for obvious reasons, HK deliberately underplayed the Japanese connection later on. I'm not aware of any hard documentation for HK's exposure to guoshu... we kind of have to take his word for it...


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## MBuzzy (Apr 4, 2007)

My teachers still avoid the topic of Japanese influence.  They won't flat out deny, but they are very good at tap dancing around it.  In fact, many of the older generation of Koreans still have very bad feelings toward the Japanese.


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## exile (Apr 4, 2007)

MBuzzy said:


> My teachers still avoid the topic of Japanese influence.  They won't flat out deny, but they are very good at tap dancing around it.  In fact, many of the older generation of Koreans still have very bad feelings toward the Japanese.



Absolutely, though it's not universal. S. Henry Cho, in his 1968 textbook (still a brilliant and relevant piece of work, I believe) and Gm. Kim, in Robert McLain's _Martial Talk Magazine_ interview with him, are both very emphatic about the role of Okinawan/Japanese MAs, and comment negatively on the efforts of others to attribute TKD techniques to non-Japanese origins. But they also recognize the hostility towards Japanese culture, rooted in prolonged and savage oppression, that gave (and gives) rise to that pattern of denial...


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## WMKS Shogun (Apr 4, 2007)

Having trained in both (2nd Dan In TSD and still a Gup in SBD) I can attest to massive similarities between traditional TSD and SBD. I have said this before, and I will say it again: As I understand it, the primary reason that GM Hwang Kee changed the name from Tang Soo Do to Soo Bahk Do was actually because many instructors were teaching 'his' art 'their' way and he wanted it 'his' way. So, he called for all instructors loyal to the Moo Duk Kwan to join the Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan Federation. The curriculum is standardized, taught the same at all SBD MDK dojangs all over the world. Tang Soo Do variations have come into the picture over the years. Not saying this is good or bad, only how it has tended to be. The only other changes are the additions of the Chil-sung and Yok-ro forms sets.


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## Ian wallace (Apr 4, 2007)

Would that be the reason for the word Tang in Tang Soo Do then?


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## Ian wallace (Apr 4, 2007)

but why would he use the word Tang!!


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## MBuzzy (Apr 4, 2007)

Again - I have a very limited knowledge of this...but I know that you have to dig into the actual characters to get more meaning.  For example, if you read the Chinese characters for Tang Soo Do in Japan, it is translated as Karate, or Way of the Empty Hand.  I've also seen it translated as Way of the hand of the Tang.  Tang referring to the Tang Dynasty.  

I do know that when you get into the Chinese characters and translation, things can get confusing.


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## exile (Apr 4, 2007)

MBuzzy said:


> Again - I have a very limited knowledge of this...but I know that you have to dig into the actual characters to get more meaning.  For example, if you read the Chinese characters for Tang Soo Do in Japan, it is translated as Karate, or Way of the Empty Hand.  I've also seen it translated as Way of the hand of the Tang.  Tang referring to the Tang Dynasty.
> 
> I do know that when you get into the Chinese characters and translation, things can get confusing.



No, MB, you've got it exactly right. Both kong soo do and tang soo do are direct `translations' of kara te under two different transliterations from the Japanese writing system: empty hand, China hand. They mirror faithfully the name of the MA systems that they themselvew are based on; at one time, both were the names given by the kwan founders to the karate that they had learned in Japan and were now themselves teaching.

Same thing with, e.g., Song Moo Kwan = `Pine Tree Martial [Training] School'. This is in fact almost a literal translatin of Shotokan = Shoto + Kan = `Shoto's [Training] Hall/House', where `Shoto', Gichin Funakoshi's pen name, means `(waving) pines'. 

The kwan founders strongly identified in many cases with the Japanese arts they had learned and their teachers in those arts.


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