Abstract
In my newest school, we are learning more detail about how to use our hips to generate power in using the stance, than we did in my old school. One thought that occurred to me is that the choreography of the Taegeuk forms (which are the main forms at my current school, and more of an afterthought at my old school) being more forward-focused leads to more front stances, and therefore more nuance in the front stance is going to be learned.
As a simple example, in Koryo, you would perform the low knife block and arc strike in front stance, but with a slightly different angle of the body when doing each technique. The way I originally learned Koryo was with more of a Palgwe style, in which we would do the low knife block in back stance, and shift into front stance. This was based on the previous forms, in which there are more shifts forward and back.
Discussion
I've gone through three sets of eight forms, and analyzed them in terms of how often each stance is used. What I've done is count each technique* by what stance it is performed in. For example, in Taegeuk 4, the last step consisting of inside block and double punch would count as three instances of a technique in front stance. I've excluded most chambers, with a few exceptions (most notably in Taegeuk 7, the chamber for the low X block, after the double under punch). The main stances I covered are walking, front, kick*, back, and horse, and cat. Anything that is less than 5% of a form set, I lumped into "other". There are a lot of one-off stances (such as crossing stances) that all got lumped into the "other" category, regardless of form set. I counted kicks separately, because if you do a kick it's usually a transition between stances instead of a stance in itself.
The three sets of forms I covered are the Taegeuk forms, the official Palgwe forms (based entirely off of watching Youtube videos), and the unofficial Palgwe forms I learned at my last school. Each set is 8 forms, which tend to cover from a roughly intermediate level to the black belt test. Here is what I found:
Taegeuk
- Front Stance - 39%
- Walking Stance - 20%
- Kicks - 18%
- Back Stance - 10%
- Cat Stance - 6%
- Other - 7%
Palgwe
- Front Stance - 49%
- Back Stance - 28%
- Kicks - 12%
- Horse Stance - 6%
- Other - 5%
My Old School
- Front Stance - 44%
- Back Stance - 22%
- Kicks - 14%
- Horse Stance - 10%
- Other - 10%
Ratios
What I really want to highlight is the ratio of front stance to back stance. And, for the sake of this, I'm going to lump horse stance in with back stance, and walking stance in with front stance. This will make sense with the point I'm going to make in a minute. This gives you:
- Taegeuk - 59:12
- Palgwe - 49:34
- My old school - 44:32 (or 11:8)
What you'll notice is that while front stances dominate in all of these forms, it's roughly a 40% increase over bladed stances in the Palgwe style, and a 400% increase in the Taegeuk.
What This Means
I believe the Palgwe style of stances is more about teaching how to use weight distribution and momentum. There seems to be a greater emphasis placed on managing range through squaring up or blading off of your opponent. Most stance shifts happen off of the back foot.
The Taegeuk style of stances is more about teaching how to use smaller adjustments in the hips to generate power. There seems to be a greater emphasis placed on connecting the body together kinetically, where the Palgwe style is more about connecting the body structurally. Most stance shifts happen off of the front foot. There are a greater quantity of subtle range adjustments in doing so.
I think if someone were to take and try and do the Taegeuk forms in the Palgwe style, they would miss out on a lot. The Palgwe style is better suited for the stance shifts that just aren't in the Taegeuk forms in any great quantity. Doing the Taegeuk forms in the Palgwe style robs them of what they can teach you. If you're not doing the microadjustments that take advantage of the front stance, then you're just doing simple forms.
Similarly, I've recently tried applying the principles I'm learning in my new, Taegeuk-focused school into a Palgwe style of form. It does not have the same detrimental effect as the previous switch. However, what I found is that it seemed to flow better by eliminating the back stance and just going front stance heavy. For example, at my old school we had a beginner form called Kibon 4. (We had 5 Kibons). Kibon 4 had a line which consisted of many block-punch combos. Block in back stance, punch in front stance, step forward and repeat. Doing this line in the Taegeuk style, and it flowed better if blocks and punches were in front stance. After a couple of tries, I was able to make it flow somewhat with the stance shifts, but then you run into the problem that the momentum is lost.
But, let's put this into the context of my cross-training. I've done Hapkido, and recently started BJJ and Muay Thai. I find the Palgwe style to be much better for the grappling arts. The stances we use in Palgwe are more similar to the stances we use in Hapkido, and the weight distribution and momentum seems to help me better in BJJ. However, in Muay Thai, I find the more squared stances of the Taegeuk form help me better with the Muay Thai squared stance. My Muay Thai/MMA coach (who's also one of the BJJ black belts at my gym) has actually said that he thinks TKD stances translate better to MMA than Muay Thai does, so maybe the Palgwe style is helpful there as well.
So What's the Point?
This kind of goes to my general point about the "my martial art can beat up your martial art" discussions, in which a lot of thought is given to what
I know, what
I've trained, and
why it was taught to
me that way, without a lot of thought given to why someone else may have learned something in a different way.
And sometimes, maybe the answer to why someone didn't learn the same principles you did, is their forms teach different principles. Or at least were interpreted a different way.
