Chung Bong: the forgotten hyung series of TKD...

[SageGhost83]

there are people on this very board that will call you a heretic for that..LOL

So true! I am expecting Youngman's fist to come out of the computer screen and give me a black eye any minute now :uhohh::boxing::lol:.

 

[exile]

I'm going to say something which I'm intending to be taken in general; it's directed at no one person in particular, and really, I don't want to get into personalities—I don't think that's useful. My whole point is just this: the guy who devised these hyungs was a Korean, a senior student of one of the Kwan founders. Does it make sense for Americans, say, to object to them on the grounds that they aren't, in some sense, Korean enough? As Americans, we don't really have any clue about what it means to be Korean; we'll always be outsiders, looking through a (very, very thick piece of) glass darkly, at something that only members of that particular culture understand in their bones, just as someone who's learned English as a second language, no matter how fluent they are or how many decades they've spoken it, will never know it the way a ten year old native speaker does. Technical objections—sure, that's a different thing entirely. The question of the street applicability of a form is always a fair one, as Terry has stressed; and that's something that has nothing to do with culture, but something more like engineering: is this an efficient design solution to a certain [self-defense] kind of problem? But it seems to me extremely bizarre for some member of culture X to criticize the product of someone from culture Y on the grounds that that product isn't Y-ish enough.

This ties in with Rob McLain's and SageGhost's points about ethnocentrism and cultural chauvinism. People who allow themselves to become spear-carriers and shield bearers for someone else's calculated, partisan agenda, particularly when this incorporates nationalist ideological motives, run the risk of falling under the rubric of Lenin's 'useful idiots' description. Lenin was referring to people in the relatively democratic west who acted as cheerleaders and publicists for Bolshevik repression in the belief that it was a necessary precursor to 'the withering away of the state'. Lenin knew much better; his contemptuous description of such people as useful idiots reflected the cynical realism of his own view that the purpose of the Revolution was to establish control over the Russian economy and Russian society by any means necessary. The moralistic justifications for doing that produced by a later generation of useful idiots, people like Walter Duranty, who later won the Pulitzer Prize for his whitewashing of some the worst cases of Stalinism's terror, are good examples of what can happen when you take over the role of reciting excuses and justifications for someone else's institutional agenda. Things don't have to be that extreme, though. An American, Canadian or European who looks askance at the product of a very advanced Korean practitioner's understanding of his own art on the grounds that it's not Korean enough is dangerously close to doing the same sort of thing. In a culture which has been a cross roads for influences from Northern Asia, Mongolia, Japan and China for thousands of years, what would it mean to say that something produced by a Korean 'isn't Korean enough'?

I myself don't really know what to make of these forms. I'm certainly not going to try to impose a litmus test on them about whether or not they are sufficiently Korean. I think they can be judged, but on the basis of whether they seem to embody useful, practical technical content—just as I judge Okinawan, Japanese or Chinese forms on that basis. I don't think any of us are in a position to say 'how Korean' something is, because I'm pretty sure that even if something like that represents a meaningful kind of judgment (which I actually doubt), none of us has enough an idea of what 'being Korean' means to be able to make such a judgment competently. Imagine someone borne and bred in the Caucasus making a judgment that a particular piece of Hawthorne's writing didn't truly reflect 'New England culture' and ask yourself if that would make any sense.

What I'd really like is some idea of what is and is not good technically about these forms. For instance, I'm really interested in what it is about them that Rob McLain doesn't like at all (hint, hint!). What was Master Hyon doing with kicking in these forms? What kind of techniques are the forms giving hints about in terms of practical combat applications? Those kinds of questions, I think we're in a pretty good position to give good answers to...

 

[tkd1964]

There can be a problem with tying any art to a country, because some can use it for ethnotrinsic posturing, etc. Instead the art should belong to the people that sweat, practice and preserve the art. - Not political leaders, businessmen, or even the instructors that stand around and point while other people actually sweat and practice on the dojang floor.

In the case of Taekwondo, I believe the only advantage of being closer to the Japanese or Okinawa or Chinese root arts is that those art have a longer history and many more "trials by fire" than the short time taekwondo has existed. Could Taekwondo surpass the arts from Japan and Okinawa for self-defense? Absolutely, but it is highly unlikely for a SD aspect given the direction of Taekwondo in the past 40 years. Taekwondo just doesn't have the same goals and direction as these other arts anymore.

When this threat started and I saw the title mentioning "Chung Bong," I thought the threat was about the staff. Just my opinion, but those forms on youtube were really awful.

R. McLain

You can say that Okinawa and Chinese arts had more "trials by fire" but not Japanese Karate since it was only introduced in the 1920's. the first Kwan leaders, such as GM Ro and GM Lee, could be considered first generation Karateka.

 

[rmclain]

You can say that Okinawa and Chinese arts had more "trials by fire" but not Japanese Karate since it was only introduced in the 1920's. the first Kwan leaders, such as GM Ro and GM Lee, could be considered first generation Karateka.

Yes, I agree with this.

1st generation: Don't forget Yoon Kwe-byung, also known as Yoon Ui-byung, (founder Ji Do Kwan)- his teachers were Toyama Kanken and Mabuni Genwa. He even had his own school in Japan called, "Han Moo Kwan" and published a staff technique textbook in Japan, dedicated to Mabuni Kenwa and Toyama Kanken. ***After 1950 Lee Kyo-yoon used the name "Han Moo Kwan" in Korea also.

Also, Yoon Byung-in (founder YMCA Kwon Bup Bu/Chang Moo Kwan) studied under Toyama Kanken from ~1939-1946. These two 1st generation instructors were listed in Toyama's instructor's directory published in the late 1940's or early 1950's as 4th dans and representatives in Korea. They both returned to S. Korea following WWII.

R. McLain

 

[cdunn]

That would be Panzer Kunst

Mmm, that would be a problem, I seem to lack the neccesary parts to practice that particular art.

 

[FieldDiscipline]

I myself don't really know what to make of these forms.

Pretty much what I was thinking.

 

[terryl965]

The forms thereself are a great learning tool if you understqand all the techniques in them. The main problem is nobody wants to take the time and break down and learn all the techs. must just learn the movements of each given form, poomsae.

 

[exile]

The forms thereself are a great learning tool if you understqand all the techniques in them. The main problem is nobody wants to take the time and break down and learn all the techs. must just learn the movements of each given form, poomsae.

In a lot of case, people's instructors themselves never learned how to do that, so when they started to teach, they didn't know what the applications are. They can only teach what they themselves know. And they may not even realize that there are such techniques concealed within the movements of the form. Look at all the threads in the Karate fora in which people express the view that kata are just a kind of folkdance, why should we be burdened having to learn them, etc. etc. It's a problem that cuts across a lot of MAs, unfortunately...

 

[terryl965]

In a lot of case, people's instructors themselves never learned how to do that, so when they started to teach, they didn't know what the applications are. They can only teach what they themselves know. And they may not even realize that there are such techniques concealed within the movements of the form. Look at all the threads in the Karate fora in which people express the view that kata are just a kind of folkdance, why should we be burdened having to learn them, etc. etc. It's a problem that cuts across a lot of MAs, unfortunately...

I completely agree so many instructors do not even know the true meaning of forms so why should there students.

 

[Miles]

I thought the hyung looked interesting but also very much like Karate. I don't that is a slight on them at all, they just had a more Karate-like look than a Taekwondo look. I attribute that to GM Hyon being a very early student of GM Ro.

Thanks for finding those and posting the link!

Miles

 

[exile]

I thought the hyung looked interesting but also very much like Karate. I don't that is a slight on them at all, they just had a more Karate-like look than a Taekwondo look. I attribute that to GM Hyon being a very early student of GM Ro.

Miles

That makes a lot of sense, Miles. In its early days SMK really was a literal transplant of Shotokan, and it would make sense for someone who had studied with Gm. Ro in that earliest phase to internalize that model of the art.

It's interesting, though, isn't it, that he maintained that view (as expressed in the hyung set he created) even after Gm. Ro had decided to go in a different direction...

This is something that I keep tripping over in looking at the way the MAs, and the KMAs in particular developed: individual decisions and preferences on the part of key players at the 'opportune moment' (as Captain Jack Sparrow would say) have often assumed an important role in the way the whole subsequent history of the art developed...

 

[Haakon]

Ancient thread, but an interesting topic. The Chung Bong forms at Karate North was the first Tae kwon do I was exposed to in 1984. I learned up through Chung Bong 3 or 4 and then moved to the west coast and started at a ITF school. What a shock going from Chung Bong 1 to Chon Ji! I wondered where the rest of the form was, and no kicks until the third pattern? It seemed very odd, and very simple, compared to what I had been learning.

I'm now relearning them from the Karate North videos and what I remember, I will probably do them with the narrow ITF style back stance and not the wide Karate North version though, going back to the wide stance would be rough.

Black Belt magazine did an article on them in 1994 that some might find interesting. Google has it online: http://books.google.com/books?id=QN...resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

[dancingalone]

I'm now relearning them from the Karate North videos and what I remember, I will probably do them with the narrow ITF style back stance and not the wide Karate North version though, going back to the wide stance would be rough.

Black Belt magazine did an article on them in 1994 that some might find interesting. Google has it online: http://books.google.com/books?id=QN...resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Thanks for the link. Haakon, why are you learning these forms other than a lineage connection? I am curious what value you perceive in them. No right or wrong answer - I am not bashing the forms.

 

[Lord-Humongous]

What the devil is he doing at the start of each pattern? Looks like he is gathering chi like a shaolin monk.

 

[dancingalone]

What the devil is he doing at the start of each pattern? Looks like he is gathering chi like a shaolin monk.

With his hands formed in knifehands? Not likely, unless his idea of ki gathering is entirely different from my own training. The angles of the arms and hands in relation to the torso are all wrong too for that type of exercise. If anything, he'd be bleeding off ki. Of course, this is strictly from my own perspective. He might have entirely sound reasons by his system for doing this stuff.

 

[Haakon]

Thanks for the link. Haakon, why are you learning these forms other than a lineage connection? I am curious what value you perceive in them. No right or wrong answer - I am not bashing the forms.

Nostalgia is one reason, they were the first forms I learned and I'd like to re-learn them. Maybe I'll video them at some point to have a reference copy for myself for posterity.

The forms are slightly more "real world", or "real sparring" than the ITF forms, at least from the standpoint of using more practical guarding stances and pulling punches back and not always leaving the arm extended. I don't do a lot of TKD these days (about 99% focused on Hapkido) so it's fun to do some of the TKD forms too.

What the devil is he doing at the start of each pattern? Looks like he is gathering chi like a shaolin monk.

Sort of. They do tan jon breathing before the pattern. Breath in as the arms come up, exhale as the arms go down. He's doing it faster than I remember them teaching it in the 80's.