Farang Mu Sul Weapons CQC

[Kuk Sa Nim]

Greetings,
Well, it looks like lately our FMS students are pretty busy making video clips. Master Nelson Pinto from FMS Portugal just put up another one, and this one focuses on FMS Weapons CQC.

There you will see single knife (Dan Gum Sul), more advanced knife counter knife, double knives, solo middle stick (Jung Bong Sul), Stick and knife, as well as the tiger claw knife (Horangi Paltop Gum), aka: FMS Kerambit (where did he find that old footage...).

Here's the link:

So, I hope you enjoy.
With respect and brotherhood,
Kuk Sa Nim

 

[dortiz]

Just curious as I see you are in San Francisco sir. When I trained out there in the 90s our knife and stick was influenced by visits from Master Presas. Any of the same stuff here?

Cheers,

Dave O.

 

[tellner]

Looks like absolutely standard Arnis. Any reason why he had to stick Korean names on the weapons?

 

[Kuk Sa Nim]

Good questions and great points. Thank you very much gentlemen. I get these types of questions and comments all the time. The general public is not accustomed to seeing extensive Korean weaponry. The main Korean arts one sees are TKD and Hapkido. Traditionally, not a whole lot of weapons (certainly w/TKD).

I was very fortunate (and determined I might add), to learn Korean arts that were comprehensive and included more advanced and detailed weapon skills. It is a fact that I also trained in Philipino and Indonesian arts as well. Even a modestly trained eye can catch that. By the same token, you would need an eye trained in Korean arts with extensive weapons to recognize the diversity and similarities in the movements. And the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of my weapon training came from Korean martial arts. This is where I learned all the fundamentals and names and so on.

The general public here in the US rarely sees, if ever, arts such as Do Hap Sool, Sun Mu Do, Hwarang Do (I learned 4 versions of this art), and Kuk Sool (I learned 2 versions of this art), and some others that I was fortunate to be exposed to. And to my pleasant surprise, I found many of the basic fundamentals and concepts were the same in the other arts that I studied. For example, Kali systems have several versions of numbering the basic strikes. Number one may be a horizontal forehand strike, number two, a horizontal backhand, and may be followed by three and four uppercut and downward strikes. In the Korean arts I learned these were identified (in this exact sequence) by the angle of attack or defense. In this case, they are simply 90 degree strikes, which make a plus sign pattern.

It was similarities such as this that made expanding and absorbing other systems into my training that much easier. These were all incorporated into a larger matrix of skills in our art of Modern Farang Mu Sul. As a modern art, we do not restrict knowledge, yet stay true the roots of the art, which in this case is a Korean art. If I had come from a Japanese or Chinese based system, I'm sure we would have done the same. We are a product of my upbringing, personality and the needs of the world today.

And getting to the questions of the Presas brothers, yes, absolutely. I feel blessed to have had training by both GM Remy and GM Ernesto Presas. To me two of the jewels of the arts on this planet. Once I came back from Korea in 1982, I was very thirsty to expand my skills and realized that living in San Francisco alone was a gift, as it is a veritable “Mecca” of martial arts, and great teachers. I “majored” in Korean arts, but was always open to train with anyone, regardless of “style or country of origin”. It was around 1994 that I decided to really expand my Korean weapon skills with official training in Philipino and Indonesian arts. I was happy to have trained with so many amazing friends and teachers such as, Guru Larry Hartsell, Sigung Art Gitlin, Guru William De Thouars, Guru Roberto Torres, Guru Carlito Bonjok, and so many others. Interesting to note is that with our knife skills, even though it is based on Korean (and these other arts), the bottom line is the training I received from growing up in the Bayview / Hunters Point district of San Francisco, and the knife skills I learned in Mexico, that form the main base of our skill set. This is where the rubber met the road for me personally. This will leave a deep impression on anyone.

And as far as the tiger claw knife, again, the main basics I learned in Korea. Here are a couple of pictures of training in Korea, with some of the most unusual weapons I had ever seen (including various forms of “tiger claws”).

http://www.dsystem.com/images/DHS22DblEdgSwrdHookHatchet.html

http://www.dsystem.com/images/DHS23BlowDarts.html

http://www.dsystem.com/images/DHS04BlkBltTest.html

Alright, I didn’t mean to write a newspaper here. I hope this sheds some light for you all. Thank you once again for the positive remarks and great questions.

With much respect and brotherhood,
[FONT=&quot]Kuk Sa Nim[/FONT]

 

[DMcHenry]

Sorry to get off topic here, but I have a question for you that I've wondered about I hope you don't mind.

I didn't think that the Korean language had the "f" sound or a character for it. Is "Farang" a Korean word?

Thank you sir,
Mac

 

[MBuzzy]

Sorry to get off topic here, but I have a question for you that I've wondered about I hope you don't mind.

I didn't think that the Korean language had the "f" sound or a character for it. Is "Farang" a Korean word?

Thank you sir,
Mac

I've always wondered that....it would have to be parang or harang. None of those are Korean words, nor is farang.

 

[Kuk Sa Nim]

Greetings gentlemen,
Ah yes, the question about why we use the “F” in Farang, since there really isn’t a letter for “F” in the Korean language. The simple answer is you are correct that there is no letter for “F”, but that doesn’t mean there is no “F” sound. Remember, we are the ones assigning Western-Romanized letters to the characters and words used in the Korean language. Again, this does not mean there is no “F” sound.

You are correct, if using the Han-Gul characters, the sound would be more akin to “Harang” or “Wharang”. But, in the Sino-Korean characters, also known as Han-Ja, there are no phonetic “letter” sounds, but rather they are pictogram / ideogram characters, which are used to convey a deeper meaning or idea, rather than the phonetic sound we are used to here in the USA. These Chinese Han-Ja characters were used since antiquity to write and express the language of Asian cultures, including Korea. The Chinese characters used for Farang Mu Sul, if read by a Chinese person, would be more like: “Falang Wu Shu”.

There are a couple of reasons we choose to use the letter F in spelling our version of Farang Mu Sul. While in Korea, I was somewhat surprised to hear some people say “Farang”, rather than “Wharang”. I was equally confused to see several other “letters” pronounced differently, such as “Busan rather than Pusan”, or “Habgido rather than Hapkido”, and others. The b’s and p’s, the t’s and d’s, the g’s and k’s, the l’s and r’s, were basically interchangeable, even on some street signs. I found this also to be true with the “f and h”. This brought me back to when I first learned Farang Kwan, we used the “F”, and later I found this also as Hwarang Do, where the “H” was used. The only thing I could surmise was it was more of a regional accent thing. The more Chinese influence had a more softer influx.

When we changed the name of our art, we decided to go with the deeper ideas and concepts of what our art was about. I felt that we were evolving the classical arts that I learned into a more modern and progressive area. At the same time, we wanted to respect and pay homage to the deeper roots of our art. Since the original language was recorded with the Han-Ja characters, it would have sounded more like Farang. And since I found that the Han-Ja is still used even today, and was also pronounced at times as Farang, we chose Farang, to recognize a deeper meaning of the ancient Korean warrior class. We also choose to use “Mu Sul”, an older form of meaning “Fighting (martial) art”, rather than “Do”, a more modern application referring to “the Martial Way”. We feel we are a fighting art, as that is one of our main focuses. On one hand we were taking our art to newer levels, and at the same time we were returning to our roots. For us, this strikes the perfect balance with the old and new, the classical and modern, the Umm-Yang philosophy which is at the core of our art. That is why we choose Modern Farang Mu Sul as the name of our art, which is meant to mean: The Fighting Art of the Modern Warrior.

Thank you once again, I hope this helps.
With respect and brotherhood,
Kuk Sa Nim

 

[DMcHenry]

Thank you sir for the very thoughtful and in depth response. That does help with understanding it.

 

[shesulsa]

A Chinese gentleman who works locally asked about the art and when I mentioned Hwarang Do he repeated back to me, "Farang Do."

Thank you for the explanation, KSN - and Farang! =)

:asian:

 

[MBuzzy]

KSN - Where in Korea did you live or visit? It must be a regional thing - I spent very little time in the East of Korea (except Busan if you can count that). I traveled a lot around and between Kunsan, Seoul, and Songtan and as far east as Jeonju and never encountered an "f" in romanization or in pronunciation. Most of the Koreans that I studied with weren't even capable of making the "f" sound, they usually filled in with "h" or "p." But then, of course, of the 5 standards of romanization, I am only familiar with McCune-Reischauer and and RR (Revised Romanization of Korean). I know that the standard for traffic signs has been completely switched over to RR now.

Do you have the Hanja AND Hangul for "Farang?" I know that the "f" sound is used in Chinese - but it usually doesn't transliterate over to Korean. Take the example of Naihanchi...in Chinese, the same form is Naifanchi, but due to most Korean's difficulty with it, they substituted the h. I guess the thing that confuses me the most is that Hanja characters aren't independant of Hangul. Now granted, Hanja is still used extensively in academic publications, textbooks, newspapers and even on a lot of signs, but when a Korean LEARNS hanja, they learn it in terms of Hangul. Example - my style, 唐手道, (they aren't part of the basic 1800 that every high school kid has to learn....but we'll ignore that part for now) when taught, would be shown to a Korean as 당수도. The beauty of the Korean language is that the characters ARE phoenetic, so you write EXACTLY as you speak. There are no sounds that aren't represented with a character and vice-versa. So even Hanja have Hangul interpretations; in fact, there are whole dictionaries devoted to this idea (mine kind of stinks if anyone knows a better one). For more info on this, go here. That is BY FAR the best online resource, the paper versions are lacking.

My guess is that the sound is regional, but when it came over to English, someone made the arbitrary call to use the "F" instead of the "H" apparently for the reasons that you said, to pay an homage to the Chinese heritage.

It is very interesting linguistically - particuarly if it is said that way IN KOREA, because most Koreans would have to learn a new sound, kind of like teaching an American to use the ㄹ sound.

 

[Kuk Sa Nim]

Greetings again,
It is always so very interesting to me how people can have either similar or completely different experiences with travel, culture and so on. Well let me answer some of these questions.

We generally use the Chinese characters for our art, as those would represent the older way of writing and pronouncing our art. We had to modify the Han-gul so it would not say: "Wha, or Hwa", and so now it actually reads more like "Ha". This is why we prefer the Chinese characters.

http://www.farangmusul.com/

I lived in Korea for about 2 years, mostly in the North. That was in 1981-82, and I'm sure things are VERY different now, as to how it was back then. I was stationed at Osan AB, and visited the nearby cities (Song-tan, Su-won, etc) and whenever I had a real weekend or longer, I made a point of jumping on a bus and go......somewhere. I just wanted to take in the people and culture. I traveled North as far as the DMZ, went to the interior such as Daejon and Kunsan, and went as far South as Pusan. There were still so many places I wanted to visit but never made it. Especially now that I have a better idea of what I would do.

I visited Seoul countless times and at some point had a girlfriend who lived there. She is actually the one who taught me how to read Han-gul, and taught me so much about Korea and the people. Also my teacher from Do Hap Sool (GM Cun, In Whan), LOVED to travel and to train in the mountains. Well, that was right up my alley, because that was me too. We did some great training trips together. Here are a couple of pictures:

http://www.dsystem.com/images/DHS10LastMntnTrip.html

http://www.dsystem.com/images/DHS12LastMntnTrip.html

http://www.dsystem.com/images/DHS14GapSaTmpl.html

He also taught me so much about Korea, and he also wrote extensively with Chinese characters. As a matter of fact all of our patches used Han-ja. Here's a couple examples from his website:

http://www.dohapsool.com/index.html

http://www.dohapsool.com/id5.html

At any rate, I did encounter many a time, when Farang was used, even with Han-gul characters. I agree that Han-gul is supposed to be phonetic, but it is still not always pronounced as one might expect. I really think it is a regional accent thing. I guess the same could be said about English. The accents from the East coast, and the South, and something like Boston.....forget-about-it.

I also encountered this same issue with Koreans here in the US. Even my old teacher in Hwarang Do GM-JBL originally used the F in spelling Farang. This was latter changed to Hwa. There is some info and photos of an old banner on this website:

http://www.hwarang.org/Personal.html

Please don't get started with all of the politics, because we have beat that horse VERY dead, and I'm done with that subject.

Finally, one of my main points for using Farang, was that as I mentioned before, we felt that we were evolving our art into a more modern and progressive direction, and at the same time wanted to stay true to our roots. For me, I first learned the art as Farang Kwan in San Francisco back in 1976. My then teacher Master Park, Dae Won would say "Farang", and that is how is was written. So, we used Farang as a way of returning to our roots, and on a deeper level the ancient roots using the Han-ja characters.

Alright, good discussion. Thanks again.
With much respect and brotherhood,
Kuk Sa Nim