Foot Fist Way

[puunui]

We will have to agree to disagree. I've seen Hwang Kee use them like so.

We could agree to disagree if this were an opinion type issue, but it is not. It is a factual one. The fact of the matter is "traditionally", which hopefully you mean from the beginning, Tang Soo Do and Soo Bahk Do utilized short stances. When did you see GM Hwang use long wide stances?

And here's where every dispute about the martial arts begins and ends: The lack of source material.

Maybe you have a lack of source material but others are not so limited. For example, if you look at GM HWANG Kee's 1958 book Tang Soo Do Kyobon, it shows the stances are short and narrow, not long or wide. This book was written when the name Tang Soo Do was used by GM Hwang and two years before the Soo Bahk Do name was used.

How did one school or even one country impact another is largely conjecture. In fact, there is an argument that the martial arts began with the Greeks and came to Asia by the way of Alexander the Great.

I don't know about the Greeks or Alexander the Great, but I think that there is documentation on how Karate traveled from Okinawa to Japan to Korea.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

Again, we will have to agree to disagree. I perceive black belt as a recognizable level of mastery and maturity. Can it be improved, of course. However, I think it doesn't belong in the hands of children. That is my opinion.

I agree. I dont believe black belt is the be all and end all, but I do belive a black belt should be damn good and I have only ever met one or two kids who I have seen who are really good. A club is judged by its black belts, and just having an "understanding of the basics" is not what I, or the general public, percieve a black belt to be. As Ive said before, if push comes to shove on the 'street', a black belt should be more than capable of defending themselves and should win a lot more often than not. My club has kid black belts and its one thing I will never agree with. I was at a demo one time and over heard someone in the crowd say "oh little kids with black belts on, thats so cute", they actually thought the kids were in "dress up" as part of the demo. If I ever start my own club it will be a hard and fast rule that kids cannot get a black belt until at least 17 or 18 years of age.