Human Weapon- TKD
- Thread starter Laurentkd
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Couple of questions (not to get off track here):
1. Why did Tae Kwon Do use middle/high kicks from the beginning when Shotokan uses low/middle kicks? There was no tournament glory to strive for at that time.
2. Why did Won Kuk Lee have to get permission to teach Tang Soo Do, and that permision denied twice? If he were teaching something authorized by and approved by the Japanese government (which Shotokan was), seems to me he'd have received permission from the start. The Japanese obviously didn't approve of Tang Soo Do.
3. Why does GGM Lee refer to Tang Soo Do as a Korean style (http://www.tangsudo.it/html/leewonkuk.html) It obviously wasn't simply Japanese karate to him.
1. Why did Tae Kwon Do use middle/high kicks from the beginning when Shotokan uses low/middle kicks? There was no tournament glory to strive for at that time.
2. Why did Won Kuk Lee have to get permission to teach Tang Soo Do, and that permision denied twice? If he were teaching something authorized by and approved by the Japanese government (which Shotokan was), seems to me he'd have received permission from the start. The Japanese obviously didn't approve of Tang Soo Do.
3. Why does GGM Lee refer to Tang Soo Do as a Korean style (http://www.tangsudo.it/html/leewonkuk.html) It obviously wasn't simply Japanese karate to him.
What's the basis for the claim that TKD used middle/high kicks 'from the beginning'? I've looked at several early manuals for TKD and the kicks displayed there are no more than middle height. Changing the kind of kicking TKD employed was partly driven by a conscious desire of certain of Kwan founders and early pioneers to distinguish what they were doing from what the Japanese karateka were doing, and there were other innovations as well, involving blocking and hand strikes, illustrated in a whole section of Stuart Anslow's book on bunkai for the Chang Hon forms, which would clearly be completely independent of anything in taekkyon.
If you had consulted the historical sources I've provided you with references to several times, you'd have noticed that the Japanese forbade the teaching of MAs preriod in Korea in the late 19th century, and that meant that they were primarily forbidding the teaching of jiujutsu, because that was the only style that had been taught in Japanese-occupied Korea after that occupation became official in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War. Repeat: Jiujutsu was an indigenous Japanese budo style that the Koreans were learning, and it was forbidden ANYWAY!!. The suppression of TSD later on was simply more of the same. The Japanese weren't suppressing Korean MAs in Korea; they were suppressing the teaching of MAs, period. You're an occupying power. Why would you allow a potentially effect tool for resisting control to be widely taught?? You seem to have the idea that the Japanese wanted to deprive the Koreans of their home-growns brands; what they in fact wanted to deprive them of was weapons. Are you surprised that in spite of the fact that katanas were Japanese, the Japanese in the Occupation period forbade the Koreans to own katanas, along with their own traditional swords? They didn't want the Koreans to have any weapons, Korean-made or Japanese-made. So why on earth would you expect them to allow Koreans to practice any martial art at all? How is it to the advantage of an occupying power to have citizens of the occupation knowing effective combat techniques??
We have repeatedly pointed out to you the deliberate efforts of post-occupation Korea to purge Japanese cultural motifs from its cultural life. Did you not read, as was suggested to you, Gm. Kim Soo's comments in Black Belt on this point?
What is the point of trying to have a discussion about issues where there is a very relevant set of historical sources if you're not even going to bother familiarizing yourself with those sources? Every single one of these questions can be answered on the basis of freely available, peer-reviewed historical sources whose titles and venues you've been provided with. Why do you persist in ignoring material which contains answers to the questions you keep asking??
Right, Toyama Kanken's Shudokan karate was the source of one of the Kwan curricula. And Hwang Kee's school... that's a whole other set of issues! He seems to have been primarily influenced by Itosu's version of Okinawan karate, and CMAs were present in the mix as well.
This is an interesting issue—gotta go run to class but more later...
Yes, all the Kwans taught Japanese-influenced systems (David Mitchell, The Overlook Martial Arts Handbook) but not all were from Shotokan...and indeed, Hwang kee's case is more complicated.
Well, here's the tally as I understand it:
Lee Won Kuk (Chung Do Kwan): either 3rd or 4th Dan, Shotokan, under Gichin Funakoshi, and apparently also under GF's son Yoshitaka.
Byung Jik Ro (Song Moo Kwan): 4th Dan, Shotokan, under GF.
Pyung In Yoon (Chang Moo Kwan): 5th Dan in Shudokan karate under Toyama Kanken.
Choi Hong Hi (Oh Do Kwan): 2nd Dan, Shotokan, but it's not 100% clear whether he studied directly with GF while in Tokyo.
Hwang Kee (Moo Duk Kwan): seems to have some kind of connection with Gogen Yamaguchi of Gojo-Ryu, though it's not clear how much this bore on his training. In his last book, The History of the Moo Doo Kwan, published in 1995, he acknowledged having learned not only the Pinan/Heian katas, but most of the hyungs he taught in MDK TSD, from Japanese books on karate; John Hancock, who has probably studied this aspect of HK's MA history most closely of anyone, suggests here that Funakoshi's Ryukyu Kempo Karate (1922) was one these sources.
AceHBK
Master Black Belt
You know I was just about to watch the movie When Taekwondo Strikes and then I thought of the HW episode on TKD and all of the people that mention masters and all......then it hit me
Why doesn't Jhoon Rhee's name come up in TKD talks. I remember growing up (im only 30) as a kid hearing Jhoon Rhee's name all the time and the commercials and all as a kid in MD. Why is he rarely ever mentioned if mentioned at all anymore?
Why doesn't Jhoon Rhee's name come up in TKD talks. I remember growing up (im only 30) as a kid hearing Jhoon Rhee's name all the time and the commercials and all as a kid in MD. Why is he rarely ever mentioned if mentioned at all anymore?
That's a good question, Ace. Hee IL Cho is another that doesn't get mentioned much anymore, either. Although Cho is mentioned more often than Rhee.
AceHBK
Master Black Belt
You know, when big names are left out it is usually a sign of some people having a issue with them or something. One of those, "if u can't say nothing nice, don't say anything at all." Being such a pioneer of TKD in America you would think you would hear his name more often but you don't. (Jhoon Rhee)
But it's also possible that what people are talking about is no longer the kind of thing where the names of those people are relevant. These days, there seems to be a huge surge of interest in 'old-school' TKD, the kind of thing that we've been posting back and forth about, the Kwan era when TKD was a combat system, pure and simple. That's to some extent a result of all the new work on kata bunkai, karate as a pure CQ combat system, and the latent grappling moves (throws, pins, controlling techs) of the traditional karate that gave rise to TKD. The thing is, neither Cho or Rhee really have much bearing on that set of concerns. So in this case, I wouldn't say it's so much people having an issue with these guys as it is the lack of a connection between what they were doing back in the day, on the one hand, and what people are focusing on now, on the other.
I would have to agree here, it is what people want today.
dancingalone
Grandmaster
Jhoon Rhee is over seventy now and I believe he had some health issues in the past few years. I doubt he is active as he used to be. He's still a major TKD influence in the Maryland area I understand.
Hee Il Cho seems to be expanding to Ireland judging by all the articles and ads in TKD Times magazine. At one point in the eighties, Mr. Cho was on every martial arts magazine cover it seemed.
Both gentlemen have done their parts to popularize TKD in the United States. It's true neither are involved with the recent bunkai/boon hae resurgence. Mr. Rhee was more known for his martial ballet and for Americanizing TKD as an art. Mr. Cho became famous for his many demos featuring crowd-pleasing breaks made with his high-flying kicks, and he also appeared in lots of movies (mostly bad ones, but hey he showed what TKD could do).
Hee Il Cho seems to be expanding to Ireland judging by all the articles and ads in TKD Times magazine. At one point in the eighties, Mr. Cho was on every martial arts magazine cover it seemed.
Both gentlemen have done their parts to popularize TKD in the United States. It's true neither are involved with the recent bunkai/boon hae resurgence. Mr. Rhee was more known for his martial ballet and for Americanizing TKD as an art. Mr. Cho became famous for his many demos featuring crowd-pleasing breaks made with his high-flying kicks, and he also appeared in lots of movies (mostly bad ones, but hey he showed what TKD could do).
As we get further and further away from the Founders and the big names of yesteryear, it is only natural that their influence will fade, to be replaced by new people with new ideas.
Organizations are the same way. In time, new faces with new ideas take over from the original students.
Organizations are the same way. In time, new faces with new ideas take over from the original students.
Something is coming down the pike, it feels like... but it's always hard to know what's happening while you're in the midst of it. After the fact, it's easy, but it's very hard to make accurate sense of the seeming chaos around you (which later on, of course, will turn out not to have been chaotic at all).
There has been a first 'American era' in the TMAs (oversimplified terminology, but I can't think of anything better at the moment), where these arts came over with expatriate masters like the ones we were talking about; e.g., in TKD, Jhoon Rhee, Hee Il Cho, Kim Soo (whose interview in the current Black Belt I mentioned earlier) and many others. The effect of the TKD wave during this period was enormous, and many KMA practitioners generally were part of the full-contact 'golden age' era of karate competition in the U.S. In those days, the TMAs were practiced by a relatively small number of intensely dedicated students and your safety during training was your own lookout, mostly; when I was an undergraduate in the NY in the mid 1960s, I had an apartment with between six and eight roomates (it changed continuously as couples formed or broke up, lol), three or four of whom were devoted karateka and who often came back from their practice severely bruised, and invariably cheerful about. 'Good session!!' was the most common type of comment about those particular evening workouts. It wasn't bravado, either; people just seemed to take it for granted that if you do karate, you are developing real fighting skills and therefore you have to test them by simulating, to some extent, the take-no-prisoners conditions of an actual fight. To me, as a non-practitioner at the time, their attitude make perfect sense. It was just part of the MA culture of that time.
I have a feeling that a second 'American era' is begining, somewhat imperceptibly maybe, where these TMAs are pursued along those lines again even as TKD goes ever more in the direction of a competitive martial spectacle (the Chloe Bruce route, and the kind of things that the new KKW forms we were discussing on that other thread), and pressure continues to 'Olympify' karate (we've had threads discussing this point too). From still other threads I've read on MT, I get the sense that it bothers a lot of TKD practitioners that TKD is now regarded by many as something quite inappropriate for SD purposes (consider the implicit dismissal of TKD, 'the government's version', as having a combat purpose in this post; and there are plenty of people who think of it the same way). I've talked about this sort of thing with Terry and a number of other people with deep and wide experience in TKD and the karate-based arts generally, and I have the sense that a deliberate seeking-out of the fighting origins of TKD, maybe even a rapprochement between more combat-oriented schools and the TSD people, is in the cards. The crucial thing about this second American era, I'm guessing, is that it will see a radical decentralization of curriculum and technical decisions, a reversion to a kwan-like organizational structure where each school makes its own decisions about hyung selection and degree of emphasis on realistic combat simulation, practical boon hae based on hyung analysis, reintroduction of the (vertical) grappling techs widely used in the distant Okinawan ancestor of TKD, and so on—in a nutshell, the decoupling of TKD from the decisions and agenda of the large Korean mega-organizations. The latter can now be seen, realistically I think, as the South Korean state's bridge to the Olympic movement, and their decisions will forevermore be determined by competitive sport considerations, judging from what we've already seen. (I know foot2face disagrees with me on this, but that's just how I see the weight of the evidence). I think a lot of people on this side of the Pacific are begining to think that if you want a different kind of TKD, you're going to have to do it for yourself, and not worry about anything the KKW tells you to do.
It's hard to make a convincing case that a change in this direction is really under way, at this point. But I have a sense that in ten years or so, we'll be seeing evidence that things began moving in that direction at the beginning of this decade...
OP
OP
Laurentkd
Master Black Belt
Ok, I am un-hijacking the thread here people! 
After some computer issues (I finally found the problem- it was between the monitor and the chair) I finally got to watch the episode. I just wanted to throw in that I thought it was great! I am sure I am biased but I tried to look at it through layman's eyes and over all I thought it seemed very interesting and showed some cool TKD stuff. The fights at the end were awesome in that I felt they gave the impression that TKD is a great fighting art (when else has a host been behind 10 to 1, let alone get knocked out!) and (while I hate to see injuries) even the fact that Jason got injured was in some way a good showing that the kicks learned in TKD aren't easily picked up in 2 weeks. Every other episode has seem to implied that these guys were picking up these moves and doing well against national champions all from training for only a few days. This was definetly not seen in the TKD episode. It is just unfortunate that the other arts weren't showcased in a similar way as I know the tools of these arts are not picked up easily either.
As far as the holes (or rather add-ins) in the history. If our own people don't know or won't recognize the truth how can we hold a tv show to a higher standard? Still sad, but I think true.
Over all I was really happy with the epsiode. Of course with what Human Weapon has shown me over the last few months my expectations certainly weren't very high so I was all the more easily impressed
After some computer issues (I finally found the problem- it was between the monitor and the chair) I finally got to watch the episode. I just wanted to throw in that I thought it was great! I am sure I am biased but I tried to look at it through layman's eyes and over all I thought it seemed very interesting and showed some cool TKD stuff. The fights at the end were awesome in that I felt they gave the impression that TKD is a great fighting art (when else has a host been behind 10 to 1, let alone get knocked out!) and (while I hate to see injuries) even the fact that Jason got injured was in some way a good showing that the kicks learned in TKD aren't easily picked up in 2 weeks. Every other episode has seem to implied that these guys were picking up these moves and doing well against national champions all from training for only a few days. This was definetly not seen in the TKD episode. It is just unfortunate that the other arts weren't showcased in a similar way as I know the tools of these arts are not picked up easily either.
As far as the holes (or rather add-ins) in the history. If our own people don't know or won't recognize the truth how can we hold a tv show to a higher standard? Still sad, but I think true.
Over all I was really happy with the epsiode. Of course with what Human Weapon has shown me over the last few months my expectations certainly weren't very high so I was all the more easily impressed
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