Of course it is possible.
Sean
Sean
SageGhost83
Brown Belt
Why not? The koreans "Koreanized" japanese karate away from its roots and renamed it Tae Kwon Do, so why not us? What is so special about them that says that they can do it but we can't? Taekwondo *is* a set of techniques - a set of techniques that were designed to incapacitate an aggressor. The cultural and philosophical elements were add-ons, not irreplaceable facets of the art. Taekwondo wouldn't be any less effective without them. You would still have the same techniques and principles, just with a different cultural base. Furthermore, you would have a cultural base that actually compliments the majority of the students because they would be learning the art in a way that they could more readily relate to. Koreans are not required to follow Japanese and Okinawan culture/philosophy while learning Tang So Do/Taekwondo, so why should we be required to follow Korean culture/philosophy while learning? I love Korea, too. However, I have a culture and a philosophy of my own, and they are just as good as any others.
So you replace the Korean culture of Tae Kwon Do, a culture that goes back 2000 years at least, and replace it with what? Self defense? Tae Kwon Do has that. American forms? What exactly are those?
Anyway, Korean reoriented Tae Kwon Do with Korean culture because they viewed the Japanese as usurpers and invaders. We've never invaded conquered Korea.
I'm still interested to know what the American version of Tae Kwon Do is.
Anyway, Korean reoriented Tae Kwon Do with Korean culture because they viewed the Japanese as usurpers and invaders. We've never invaded conquered Korea.
I'm still interested to know what the American version of Tae Kwon Do is.
SageGhost83
Brown Belt
It is a martial art first and foremost. The culture is completely irrelevant to the effectiveness of the techniques. Nobody owns the techniques or principles, they belong to everybody. What does going back 2000 years have to do with anything? Are you assuming that just because it is 2000 years old that it is automatically superior? How does Korean culture make the techniques any more or less effective? What exactly are Korean forms? Sets of empty movements put together and thrown in just to say that they are Korean and not Japanese anymore (while abandoning a lot of the devastating bunkai of the original japanese/okinawan forms). You say they reoriented Tae Kwon Do because of the Japanese, but it was the Japanese who they learned the style from in the first place! We have never invaded or conquered Korea, so what? What does that have to do with anything? It is completely irrelevant. They have their own history and we have ours. Neither is going to make the techniques or principles any more or less effective. What is American Taekwondo? Simple - Taekwondo with an American cultural base. Now was that hard? Same techs, same principles, heck, even same forms - even though I prefer the original Japanese/Okinawan forms because they contain the original bunkai and were not created just to serve a nationalist agenda.
Korean culture is ancient. TKD is, by all well-researched, documented, peer-reviewed accounts, a very recent import to Korea. The ancient history of Korea does not translate into an ancient history for TKD, any more than it translates into an ancient history for the internal combustion engine, eh? Let's try to keep our categories of things straight.
The self-defense inherent in the TKD forms is essentially the same self-defense that bunkai for the Okinawan/Japanese sources of TKD reveal for the karate that went to Korea and became TKD in the 30s and 40s. The forms are either the same, or remixed subsequences from the same karate forms. The general strategic principles built into the hyungs are no different from those of the O/J kata, though certain details of execution may be (slightly) different; see Stuart Anslow's 2006 book on bunkai for the Chang Hon tuls for a nice comparison between Shotokan and ITF TKD techs to see how small-scale the differences really are.
As for American forms... no one is talking about American hyungs, YM. You seem to think that that's what 'Americanize' means, but that's not the case. 'Americanize' means, bring an American perspective to the TKD technique set, and use that technique set in a way that coincides with American views of the martial arts, self-defense, street violence and self-protection. It doesn't mean creation of new forms. The Japanese took karate from the Okinawans but did not significantly change any of the forms, so far as I know, though there are of course variant forms for all of them (and that goes on Okinawa as well as in Japan). The Koreans, as Gm. Kim notes, were doing the same Japanese karate forms as the Japanese in the 40s and 50s. But the Japanese and Koreans developed different views of karate from the Okinawans, who themselves developed different views of the MAs from the Chinese whose arts they merged with their own indigenous combat systems to give rise to karate. Everyone has a different perspective, based on their own needs and cultural attitudes. And that's the point here: what happened in those cultures is bound to happen in all other places which these arts spread to.
Yes. And as is implicit in what you say, we have no particular reason to adopt either their point of view or that of the Japanese. Our history touches theirs only marginally, in terms of our sense of our own national experience. We have no stake in their conflicts apart (I would hope!) from a sense of outrage as we learn in more detail just what the Japanese militarists did to the people whose countries they occupied, but I feel exactly the same way when I read about what the Romans did to the British Celts a couple of millenia ago. We have no reason of our own to buy the Korean rejection of the Japanese elements in the MA they got from the Japanese.
I believe it is emerging: emphasis on steet-practicality, awareness of the realistic bunkai interpretations that have begun to become widely available, especially as a result of the British MA community's investigations; a new emphasis on two-person training in common street-attack scenarios, aka reality-based scenario drills of the sort that Peyton Quinn advocates in his writing...
... and most of all, recognition of TKD as a set of combat techniques, to be studied and trained for real combat. That's not the only take on TKD out there, and I see no reason why different perspectives cannot coexist happily. But like it or not, YM, you are going to see this point of view emerge more and more over the next decade. This is what we've done with everything that comes our way: reinvent it to our own purposes. And this case is not going to be an exception. Take a look at the thread Terry recently started on new direction in TKD organizations (don't have a link at hand, sorry... will try to dig it up). That is the handwriting on the wall.
SageGhost83
Brown Belt
If you are into the cultural side, then that is all fine and well - do your thing, I'm not trying to stop you. However, that doesn't mean that another person in another country can't learn the style and use their own culture. In the end, you are going to make the style *yours* anyways. It will no longer be American Taekwondo or Korean Taekwondo - it will be Youngman Taekwondo or SageGhost83 Taekwondo. The culture is not an irreplaceable part of the method. The method stands on its own as a system of techs and principles that either get the job done or do not. The culture is more of a superficial thing that can be swapped in or out at any time as long the method holds true. Let's say that I take a knife fighting system that was created in america and uses a certain set of scientific principles and proven techniques and teach the system in korea. If the Koreans were to either replace the American cultural parts (handshakes, howdy's, yee-haws, etc.) with Korean cultural parts or just flat out add a Korean cultural part where there was no culture in the first place, would that make the knife fighting system any *less* effective or legitimate? No way, it still uses the same exact techniques and principles - the only thing that has changed is the window dressing. If you like Korean culture, then by all means stick to what you do. That doesn't mean that somebody who doesn't like it or somebody who prefers their own culture is not allowed to make their own culture a part of their TKD. It is not a law of the martial arts.
SageGhost83
Brown Belt
...and I apologize for the oversimplification of my defining of the Korean forms. They are not empty, they contain sound techniques, but they have lost a lot in translation due to nationalist agendas. I prefer the Japanese/Okinawan forms, but that doesn't mean that I won't bust a mean Chon Ji :high5:.
I'd say yes to the original question. It's gone on with the other styles and systems here as well. Once you reach a high enough degree, understanding, etc.. and open your own school...you can teach it however you want to. Just as the others have done.
