Is Tang Soo Do the same as Taekwondo?
- Thread starter TKDJUDO
- Start date
How long do you honestly think that will last?
JWLuiza
Black Belt
Honestly,
I'm not sure I agree with what I said, it was a summary of what others beleive. I feel like that the approach and paradigm is integral to the essence of the art. I need to visit some more TKD schools to get a better picture.
I am not saying there aren't differences.
I am saying that the similiarities so outweigh the differences that making a hard and fast deliniation between the two is a pointless exercise in semantics. You can't say one is sport and the other is not given the proliferation of Dangsudo/point karate tournaments. Both are made up of the same kicking, punching, and blocking techniques.
I am saying that the similiarities so outweigh the differences that making a hard and fast deliniation between the two is a pointless exercise in semantics. You can't say one is sport and the other is not given the proliferation of Dangsudo/point karate tournaments. Both are made up of the same kicking, punching, and blocking techniques.
Right, these are the essentials that I think we need to look through the distracting trappings to see. The combat vocabularies are very, very close, and even more important, the ways that they're intended to be used (as per the technical 'instruction manual' contained in the karate-derived hyungs) are very close as well. TSD is relatively conservative, compared with many variants of TKD, in that it still promotes the balanced mix of upper and lower body techs, derived from the KMA's historical sources, that UpN was alluding to; a lot of TKD schools push kicking techs to the exclusion of most others (in response, no doubt, to the way WTF-style point scoring and judging plays out). But non-sport oriented dojangs, whose curricula are based on the recognition of the effectiveness of hand and elbow strikes and the use of the upper body in setting up finishing strikes (in particular, blows to the head, neck and throat) will try to train students in the full range of TKD techs. And that approach is just as much taekwondo (which is the way of striking with foot and fist) as the more familiar Olympic sportified version we've been subject to for so many years.
I see the divergence between TSD and TKD that other people have been talking about in somewhat different terms—namely, I see a counter-tendency that may lead, somewhere down the line, to reintegration of the two, involving the more SD-oriented, realistic application-based part of TKD, the people who are not under the sway of the Korean TKD directorate or its sport-first/ancient-indigenous-lineage self-serving mythology. The kind of 'grass roots' reaction that we are beginning to see against the relentless sport emphasis in TKD , in (i) the work of a number of SD-oriented TKD analysts and (ii) the emergence of new organizational structures (of the sort Terry has mentioned in a number of posts), focusing on the combat content of TKD, encourages me in thinking that a lot of TKD people will find common ground with TSD people and views themselves as doing something very similar. That could lead to institutional changes in North America, at least, with some kind of rapprochement between these two extremely similar styles of—well, Korean karate, as Errant has I think correctly identified it.
