Mas Oyama and TKD video

[Laurentkd]

Exactly! I tried to make a similar point in another thread a while back and got smack around a bit for it but I agree with you a 100%.

Ah too bad! I would have backed you up if I had seen it.

 

[exile]

That's understandable, but my master was of the opinion that by the time you're already 18 you could be sent off to war and "it's too late to learn to swim when you start to drown", and I kind of agree with him.

Yes, it definitely makes sense...

I agree with what you are saying, however....
how do we decide what IS acceptable to teach children. For example, I worry that teaching a child to strike to the throat will cause serious injury to a class room bully. However, I fear not teaching a child to strike to the throat will give them less of a chance to escape from an abductor.
I think it is hard to figure out how to train kids to defend themselves as well as when and to what extent to defend themselves. Which is also why I think respect and courtesy and self-control (etc) are such important parts of a child's training in martial art. Not that "character development" should be taught instead of martial arts, but it has to go hand in hand or else we are just training kids that won't know what is acceptable when (and in extreme cases bullies!).
It is a fine line...

It is a fine line. But the difficulty it involves is inherent in being willing to take a child on as a student in a MA class. Since if we're honest about it, we know that structured violence is the basic core of a MA—that's the reason its technique are what they are, after all—it pretty much follows that we can't really pretend to ourselves that taking the child on as a student is all about teaching them sweetness and light and that ridiculous 'self-esteem/self-confidence' angle that so many McDojangs emphasize to bring bodies through the door (if they're supposed to gain self-confidence, can it be for any other reason that they have learned skills sufficient to defend themselves with? And that means learning to hurt an attacker, if it comes to that, no? Funny, however, how such places rarely talk too much about that little detail... ).

I'd much rather see an honest confrontation with the fact of the destructive potential in TKD and other MAs when it comes to teaching children, the way f2f's teacher and Iceman do it. Maybe a five-year old is too young to expose to such methods, but when you're dealing with a five year old, you're mostly working just on very basic physical skill sets that will set them up to learn more complex stuff down the line—they're just barely out of the toddler stage at that point, really, so balance is an issue, and learning to move into and out of basic stances is as much of a challenge as they can handle, from my own (limited) experience teaching children that young. But by the time you're looking at 8- and 9-year-olds, you're dealing with people who—if my own son is at all typical—do have a strong sense of moral awareness so far as actions and consequence go. They are quite capable of understanding that pain is a bad thing to cause someone else, that you may have to do it to prevent injury to yourself, and that that's the only reason you should ever apply it to another person. If the child is psychologically normal, they can, by around that age—certainly by 10 or so— juxtapose the two ideas—don't be violent to people who aren't trying to hurt you, but do what you have to to defend yourself against someone who is—well enough to justify teaching them seriously effective techniques at that age.

F2f, what was the thread where you had trouble on this point?

****This might be worth moving rather than continuing the highjack. Can someone move this to a new thread?****

Well, since f2f started the thread, we're probably OK so far... he'll nudge it back if he thinks it's going too far off-topic, eh?

 

[Laurentkd]

Yes, it definitely makes sense...



But by the time you're looking at 8- and 9-year-olds, you're dealing with people who—if my own son is at all typical—do have a strong sense of moral awareness so far as actions and consequence go. They are quite capable of understanding that pain is a bad thing to cause someone else, that you may have to do it to prevent injury to yourself, and that that's the only reason you should ever apply it to another person. If the child is psychologically normal, they can, by around that age—certainly by 10 or so— juxtapose the two ideas—don't be violent to people who aren't trying to hurt you, but do what you have to to defend yourself against someone who is—well enough to justify teaching them seriously effective techniques at that age.

You bring up a very good point here. Maybe we tend to under estimate what kids can understand and handle? In my opinion, as a society we definetly under estimate their ability to accept "losing" and that they aren't all that "special"!

 

[jim777]

Here is a short clip of Mas Oyama apparently giving a lesson to TKD practitioners in Korea, circa 1967. I wonder if this is around the time when General Choi tried to bring him into the TKD family. A cool bit of history for those interested in the arts.

My knowledge of Mas Oyama is limited, but I don't see how he would have been up for a switch to TKD in the 60's. Kyokushin was bent on rapid global expansion at that point, and were pursuing it everywhere. The US Honbu came into being right around '67 as well.
Further, he was a Korean that had moved to Japan, changed his name to a more Japanese one, and had taken great pride in defending Japan's karate "face" against what was billed as a Muy Thai challenge to all of Japanese karate a few years earlier. I'm not surprised Gen Choi would have asked him to come over to TKD, as he was definitely a big-name Korean martial artist, but I can't believe he seriously though there was a chance of it happening.

Does anyone know any more about the TKD overtures to Oyama and the Kyokushinkai in the 60's?

(I guess I should add I'm not trying to take a shot at either Mas Oyama or the Kyokushinkai here; not my point at all)

 

[exile]

Maybe we tend to under estimate what kids can understand and handle? In my opinion, as a society we definetly under estimate their ability to accept "losing" and that they aren't all that "special"!

This is something I keep coming back to: people who have genuine self-esteem problems are not the kids who keep coming in last in fourth grade spelling bees (which presumably would be banned in a heartbeat on just those grounds, and may well have already been in some places ) The people who have that problem are vastly more likely to have been subject to severe emotional or physical abuse, or raised by hostile 'caretakers' who denied the child love, affection, basic comfort and all the rest. Severe emotional damage brought about by parental neglect, by cruelty—that level of thing. Children with loving parents and other adults around them whose main priority was the child's well-being are not going to have problems with self-esteem. They have been given ample evidence from the cradle on that others regard them as worthy, valuable beings. And, after a certain point, they don't need to be coddled or 'protected' from contact with the rough edges of the world; doing that in fact is like the kid raised in the sterile bubble from birth, for whom an ordinary head cold could be fatal because their immune system hasn't learned how to cope with the challenge of common viruses.

Kids need a certain amount of challenge, along with evidence that good things don't just happen, you have to make them happen, especially as you grow out of early childhood. MAs can offer the older child a good bridge to a realistic picture of the world—probably safe for the most part (for those of us lucky enough to be born in the western world) but still demanding alertness and sharp thinking, and quick reactions under certain conditions that we can't rule out in advance. Training for realistic attack scenarios can help children accept both that such events are possible and that they don't have to be helpless in the face of them, that they have tools and resources that can defeat the attempt to harm them, but that they have to be willing to put their training into action. If we take the MAs seriously as practical tools, then it's pretty clear that they should be available to the most vulnerable among us. And while it should be part of MA training that you don't abuse these techniques by hurting people who aren't threatening you, the lion's share of that training should come from the child's parents, along with the rest of his or her ethical development. I mean, contrary to what I've read at various times on MT or in the TKD 'press', there is nothing inherently virtuous about the technique sets that constitute the MAs; if we want people to use the MAs in an ethically responsible way, we need to raise our kids to be ethically responsible people. And that's much more our job than it is the job of the dojang instructor. The latter can help in the narrow domain of when you should and should not strike at the throat or the eyes, as people have pointed out, but the larger issue is going to wind up being determined by what kind of ethical compass the child comes out of childhood with... and we all know who bears greatest responsibility for that, eh?

 

[terryl965]

All I will add is I teach all my childern the same as my adult with techniques now with that being said childern can learn my son have learned alot and they know what can and cannot be use and when these techs. are aloowed in SD. But that is me childern today seem to grab things quicker than we did at there age thirty years ago.

 

[foot2face]

****This might be worth moving rather than continuing the highjack. Can someone move this to a new thread?****

Well, since f2f started the thread, we're probably OK so far... he'll nudge it back if he thinks it's going too far off-topic, eh?

No, by all means, take the thread were ever you like. That’s the best part of having a discussion; who knows where it will end up?

 

[exile]

No, by all means, take the thread were ever you like. That’s the best part of having a discussion; who knows where it will end up?

I like that policy! And I think it makes sense for something like this...
because I actually think those vids are something like a Rorschach test... you look at them and what you see says a lot about your own thinking and perspective on the arts.

 

[zDom]

Nice footage!

Both the Mas Oyama and vintage CDK stuff.

Kam sahm ni da!

 

[foot2face]

Here is a recent clip of some very young practitioners taking a brief test. They preform two poomse, one-step and no-contact sparring. The one-step caught my attention. The first technique is a high block followed by a multi-level double punch. The second technique is as inside block that deflects the attacker outward followed by a double punch to the floating rib and a back fist? to the base of the skull. The third technique is the most notable as it is the notorious "knife hand to the neck" counter, depicted in the previous clip.

 

[foot2face]

I've come across another old clip. It's labeled as "Taekwondo 1957" but one of the commenters said that it's actually TSD, never the less it is a quick glimpse at MA training in Korea at the time. Points to note are a 3-step sparring sequence were the defender counters with a roundhouse to the attackers head and knife fighting. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the knife fighting seems militaristic to me. Very simple no frills get in there pump the organs and get out, the type of method one might learn in boot camp.