MORE Changes to Taeguek Poomse

[exile]

This has been a very interesting discussion from an outside perspective. Not that TSD is THAT outside, but we are definitely down the evolutionary ladder from TKD.

Well, that can be taken two ways... if the `evolution' in question is a hyperspecialization for a very, very limited niche, then it's probably an evolutionary advance not to go down that road! So a case could be made that you are higher up the evolutionary ladder...

Anyway, what I want to know is what the intent of the Taeguek forms was supposed to be in the first place. I suspect that they were originally designed the KMA masters thought would be good for self defense. Basically, they mimicked japanese karate without really understanding what those moves were really used for.

I don't think of them that way. They replaced the Palgwe forms, which have the stamp of the Pinan/Heian katas all over them. The Palgwes contain whole chunks of the Pinans, or small recombinations with minor variations. The Taegeuks, I'd love to have a chance to bet big money on, arose as part of the Korean nationalist `purge' of identifiably Japanese/Okinawan elements from TKD forms, although there are many sequences in the Taegeuks which are still very reminiscent of the O/J kata. TKD, after all, comes into being in the Kwan era as the Korean development of karate, and you kind of have to play the cards you've been dealt. And those cards were almost purely Shotokan techniques, at the outset. Not that they don't have SD content; Simon O'Neil is currently writing a book much of which is devoted to showing Abernethy-style bunkai for them, and in his hands, they look like scripts for very effective CQ fighting along the usual lines we're familiar with from that group. But there's a strong current of opinion that they were created for essentially nationalist political reasons.

This is why the development of these forms is so interesting. There is no doubt about it, TKD is developing into more a sporting format. So, if these changes in the forms aid those goals, from a pedegogical perspective, then the forms are more closely matching the overall objectives.

What O'Neil's work suggests—and much of the bunkai interpretation in his Combat_TKD newletter demonstrates very convincingly; he had an article in a 2005 or 2006 TKD Times which presented a kind of overview of his results—is that you can extract lean, mean street-ready apps from the Taegeuks just as you can from the Pyung-Ahn/Pinans. But the higher stances lead a lot of people to think of them as a kind of orientation program for WTF-style sparring. My intuition is that those stances didn't start out so much for that purpose as to be a very obvious, marked contrast to the extremely low stances practiced in many Shotokan schools (the Okinawan stances, interestingly enough, seem to have been a good deal higher, or at least that's what karate historians I've read, people like Mark Bishop, have concluded).

Think about it. There is no use practicing low stances if you don't practice throws or joint locks A LOT. If 90% of your techniques are kicks that are supposed to be used in competition, then it would seem to me that the intent behind the form is finally matching the ultimate goal...

What do you think?

Well, I think that we know that the point of the low stances was to emphasis driving weight into a tech to unbalance your attacker or break a joint that you had in a pin or a lock as per the `smart' bunkai for those kata. But as you yourself have pointed out, UpN, and as Master Penfil has stressed as well, the Kwan founders probably didn't have more than a rudimentary picture of the original intentions behind the kata they brought back as the first KMA hyungs, so they probably weren't consciously saying, `Well, we don't need that low stance rubbish because we're just going for high point-scoring kicks to the upper body from four feet away and have no interest in pins, armbars, locks or other stand-up grappling techs.' If you and M. JSP are correct, then their rejection of low stances would very likely not have been on the basis of some idea that `the point of such stances is really about weight projection into a controlling tech but since we aren't doing locks and pins, we can just drop them'. It seems to me more likely that the motivation was some kind of symbolic political statment: low stances are a hallmark of those guys, so just remember, we're not them!

 

[FieldDiscipline]

there's a strong current of opinion that they were created for essentially nationalist political reasons.

I certainly agree with this point, I dont see that as neccessarily being a bad thing though. The ideology behind the ITF tuls was essentially the same.

My intuition is that those stances didn't start out so much for that purpose as to be a very obvious, marked contrast to the extremely low stances practiced in many Shotokan schools (the Okinawan stances, interestingly enough, seem to have been a good deal higher, or at least that's what karate historians I've read, people like Mark Bishop, have concluded).

Am I reading this correct in taking you to mean that you do think this was an anti-shotokan statement? I think there were probably better reasons than this, although I do see your reasoning and would certainly accept that this is possible.

the Kwan founders probably didn't have more than a rudimentary picture of the original intentions behind the kata they brought back as the first KMA hyungs, so they probably weren't consciously saying, `Well, we don't need that low stance rubbish because we're just going for high point-scoring kicks to the upper body from four feet away and have no interest in pins, armbars, locks or other stand-up grappling techs.' If you and M. JSP are correct, then their rejection of low stances would very likely not have been on the basis of some idea that `the point of such stances is really about weight projection into a controlling tech but since we aren't doing locks and pins, we can just drop them'. It seems to me more likely that the motivation was some kind of symbolic political statment: low stances are a hallmark of those guys, so just remember, we're not them!

I think this may be doing the founders a great disservice. I also think that long stances used in the taegueks are deep enough for most techniques. Maybe I'd have put in the odd knee bending stance...

With this critiscm of the understanding of kata held by the early kwan founders, I am interested to hear what people think of the chang hon tuls in this respect.

 

[FieldDiscipline]

I would like to add something on this, having been compelled to go and examine my own stances!

The new walking stance is utterly ridiculous. Inner edges of feet in a line! You are gonna fall over. If they are shoulder width, as has always been the case with my schools, then you can pivot into right walking stance from left etc.

Myself:

I also think that long stances used in the taegueks are deep enough for most techniques

Two foot lengths. You should be able to pivot from front stance into horse riding stance. The very definitions I have given below prevent this from being correct.

 

[exile]

Am I reading this correct in taking you to mean that you do think this was an anti-shotokan statement? I think there were probably better reasons than this, although I do see your reasoning and would certainly accept that this is possible.

Well, the original reason given, as I recall, for replacing the Palgwes with the Taegeuks was that not all Kwans had had input to the creation of the former. But this is a bit fishy, because when you look at the relationship between the two sets, it's fairly clear that the whole architecture of the Palgwes was scrapped, that the emerging TKD directorate went back to drawing board completely, and that the result was a set of forms which looked radically different from any of the forms that the kwan founders had learned in Japan. The Japanese forms still preserve, in disguise so to speak, the pins, locks and other controlling moves from the tuite component of the original Okinawan kata; and it's clear, from early photos that people like Mark Bishop and Iain Abernethy, that Funakoshi himself knew and at least demonstrated grappling techs—I've seen one photo of him actually using a suplex on an opponent. But while some of the arm movements associated with those moves are present in the Taegeuks, the low stances which encode the idea of manipulating your body weight to create the necessary leverage an opponent's limb are missing, so as guides for combat, the Taegeuks have in effect removed a crucial part of the combat formula, at least as conceived in Okinawan and, more covertly, Japanese karate. It's not that the moves aren't still implicit there, but they're deeply concealed, because the uniformly high stances don't point the practitioner in the direction of a trap/lock/throw interpretation. Much more than even the Shotokan `dilution' of the Shuri ancestor forms, the Taegeuks present themselves simply as block/strike/kick sequences. And if you look at reasonably `official' interpretation of the Taegeuk moves, such as that given in the Park, Park and Gerrard manual officially endorsed by the WTF, you'll see that the intended SD bunkai offered are... well, just laughably impractical for anything like a sudden violent street confrontation. So my interpretation of the Taegeuks is based on what I think is their most striking characteristic: the huge visual disconnection between them on the one hand and any O/J forms on the other. The relatively frequent occurrence of kicking movements (though the kicks are still well outnumbered by the hand movements) is yet another element which emphasizes the disconnect between the O/J forms on the one hand and the K forms on the other.

I think this may be doing the founders a great disservice. I also think that long stances used in the taegueks are deep enough for most techniques. Maybe I'd have put in the odd knee bending stance...

I'm not criticising the Kwan pioneers when I say this; the point is, I think, that you're unlikely to know something if you've never been taught it, particularly if we're talking about relatively `esoteric' knowledge—information that's been protected from general circulation. The problem the Kwan founders faced, one well beyond their control, was that their own karate teachers were exposed to a relatively diluted interpretation of kata bunkai, and this goes back to Funakoshi himself, whom Choki Motobu derided in his books as having learned and practiced only second-rate bunkai. Whatever personal issues there were between the two, but as Abernethy and Bill Burgar both point out, the training methods adopted by Funakoshi for his university and dojang classes in Japan emphasized line drills, repetitive kihon exercises and sparring, rather than the kind of one-on-one `applied' approach that Itosu, Azato and other Okinawan masters pursued. And the kwan founders showed up in the thirties, well after this particular approach had become pretty much universal in karate education. Furthermore, their status as Korean nationals, in the racist, hiearchical and militaristic culture of prewar Japan, would have made it still less likely for them to have been included in any `elite' subgroup of student that was given access to whatever effective bunkai their instructors chose to impart. Check out Jay Penfil's comments relevant to this point here (actually, the whole thread is very relevant to what you're asking about); there's actually a lot of discussion in the Tang Soo Do forum threads that bears on this point. So my comments, and those of Upnorthkyosa's and Master Penfil's in the TSD fora, shouldn't be taken to be criticisms, but as best guesses, based on the evidence, about what kind of curriculum the Kwan founders themselves were exposed to.

With this critiscm of the understanding of kata held by the early kwan founders, I am interested to hear what people think of the chang hon tuls in this respect.

Have you taken a look at Stuart Anslow's recent book on detailed combat-realistic bunkai implicit in the Ch'ang Hon tuls? It's well worth looking at...

 

[rmclain]

We are on the exact same page as always! I just don't understand why the "powers that be" are so set on making everything sport oriented, and sport only. My guess is that they see that as the easiest way to spread the "art" but who cares if millions of people practice one watered down aspect (olympic sparring) when the rest of the ART disappears? I just wish I understood....

I'm really surprised this surprises anyone. They've been pressing TKD in this sport direction since the 1960's.

Ironically, the older (non-sport) Taekwondo has probably been re-located outside of Korea now. I'm seeing similar things with my teacher. He left Korea in 1968 for America to have the freedom to preserve the karate and chuan-fa from his instructors (Changmoo-Kwan/Kangduk-Won). Nowadays, he gets many invitations to visit Korea and speak at the Cultural Museum. Many people have been requesting him to set up a school in Korea, since they can't get the "older" education there anymore.

Stances: Things may have changed in Okinawa as well.. I don't know. But, I was visiting Okinawa Nov. 3-28, 2006 and the Goju-Ryu and Shorin-Ryu dojos I visited all had low stances, like Shotokan.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I've been told that Lee Jongwoo personally pressed for the Palgue form replacement sometime after 1973. (I don't know his "official" position in the KTA during those days) He thought Grandmaster Kim Pyung-soo (Houston, Texas) was trying to steal the forms and get rich from his (GM Kim's) 1973 Ohara book titled, "Palgue 1-2-3 of Taekwondo Hyung." Seems to me the Tae Guek forms were introduced in 1974. Grandmaster Kim was in attendance at the first clinic on the Palgue forms in 1972 and wrote the book when he returned to the US following the clinic. Many years later both Lee Jongwoo and Master Lee Kum-hong (former WTF Secretary General) told Grandmaster Kim why the replacement for the Palgue to Tae Guek forms occurred. At the same time as the Tae Guek change, they made the 2nd version of Koryo to replace the original (GM Kim was featured in the now-defunct Karate Illustrated Magazine introducing the original Koryo in 1969).

R. McLain

 

[Makalakumu]

Well, that can be taken two ways... if the `evolution' in question is a hyperspecialization for a very, very limited niche, then it's probably an evolutionary advance not to go down that road! So a case could be made that you are higher up the evolutionary ladder...

All of that depends on the stated objectives. TKD as a sport has inherit worth. It's fun and it is popular. The fact that it has evolved away from a strict SD focus, doesn't have to be a bad thing.

I don't think of them that way. They replaced the Palgwe forms, which have the stamp of the Pinan/Heian katas all over them. The Palgwes contain whole chunks of the Pinans, or small recombinations with minor variations. The Taegeuks, I'd love to have a chance to bet big money on, arose as part of the Korean nationalist `purge' of identifiably Japanese/Okinawan elements from TKD forms, although there are many sequences in the Taegeuks which are still very reminiscent of the O/J kata. TKD, after all, comes into being in the Kwan era as the Korean development of karate, and you kind of have to play the cards you've been dealt. And those cards were almost purely Shotokan techniques, at the outset. Not that they don't have SD content; Simon O'Neil is currently writing a book much of which is devoted to showing Abernethy-style bunkai for them, and in his hands, they look like scripts for very effective CQ fighting along the usual lines we're familiar with from that group. But there's a strong current of opinion that they were created for essentially nationalist political reasons.

Hmmm, that is interesting. What do you think the chances that the Taegueks were designed simply as something for students to do and with no real self defense focus behind them?

What O'Neil's work suggests—and much of the bunkai interpretation in his Combat_TKD newletter demonstrates very convincingly; he had an article in a 2005 or 2006 TKD Times which presented a kind of overview of his results—is that you can extract lean, mean street-ready apps from the Taegeuks just as you can from the Pyung-Ahn/Pinans. But the higher stances lead a lot of people to think of them as a kind of orientation program for WTF-style sparring. My intuition is that those stances didn't start out so much for that purpose as to be a very obvious, marked contrast to the extremely low stances practiced in many Shotokan schools (the Okinawan stances, interestingly enough, seem to have been a good deal higher, or at least that's what karate historians I've read, people like Mark Bishop, have concluded).

One thought that comes to mind is why bother trying to reverse engineer these hyungs in order to get what you want, especially if that stuff wasn't there in the first place? Why not just revert back to the classical hyungs where all of that stuff is present? The intent behind the two sets of hyungs are clearly different and wouldn't it be disingenuous to claim that they were the same?

Well, I think that we know that the point of the low stances was to emphasis driving weight into a tech to unbalance your attacker or break a joint that you had in a pin or a lock as per the `smart' bunkai for those kata. But as you yourself have pointed out, UpN, and as Master Penfil has stressed as well, the Kwan founders probably didn't have more than a rudimentary picture of the original intentions behind the kata they brought back as the first KMA hyungs, so they probably weren't consciously saying, `Well, we don't need that low stance rubbish because we're just going for high point-scoring kicks to the upper body from four feet away and have no interest in pins, armbars, locks or other stand-up grappling techs.' If you and M. JSP are correct, then their rejection of low stances would very likely not have been on the basis of some idea that `the point of such stances is really about weight projection into a controlling tech but since we aren't doing locks and pins, we can just drop them'. It seems to me more likely that the motivation was some kind of symbolic political statment: low stances are a hallmark of those guys, so just remember, we're not them!

You may be correct, but I suspect that there probably is a deeper purpose behind it also. The higher stances make it easier to kick and that will only help you in the pursuit of sport TKD. I can see the technical committees saying to themselves that if one is going to forms at all, they might as well connect to at least some aspects of our curriculum. I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[exile]

I think I've mentioned this before, but I've been told that Lee Jongwoo personally pressed for the Palgue form replacement sometime after 1973. (I don't know his "official" position in the KTA during those days) He thought Grandmaster Kim Pyung-soo (Houston, Texas) was trying to steal the forms and get rich from his (GM Kim's) 1973 Ohara book titled, "Palgue 1-2-3 of Taekwondo Hyung." Seems to me the Tae Guek forms were introduced in 1974. Grandmaster Kim was in attendance at the first clinic on the Palgue forms in 1972 and wrote the book when he returned to the US following the clinic. Many years later both Lee Jongwoo and Master Lee Kum-hong (former WTF Secretary General) told Grandmaster Kim why the replacement for the Palgue to Tae Guek forms occurred. At the same time as the Tae Guek change, they made the 2nd version of Koryo to replace the original (GM Kim was featured in the now-defunct Karate Illustrated Magazine introducing the original Koryo in 1969).

R. McLain

Yes, RM, I remember now your mentioning the `profiteering' angle in a post quite a while ago. It was one of the things that stuck in my mind as making the `official' version very, very implausible.

People who are interested in this whole question, and the degree to which the kwan-era pioneers understood the historical/technical issues posed by the hyungs they practiced, should take a look at your interview with Gm. Kim Pyung-Soo here. It nicely illustrates a number of the points that have arisen, and also makes clear that not all Koreans found the historical truth about the origins of TKD's technical content unacceptable or offensive. The stuff about Gen. Choi's revisionist stories about the origins of TKD (and the way he exercised his military authority during the war to manipulate other TKD practitioners) is pretty eye-opening...

 

[exile]

All of that depends on the stated objectives. TKD as a sport has inherit worth. It's fun and it is popular. The fact that it has evolved away from a strict SD focus, doesn't have to be a bad thing.

I'm sorry, UpN, I missed this post in replying to Rob Mcl's, and then other things came up. Let me catch up with you a bit here...

First, yes, don't get me wrong—I'm definitely not saying that sport isn't A valid specialization. My problem with TKD is that in some parts of the world, including, as RM just pointed out, TKD's birthplace, it's becoming the only surviving aspect of the art. I'm all for ecological diversity—it's a crucial part of survival, which as MAists we are of course seriously interested in—but with TKD, what I fear is that the sport aspect is well on the way to driving out the original SD motivation that made these arts so useful in the first place.

Hmmm, that is interesting. What do you think the chances that the Taegueks were designed simply as something for students to do and with no real self defense focus behind them?

I think that that is an excellent, succinct summary of the actual case. The TKD directorate, and the Kwans before them, and the Japanese dojo kihon-drill system before them, needed grading criteria, a form for each rank. My suspicion is that the Taegeuks were designed for exactly the purpose you suggest.

But since the raw materials for the Taegeuks came (over a bit of distance, true) from Japanese sources where there were still good SD bunkai available, it's probably inevitable that the recombination of kihon elements in the Taegeuks still has SD content. Whether it's as valuable as what there is in the Palgwes, or even more, the Pyung-Ahns, etc.... now, that's a different issue... and one which I see you're brining up in your next para. I gotta go help my son get something done, but will get back on this as soon as we're done... sigh, the demands of so-called real life...

 

[exile]

So I'm continuing my response above to UpN's excellent preceding post...

One thought that comes to mind is why bother trying to reverse engineer these hyungs in order to get what you want, especially if that stuff wasn't there in the first place? Why not just revert back to the classical hyungs where all of that stuff is present? The intent behind the two sets of hyungs are clearly different and wouldn't it be disingenuous to claim that they were the same?

Well, I certainly wouldn't claim they were the same in the least (that should be clear from what I said in my preceding post!) And I'm very sure that O'Neil wouldn't want to say that either. I think his point is two-fold:

• Many students in strongly WTF/KKW-linked schools don't get anything but the Taegeuks as their colored-belt exposure to the TKD hyungs. So if you want them to start thinking about forms as encodings of practical combat methods, you pretty much have to start from their limited knowledge base. Otherwise, you'll lose them at the threshhold. From a pedagogical point of view, then, the bunkai analysis of Taegeuks may be the one way you can get the typical contemporary sport-dojang student thinking about hyungs from the applied combat perspective.

• A much more subtle point to the exercise, one that I think that O'Neil is trying to make, is that even under the extreme mixmastered treatment of the original O/J katas that the Taegeuks represent—the end of a long line of devolution (from the SD perspective, at least)—the built-in logic of the old Okinawan forms (deflection and controlling moves like joint locks and pins, so forcing the head into vulnerable positions; distraction moves like low kicks, terminal followup strikes to neck, throat, face, collarbones and so on; unbalancing and then throws or takedowns, etc.) still survives, not by the design of the TKD directorate, but simply because of the extreme robustness of the old kata, the original physically encoded combat manuals of the great karate masters. In a sense, I think SJON's point is that, if you can see practical combat apps in something as attenuated and—again from the CQ SD perspective—diluted as the Taegeuks are, think how much more directly accessible the combat content of the old Kwan-era forms would be. And that's I think his `hook' to try to draw the ordinary TKDist into the search for combat effectiveness in the forms that othewise would simply be rehearsed, over and over again, without much thought or analysis.​

You may be correct, but I suspect that there probably is a deeper purpose behind it also. The higher stances make it easier to kick and that will only help you in the pursuit of sport TKD. I can see the technical committees saying to themselves that if one is going to forms at all, they might as well connect to at least some aspects of our curriculum. I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'm sure that came into it too. The fact is, the higher stances serve a double purpose, given the mind-set of the time (at least among some of the people involved; see the interview I mentioned earlier with Gm. Kim Pyung-Soo here for a very different take on the Japanese karate basis of TKD). Who could resist the impulse to kill two birds with one knife-hand strike, eh?

 

[Makalakumu]

I still feel that you would be better served by reverting back to the classical hyungs. Especially if you are really intent on looking for the material that you are looking for. I have a lot of respect for people who are trying to preserve some of the martial intent in this or that art. Even if it does stretch the imagination a bit by extrapolating one cultures bunkai on anothers movements that have a completely different intent.

The sad part of all this is that I think that SD in TKD is going to die out. I think that the sport aspects are already so strong that getting back to a curriculum that is purely SD orientated is impossible.

If I were in your position, Exile, I would train the forms that are being taught, but try and keep in mind the intent behind the various sets. The Pyung ahns are going to give you far more then you could get from reverse engineering the other hyungs. They are really really deep.

Do the other hyungs how your teachers want them to be done. In reality, they probably are more hooked into what it actually expected in regards to this hyungs then they are with the classical hyungs.

 

[exile]

I still feel that you would be better served by reverting back to the classical hyungs. Especially if you are really intent on looking for the material that you are looking for.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree on that, and moreover, we don't do the Taegeuks. We do the Palgwes as our colored belt forms, with the Pinans (the actual Okinawan versions) as `post-grad' hyungs, along with various Japanese and Okinawan katas; right now, the form I'm working on is a rather elaborate version of Rohai. So our dojang and chief instructor are pretty progressive, and I consider myself very lucky! But I've looked at the Taegeuks, in the course of reading Simon O'Neil's stuff, and thought about the huge disconnect between the `official' application provided for them as vs. the kind of combat-effective applications derivable from them if one were really trying to derive some martial content.

I have a lot of respect for people who are trying to preserve some of the martial intent in this or that art. Even if it does stretch the imagination a bit by extrapolating one cultures bunkai on anothers movements that have a completely different intent.

The sad part of all this is that I think that SD in TKD is going to die out. I think that the sport aspects are already so strong that getting back to a curriculum that is purely SD orientated is impossible.

This is where I see an inevitable institutional break arising in the next decade or so. A lot of dojangs will happily go down that sport-TKD road, side by side with karate dojos that are going the same route. But not all will, and those that don't will seek a different organizational model, I believe.

If I were in your position, Exile, I would train the forms that are being taught, but try and keep in mind the intent behind the various sets. The Pyung ahns are going to give you far more then you could get from reverse engineering the other hyungs. They are really really deep.

I quite agree—I consider the Pyung-Ahns to be (the Korean expression of) Itosu's masterpiece. And the fact the my instructor knows them well and is willing to teach us them is a great comfort to me, as is the fact that there is now an awful lot of active research going on on their martial content—Iain Abernethy has an e-book, many articles and a terrific DVD out, all devoted entirely to them; there are new books by Gennosuke Higaki and Keiji Tomiyama respectively that have appeared recently... the whole series seems to be undergoing a revival of serious interest, which is I think part of the karate renaissance that Abernethy and other BCA types have led the charge on.

Do the other hyungs how your teachers want them to be done. In reality, they probably are more hooked into what it actually expected in regards to this hyungs then they are with the classical hyungs.

I'm convinced that pretty much any of the Palgwes have significant martial content, based as they are in some many respects on the Pinan/Pyung-Ahn series. I'm hoping to get some feedback on bunkai for them once I can finally get this long post I'm trying to write coherent enough to sent to the new bunkai-jutsu thread you started...

 

[FieldDiscipline]

Eee, I had a quick look at this thread before I went out last night, and now I come back and upN and Exile have covered everything I wanted to say!

I do feel that a lot of the 'bunkai' everyone is hunting for simply isnt there in a lot of the taegueks. That said, and people are gonna hate this, I genuinly feel that the kick-punch aspect that everyone slags off is also very valuable. It builds muscle memory, and in the heat of the moment this is vital. It certainly never did me any harm! I agree that the self defence applications shown on the KKW website leave a lot to be desired!

Other forms, in this case the yudansha and in paritcular Keumgang (and I do like Keumgang, please dont get me wrong) I'd like to see some 'bunkai' fabricated for this!! It is my believe (and Park Hae Man who deveoped it isnt too far up my TKD family tree) that it was developed to teach/train something else entirely, although this is entirely conjecture on my part.

The Chang Hon forms, and indeed the newer Chun Kuhn Do forms developed by GM Bok Man Kim (who was one of the key players in the development of the Chang Hon tuls) certainly have more embedded 'bunkai' in them IMHO. That reflects the aims of those men, at that time, and conversly the aims of the WTF.

I still feel that you would be better served by reverting back to the classical hyungs. Especially if you are really intent on looking for the material that you are looking for. I have a lot of respect for people who are trying to preserve some of the martial intent in this or that art. Even if it does stretch the imagination a bit by extrapolating one cultures bunkai on anothers movements that have a completely different intent.

I have mixed feelings on this. I would like to see the Chang Hon Tuls taught alongside the Taegeuk/Palgwe poomse. That way we are retaining the individuality of TKD whilst giving a broader appreciation of technique.

 

[rmclain]

Any martial artists that has spent time truly studying and sweating can find some application to (probably) most of the movements in any form. Most of the arts (whether it is TKD, HKD, Yudo, Tae Kyun, Karate, etc.) have similar movements in their training, though it may be for a different specific purpose in mind. I'll leave this education and discovery to the artists that continue to sweat and study.

Perhaps the more sought-out question here should be, "What was the intended application of the movement when it was created?" - Not that this would be better than what people can discover and learn to apply for themselves. I think that this would just reveal that they (Palgue and especially Tae Guek form creators) didn't have anything in mind, or it was just a simply block/counter-attack combo (not joint-locking or takedowns).

Mr. O'Neil has been consulting with myself and my instructor (GM Kim Pyung-soo) on the historical aspect of the forms from the early kwans. He was inquiring about bunkai being taught with the forms in those days. From my studies and interviews I can say, "No they weren't," for the most part. Maybe a little bit to spur the student's interest in finding more for themselves. In those days, they didn't outwardly show students much. The student was expected to find it out for themselves. According to Grandmaster Kim, many people started martial arts, but very, very few trained longer than a few months or maybe 1 year. So, very few trained long enough (or cared enough) to figure it out themselves.

Just like the interest in finding the true history of the kwan lineage that has been "spurred" in the past 20 years or so, it seems there is an interest in the analysis of each form application as well.

R. McLain

 

[FieldDiscipline]

Perhaps the more sought-out question here should be, "What was the intended application of the movement when it was created?"

Now that, I would like to know.

 

[Last Fearner]

Apparently the Taeguek Poomse are changing, using sports science to reduce the stress on the body (seriously) and are even being re-numbered to better allow assesment of students.

Thoughts? Anyone attended the course who can further elaborate or correct me?

Unfortunately, I can not personally tell you what is going on behind the scenes at the Kukkiwon, or what the plans are with the Taegeuk. There was a time, not too long ago, when I had close involvement with the people who made these decisions, and those who received the inside scoop months before any 'official' announcements were made, but that is no longer the case.

However, as to a general analysis of Martial Art forms practice, and specifically the comparison between Karate kata and Taekwondo tul/hyung/poomsae, I do have some input to offer. I feel that some people who make certain assessments of the Taegeuk, and label them in a negative light do not fully understand them, and are missing the point.

For a little background about how I arrive at my perspective on the forms of TKD, I have seen many changes over the decades. When I was first learning about what 'Taekwondo' is and how to do forms, it was from some of the top people in the ATA, who at that time were teaching the Chang Hon patterns in a fairly similar way to Gen. Choi and the ITF since they were closely connected in some ways.

What I didn't know then was that most of the American (and many non-Korean Taekwondo schools) were not being taught authentic Taekwondo, and not the degree of thorough understanding, application, and complete knowledge of their Korean Counterparts. Many American instructors during the late '70s and early '80s were becoming dissatisfied with organizational politics, and began to leave one organization for another, form their own organizations, or go completely independent and teach what they thought they had learned in random schools scattered across the U.S.

I was one who fell victim to this trend until I finally succumbed to the desire to learn more about the Korean Art that I was supposedly teaching, and figured it wouldn't hurt to train directly with a Korean who was in touch with the Korean sources. I turned down many promotions offered, and rejected requests to join with several different Koreans based on character, attitude, and a general 'feeling' that it wasn't right.

At college in the early 80s, I got introduced to the Palgwe forms by a Korean Grandmaster (as it turns out, the same one that Master Southwick, MSUTKD, studies under), and I learned a whole new approach to doing forms. By the mid 80's I joined with a Korean near my home town that was connected with the WTF, but was more die-hard Jidokwan than anything. He was just starting to introduce the Taegeuk to his staff of instructors, but was continuing to teach the Palgwe side-by-side. I had kept an attachment to the Chang Hon forms (with modifications I made while I was teaching independently), and coupled those with the Palgwe. So, what was I to do now, teach each student three sets of forms for promotion?

I had the experience, about a decade ago, of being a judge at an open Taekwondo tournament. In the forms competition, students from many different organizations were performing different sets of forms. During a break, I was in the locker room and I over heard a couple of young children color belts proclaim that the reason they lost was because the judges were only familiar with the Taegeuk forms and not their ITF patterns. I interrupted and said, "You mean Chon-ji, Tan-gun, To-san, Wan-Hyo...." and I continued to rattle off the names of all of their forms into the Black Belt levels. I told them, don't be so sure about what us judges know or don't know. The fact is that your technical skills, stances, mental focus, eye concentration, balance, power, accuracy of targets and so on all need improvement. Use your forms to discover this, and as a tool to help you practice these skills.

For my own experience, I did not much like the Palgwe when I first learned them, mainly because I was comparing them to how comfortable I was with the Chang Hon forms, but I liked the Taegeuk even less at first. They seemed bizarre and very odd in their approach. It was very foreign to me. In time, however, I grew to understand them better, and now they are my favorite for teaching color belts (Black Belt frame of reference is a whole other issue). The Taegeuk forms are the only ones I teach, and I do not believe my students suffer in any way from this approach.

The fact is, Taekwondo is not Karate. The only relation between the two is the fact that all physical combative arts are based on laws of nature, and scientific principles of the universe and the human anatomy which no particular art has ownership to the creation of this knowledge. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese Martial Art have all spent time in bed together (so to speak) but the relationship is more one of sponges absorbing each others knowledge, discoveries, and perspectives rather than "we invented the sponge and all things liquid and gave them to you."

Since the time I first started learning Taekwondo forms, I was taught to visualize how each move could be, and should be used in a real fight. I was trained that the moves had genuine street application, but not in the specific order or manner that it appears in the pre-arranged, rehearsed patterns. To suggest a kind of hidden code that represents something you should do in real life which is different than what you are actually doing in the form might be a concept that exists in old Karate forms, and might be important to their perspective.

However, as I said, Taekwondo is not Karate. The Taegeuk are not "watered down" in the least. If you compare them to the approach and methodology of older Karate Kata, you might arrive at that interpretation, but I believe that would be an error. The Taegeuk are a tool of the art of Taekwondo. The forms of Taekwondo are constantly being changed and modified to be of use to the instruction of, application of, and training in Taekwondo - not Karate.

I don't see these changes as promoting "sport" application, but a more realistic approach to how we move when applying Taekwondo self defense. When we do a low, deep front stance, it is not to suggest anything but that is the proper position and strength of your re-enforce posture in order to apply a devastating and powerful hand strike. There are other aspects of training in Taekwondo (one-steps, sparring, board breaking, hoshinsul, hapkido application, etc) that teach all of the necessary elements of street application. I don't believe the Taegeuk forms need to do anything other than reflect proper Taekwondo skills, and how they are applied by our standards.

I hold a Black Belt ranking in Karate as well as in Taekwondo, and I see a big difference in the purpose and application of forms training and philosophy. I do not believe that the Taegeuk should be frozen in time, or retro-fitted to suit the philosophical concepts of Karate any more than they should promote the tactical skills of boxing or wrestling. Taekwondo has become a unique interpretation and application of physical fighting skills (along with the mental and spiritual aspects), and it make sense to me that the forms of Taekwondo should reflect the skills taught, and more importantly, the philosophical approach to fighting that differs in Taekwondo.

Is there application to the moves in the Taekwondo Poomsae? Yes! Do they work to teach students specific skills needed for self defense? Absolutely! Are there hidden meanings and codes in the moves, not that I am aware of, nor do I believe there should be. Taekwondo is pretty much straight forward - - do this and it works, if that doesn't work, do this instead! There is an underlying, perhaps even hidden, philosophical meaning to the diagrams of the Taegeuk (and the Palgwe) based on the trigrams which stems from the Chinese teachings of the I-Ching. This is one of my favorite aspects of teaching the Taegeuk.

Anyhow, to each their own. Taegeuk forms serve the purpose that I require in teaching real-life effective self defense skills, but the whole art is the package that brings it all together.

This is my opinion.

 

[exile]

I do feel that a lot of the 'bunkai' everyone is hunting for simply isnt there in a lot of the taegueks. That said, and people are gonna hate this, I genuinly feel that the kick-punch aspect that everyone slags off is also very valuable.

As I say, Simon O'Neil's bunkai analyses for the Taegeuks, which he's already published a few of in his Combat_TKD newsletter, as well as in his Taekwondo Times article, should be out sometime this coming year; it'll definitely be worth taking a look at.

It's really a matter of perspective, I think: if you have, say, a `down block followed by a rising block' (as per a typical hyung description), a literal interpretation of this sequence has you standing there, fielding specific strikes by an attacker who may well decide to do something quite different, and in any case retains the attacking initiative. But if you understand the down `block' as a strike on the upper arm of an attacker whom you're controlling via the `retraction' of the chambering hand, followed by a strike to their throat right under the lower jaw with the hard bony region of your `blocking' forearm, then the sequence is giving you a very different set of tools for the fight, one that is much more likely to enable you to end it quickly. A very hard, well-placed forearm blow to an attacker's larynx, after all, isn't something that they're going to just laugh off...

It's certainly true that practicing the Taegeuks—or the Palgwes, or Pyung-ahns, or any of the karate kata-based forms—will give help build up the kind of immediate, unthinking responses that you want to have kick in at the very outset of the fight; but it makes a big difference how you apply the particular movements you're trying to train into muscle memory—what move the movement in question is taken to express—and for that, I think these kinds of alternative bunkai treatments are very useful, particularly if, as people like O'Neil, Abernethy, Burgar and others do, you field-test them with your long-suffering training partners under maximally realistic rules of engagement...

 

[FieldDiscipline]

Having thought more about what I said above, I fear I may have misrepresented my beliefs slightly. I didnt mean that the Taegeuks dont have applications, god forbid. This is the opposite of what I was after. What I meant is that I have seen people adjusting the techniques in the patterns to suit ideas that they have had for applications or looking far too deep for things that arent there. I saw a picture today of Park Hae Man teaching an application from taeguek oh jang. They are there, but I think people are looking at them wrong. They're not, IMHO, codified in the same way as kata.

Last Fearner, thank you for your very insightful post. I agree. In particular I would like to quote the following, as this is kind of what I was aiming for. I was taught the same way. [note to self, take more time in posting...]

Since the time I first started learning Taekwondo forms, I was taught to visualize how each move could be, and should be used in a real fight. I was trained that the moves had genuine street application, but not in the specific order or manner that it appears in the pre-arranged, rehearsed patterns. To suggest a kind of hidden code that represents something you should do in real life which is different than what you are actually doing in the form might be a concept that exists in old Karate forms, and might be important to their perspective.

However, as I said, Taekwondo is not Karate. The Taegeuk are not "watered down" in the least. If you compare them to the approach and methodology of older Karate Kata, you might arrive at that interpretation, but I believe that would be an error. The Taegeuk are a tool of the art of Taekwondo.

I've got more, but I keep going around in circles and saying what I dont mean! These changes are for sport reasons. This is not the way Taekwon-Do was at its beginnings.

How did you get on at your competition Exile?

 

[exile]

How did you get on at your competition Exile?

Thanks for asking, FD! Alas, it was pretty indifferent... I was kind of foggy the next day, and my mind kept going fuzzy on various things, not just TKD. I kind of blanked at one point late in the form, and hesitated just enough for it to be clear to the judges, one of whom buttonholed me afterwards and told me that I had been doing really well up to that point, and that my big mistake was not sliding past the blank spot and going on. The other competitors seemed to be just going through the motions a bit, whereas when I do hyungs, I try to perform them in connection with a visualization of the applications that I see for them against an attacker, so that they have some kind of intensity, and he noticed that; but when you blank in that obvious a way, even for a fraction of a second, and they see it—the giveaway was the expression on my face, he said—you're toast.

I wasn't all that disappointed though, because it gave me some good ideas about training for the next tournament, which will be here in April, and this time at my own dojang; I'm gonna do the same hyung again—I really love it! Overall, it was a very good experience. Maybe I'll try going to bed at a reasonable time next time...

 

[FieldDiscipline]

It happens. Always on something you are 100% confident on too!

You seem to have come away from it with it something and that's, really, what its all about IMHO.

 

[exile]

It happens. Always on something you are 100% confident on too!

You seem to have come away from it with it something and that's, really, what its all about IMHO.

Thanks for the encouragement, FD, I agree with you. It's easy to be disappointed when you don't do your best, but at this age and stage my thinking is, I'll continue to train the form and embed it more and more deeply into my knowledge base, and if all goes well I'll do it better at the next tournament. And then I'll have the satisfaction of savoring my improvement over this past weekend's performance. Everyone wants to get better, but that means that the `Before' can't be as good as the `After', eh?

Thanks again!