Question on Hwa Rang Do?

[Dirty Dog]

Absolutely and I don't blame you. The ancient lineage stuff flew up my flags when I first started too. I had years of TKD kickboxing training before HRD and I had heard the stories your talking about as well. I still run into it, although not as much as I used to. When my friends introduced me to HRD and I heard the same stuff, my response was "Awe, you need to believe pseudo-history to justify your training. That's so cute...." (Yup, that was me in my early 20s). But the diversity of stuff we do in HRD is what drew me in, not to mention the community of the local club that I eventually became the Head Instructor of. My involvement with HRD forced my TKD friends, including my little brother, to actually look into the history (which left most of them quite jaded and some quit training because they felt they were lied to) and it forced me to dive into the history as well."

And to be fair, while most people recognize the early history stories as nonsense driven by the cultural need to distance Korea from occupying Japan after the liberation, there are still those who try to claim ancient roots for pretty much ANY MA developed in modern Korea.
Happily, the silly histories don't really have any impact one way or the other on the system taught.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

And to be fair, while most people recognize the early history stories as nonsense driven by the cultural need to distance Korea from occupying Japan after the liberation, there are still those who try to claim ancient roots for pretty much ANY MA developed in modern Korea.
Happily, the silly histories don't really have any impact one way or the other on the system taught.

That's not just restricted to Korean arts, either. Heck, I still hear of NGA instructors talking about the centuries of samurai history and battlefield use for Daito-ryu (our primary source art), which is generally accepted not to be accurate.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

That's not just restricted to Korean arts, either. Heck, I still hear of NGA instructors talking about the centuries of samurai history and battlefield use for Daito-ryu (our primary source art), which is generally accepted not to be accurate.

Not to mention all the Chinese martial arts claiming a dubious connection to the Shaolin temple. A huge percentage of the history claimed by martial arts across the board is ... unreliable at best.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Not to mention all the Chinese martial arts claiming a dubious connection to the Shaolin temple. A huge percentage of the history claimed by martial arts across the board is ... unreliable at best.

Agreed. When some of the folks in NGA were trying to track down some accurate records even of our founder (early 1900's, so not ancient history) and having difficulty, Don Angier of Yanagi-ryu was helping through some of his Daito-ryu connections. When they hit a wall, Mr. Angier basically said, "What does it matter where it came from? Does it work? Good, then keep doing it."

 

[thanson02]

That's not just restricted to Korean arts, either. Heck, I still hear of NGA instructors talking about the centuries of samurai history and battlefield use for Daito-ryu (our primary source art), which is generally accepted not to be accurate.

Yup. Welcome to Asian nationalism.

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[KabutoKouji]

very interesting thread - I always wondered what Hwa Rang Do was like - I remember seeing it in TKD Times and MAI and thinking, 'my god they're the most badass doboks ever'

 

[thanson02]

very interesting thread - I always wondered what Hwa Rang Do was like - I remember seeing it in TKD Times and MAI and thinking, 'my god they're the most badass doboks ever'

We do like the doboks. [emoji5]

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