Recasting Ho Sin Shul...

[Makalakumu]

Ho Sin Shul = Self Defense

Which is supposed to be the point of many martial arts, however, in KMA, Ho Sin Shul has many flavors.

Tang Soo Do, along with Tae Kwon Do and other Korean Kwans, did not incorporate the term in their early days. Hwang Kee considered TSD, in particlar, to be an "impacting art." "Ho Sin Shul" were added to curriculum later, when it became apparent that throws, joint locks, and grab escapes were an important part of self defense.

In the early days, ho sin shul greatly resembed japanese jujutsu katas. In particular, the Yawara Kata list from Judo was a large resource. In fact, many of the "old" Ho Sin Shul in various KMA kwans are exact replicas.

Eventually, "new" Ho Sin Shul appeared. These were variations on the old source material which included more footwork and strikes. The amount of techniques grew in complexity until finally one was left with a list of techniques that, in many cases, did not even resemble the source material anymore.

New histories were written for this material. Suddenly, schools across the world had "rediscovered" ancient bits of indiginous martial arts that were thought long forgotten. "Ho Sin Sul" became an art unto itself in some cases.

Worse, still, was the fact that many of the new techniques were completely ineffective and would actually put the practitioner in danger if they were to be practiced in a real confrontation. In fact, my teacher disliked the MDK federation Ho Sin Shul so much that he refused to teacher them. He claimed that it was negligent to teach that stuff and call it self defense.

So, what do we do? Escapes, joint locks, and throws are important parts of a self defense system, but if their delivery system is deficient, one isn't learning how to use them? So, what do you do?

 

[Makalakumu]

In our dojang, we recast the term Ho Sin Shul. It still means "self defense", but the entire focus has changed. We looked at the roots of our art and examined our curriculum and we found that there were plenty of good techniques to defend against pushes, pulls, and strikes in our hyung...so they inform our practice.

Further, we don't split these techniques off from defense against strikes as most schools do. (Ill Soo Shik = strikes and Ho Sin Shul = defense against grabs in most dojangs). This made little sense considering that all of this material was contained in our forms.

Thus, the recasting Ho Sin Shul became part of a greater restructuring of the traditional TSD curriculum in our school. The system works like this...

1. Gicho - these are basic techniques that are contained in the forms. A student practices these in order to gain an intuitive understand of the techniques basic mechanics.
2. Hyung - these patterns show a student how to use the basics in self defense situations.
3. Ill Soo Shik - this exercise provides a student a chance to drill what the hyung is teaching in a controlled environment. One Step Sparring includes defenses against pushes, pulls and strikes. They use blocks, strikes, joint locks, throws and escapes equally. In these exercises the defender knows what the attacker will do and can respond to it based on what the hyung is teaching.
4. Ho Sin Shul - this exercise provides a student with a different opportunity to use the material. The defender does not know what the attacker will do and must react using the material that he/she has trained with Ill Soo Shik. Often, variations of the material presented in Ill Soo Shik spontaineously erupt. Varying amounts of resistence can be offered by the attacker, testing not only the instincts of the defender but also the quality of the technique.
5. Deh Ryun - Sparring follows as a natural outflow from what is practiced in Ho Sin Shul. The latter acts as a stepping stone to the former, providing a bridge between kata bunkai and actual application in a completely random and alive environment.

 

[Makalakumu]

The following videos are an example of some of the different types of "ho sin shul" exercises we do in our dojang. These attacks are random and the responses do not always work...but we feel that learning what doesn't work is just as important as learning what does.

This series of videos demonstrakes defense against strikes. At the white belt level, the student knows it will be either a punch or a kick but they do not know exactly what or where that technique will go.

 

[Makalakumu]

As one advances as a TSD student, one begins to branch out into different types of random attacks. At Green belt, the student learns to defend against any random strike as well as random grabs and random grab/strikes.

The following videos present these...

 

[Makalakumu]

More intermediate level Ho Sin Shul...

 

[Makalakumu]

Some of these vids look good and some of them are not so good. The point is that they represent a test of the students intuitive response. A test that is a step before sparring.

Another aspect of Ho Sin Shul is the concept of superior position. A student needs to learn when they have the upper hand in a situation so it is easier to finish the situation or escape. Thus, the combination of techniques, whatever it is, should put the uki in a position where he is less of a threat.

Again, some of the vids are good at showing this and some are not so good. But that is an important part of learning and sometimes things that you try, no matter how skilled you are, don't turn out well. Thus, I think that it is important to show the proper attitude and be prepared for that.

 

[exile]

Ho Sin Shul = Self Defense

Which is supposed to be the point of many martial arts, however, in KMA, Ho Sin Shul has many flavors.

Tang Soo Do, along with Tae Kwon Do and other Korean Kwans, did not incorporate the term in their early days. Hwang Kee considered TSD, in particlar, to be an "impacting art." "Ho Sin Shul" were added to curriculum later, when it became apparent that throws, joint locks, and grab escapes were an important part of self defense.

In the early days, ho sin shul greatly resembed japanese jujutsu katas. In particular, the Yawara Kata list from Judo was a large resource. In fact, many of the "old" Ho Sin Shul in various KMA kwans are exact replicas.

Eventually, "new" Ho Sin Shul appeared. These were variations on the old source material which included more footwork and strikes. The amount of techniques grew in complexity until finally one was left with a list of techniques that, in many cases, did not even resemble the source material anymore.

New histories were written for this material. Suddenly, schools across the world had "rediscovered" ancient bits of indiginous martial arts that were thought long forgotten. "Ho Sin Sul" became an art unto itself in some cases.

Worse, still, was the fact that many of the new techniques were completely ineffective and would actually put the practitioner in danger if they were to be practiced in a real confrontation. In fact, my teacher disliked the MDK federation Ho Sin Shul so much that he refused to teacher them. He claimed that it was negligent to teach that stuff and call it self defense.

UpNKy—it sounds to me like what you're describing could be put in the following terms: the original kwan curricula incorporated the same kind of grappling moves—locks, thows, sweeps and so on—that are encoded in the kata of the Okinawan/Japanese sources of the KMA poomsae. It's not surprising that this material resembled jujutsu kata; the original basis of Okinawan karate mixed elements of Chinese and Japanese fighting systems along with indigenous Okinawan methods, and the Japanese kenjutsu systems practices of the Minimota samurai were, so I've read, intended to be applicable to both armed and unarmed combat. So you'd expect a `family resemblance', at least, between (i) modern jujutsu technique, which would have been encoded in kata as usual, (ii) the syncretic Okinawan fighting system which developed for several hundred years following the Satsuma invasion of Okinawa and the estblishment of Okinawa's tributary status wrt China in the late 14th c., and—probabably more distantly but still recognizably—(iii) the hyungs incorporating the Okinawan/Japanse combat arts that the kwan founders brought back with them to Korea.

I suspect—I'd love to see this checked out—that the reason why ho shin sul wasn't a distinct part of early kwan practice was because the whole toolkit was oriented around SD—Korea during the kwan era was, I gather, a very dangerous place for most people who lived there and any SD knowledge you had gave you a huge survival advantage. But just as in Japan, the grappling component was progressively diluted (why??), leaving a very incomplete system where powerful moves originally intended to expedite finishing strikes were truncated or rejected, as part of the ongoing reduction of KMAs to the punch-block-kick template, with misinterpretation (on both sides of the Sea of Japan) of the tactical ideas of the fighting system, leading to radically impractical interpretations of the poomsae. This meant that other moves had to be invented to make the KMAs practical again, but since these were invented ad hoc, not derived in an organic way from the logic of the kata/hyungs, they really had little `street' value. The spurious appeal to supposed lost-ancient-native-fighting-systems-practiced-in-secret-for-millenia, useful in the post-occupation period when loathing for the Japanese and their culture could be safely expressed, also served to legitimize these jury-rigged new creations which were clumsily grafted onto the core content of the KMAs, which were now taught in a way much less tied to the hyungs (parallel, again, to what happened in Japan, where kihon-based teaching methods almost completely displaced kata-based training as the source of `real' techniques, leaving the forms there, as in Korea, as little more than martial dances). The competition emphasis in TKD of course exacerbated this separation between technical content and self-defense application... and here we are today. Have I got this right---does this correspond, at least in general, to what you're alluding to in your post?

So, what do we do? Escapes, joint locks, and throws are important parts of a self defense system, but if their delivery system is deficient, one isn't learning how to use them? So, what do you do?

In TKD, people like Simon O'Neil and Stuart Anslow are trying to restore realistic combat-oriented bunkai analysis for the poomsae/hyungs/tuls of the art, clearly following in the footsteps of a whole crowd of British karateka who have been producing radically new, realistic interpretations of kata and, equally importantly, devising `hard' training methods, very different from standard kumite, to enable practitioners to learn how to incorporate these apps as the foundation of their technique. There's no reason why this approach should be any less successful for the KMAs, no? I have a feeling this is already something that is under way, or just around the corner... and it should still nearer at hand in TSD, which, as I understand it, is more closely linked to its karate roots at this point than is TKD and is thus in a better position to take over many of these new JMA (re)discoveries directly (e.g., Abernethy's bunkai for the Pinans—the latter have been mixmastered throughout a lot of TKD hyungs, particularly in the Palgwes, but you guys still do the Pyung-Ahns that are almost literally identical to their Pinan sources, right?)

 

[Makalakumu]

Have I got this right---does this correspond, at least in general, to what you're alluding to in your post?

This is pretty much what I was saying in my post, however, I think that the original source material for ho sin shul was not bunkai from the original kata. I believe that it was nothing more then repackaged kodokan judo technique. This would have been much easier for the early kwan masters to obtain and if one looks at the "old" ho sin shul, many are exactly like kata I learned in Judo.

In TKD, people like Simon O'Neil and Stuart Anslow are trying to restore realistic combat-oriented bunkai analysis for the poomsae/hyungs/tuls of the art, clearly following in the footsteps of a whole crowd of British karateka who have been producing radically new, realistic interpretations of kata and, equally importantly, devising `hard' training methods, very different from standard kumite, to enable practitioners to learn how to incorporate these apps as the foundation of their technique. There's no reason why this approach should be any less successful for the KMAs, no? I have a feeling this is already something that is under way, or just around the corner... and it should still nearer at hand in TSD, which, as I understand it, is more closely linked to its karate roots at this point than is TKD and is thus in a better position to take over many of these new JMA (re)discoveries directly (e.g., Abernethy's bunkai for the Pinans—the latter have been mixmastered throughout a lot of TKD hyungs, particularly in the Palgwes, but you guys still do the Pyung-Ahns that are almost literally identical to their Pinan sources, right?)

We still perform the Okinawan Kata. This definately makes the search for bunkai easier because all one needs to do is compare notes with Okinawan Karateka.

 

[exile]

This is pretty much what I was saying in my post, however, I think that the original source material for ho sin shul was not bunkai from the original kata. I believe that it was nothing more then repackaged kodokan judo technique. This would have been much easier for the early kwan masters to obtain and if one looks at the "old" ho sin shul, many are exactly like kata I learned in Judo.

Yes, this makes sense, particularly if you're right in your suggestion, which we've talked about in another thread, that the old kwan leaders really didn't know much about bunkai analysis methods to start with, because it was already kind of a dying art in the schools they themselves learned their karate in. So they'd have gone to some specifically grappling/throwing art to get that in there, because they wouldn't have been able to recognize the grappling and other close-quarters information contained in the very hyungs that they were teaching...

We still perform the Okinawan Kata. This definately makes the search for bunkai easier because all one needs to do is compare notes with Okinawan Karateka.

I'd like to see this become part of TKD again, as well. It could happen. I think a lot of people in TKD are still curious about the Pinans, and, more generally, the Okinawan foundations of the art and would be glad to take advantage of the really good fighting methodology revealed by the work of that crowd I mentioned.

Thanks, btw, for posting all of those vids! There's a whole library there of useful methods illustrating general combat principles...

 

[Chizikunbo]

John,
You raise some interesting points. I have always looked at Ho Shin Sool (Techniques for the Protection of the Body) as the practical application of a culmination of all knowledge learned. For instance picking the correct (safest) parking spot, interpersonal relationships, and dealings, controling emotions, as well as the typical self-defense scenerios etc. etc.
We have to remember that we can only teach concepts, it is not possible to teach a person "how to fight". Pulgilism is a skill through which, ultimately the only way to learn is actual experience. If we tried performing many of our static techniques in a real life protection situation the outcome would not be good for us. Ho Shin Sool is the result of forms (hyungs), technique (mu sool), meditation (muk nyum), and philosophy (mu do chul hak), it is the fluid child of all of the latter mentioned tenents of our art. I think individual Ho Shin Sool techniques as they have been taught in the past should not be thought of as ACTUAL combat, but rather as training concepts and methodology that can be applied to the protection of our life...
--Josh