The never ending story

[terryl965]

Has anybody ever relized that TKD has a never ending story withen the history? I mean once I heard that TKD was a secret Art well before anybody ever knew anything about it, strange that the name was officially named in the 1950's. How Who and what is your true history of TKD and please be a specific as you can get.

 

[dortiz]

Funny thing is 25 years ago when I started under Dr. Park our signs and logos were different. I still ahve a tee shirt that says TKD/HKD Judo and Kendo. Our sign said Karate on it. When I asked about the roots I got "Japanese". I moved back here about 10 years ago. I was licky enough to see Dr. Park again before his passing.
The interesting thing was the sign had no karate or any Japanese terms on them. Judo was now Yudo. Kendo was Kumdo. All of a sudden all the schools had histories that went back thousands of years ago.
25 years ago the Koreans took Japanse arts and made them ver Korean and arguably better. 10 years ago those arts were really uncovered from Monks and had always been in existence??
History is a funny thing.

Dave O.

 

[ATC]

I know that my Grand Master states that back in the 70's all TKD schools were called Karate even though they taught Taekwondo.

If you watch the movie Best of the Best they called the team a Karate team, "The United States Karate Team". The tournament was also called a Karate Tournament even though they matched up againt Korea's TKD team. Every now and then you would hear the announcer say this is classic Taekwondo when Phillip and Joon fought off.

 

[terryl965]

Yes back in the 70's it was Karate but mainly it was called Korean Karate. I just like to hear everyone views without the agruments that come from certain people. I know my instructor still calls it Korean Karate and has never ever taken the sign down, but funny thing is his son calls his Tae Kwon Do and has history well before his father and his father was his trainer as well.

 

[Earl Weiss]

If you want specifics with sources and foot notes I suggest "A killing Art" . Also, Gneral Choi's 1965 Book where the Shorin and Shorei roots common to Shotokan and the Shotokan connection is clearly stated.

Briefly, Pres, Rhee of South Korea was so impressed by a demonstartaion which was part of a Military demonstration in 1953 or 1954, performed by a group largely composed of Chung Do Kwan members (Including Han Cha Kyo and Nam Tae Hi) doing a Korean flavored Shotokan, That he ordered General Choi to teach the stuff in the Military. Toward that end General Choi formed the 29th infantry division and recruited the top Matial art talent. This division formed the Oh Do Kwan, gym of my way or gym for all of us so varous Kwan members could all be a part of the new gym as a collaborative effort rather than be viewed as joining the competion.

As part of the process needed to teach on a wide scale, techniques and rank from the various systems needed to be standardized as did the name Tae Kwon Do (Adopted in 1955), later Taekwon-Do which also eliminated the Japanese name and prior Kwan connection.

Government and Military resources were used to demonstrate and teach as well as dispatch instructors throoghout the world, as well as recruit outside instructors such as Jhoon Rhee for the unified system.

Political influence and resources worked amazingly well for Gneral Choi until he became persona non grata and / or refused to allow the government to control TKD at which time he left South Korea taking TKD with him onky to have the Government uses it's resources to influence instructors to leave him and develop a new system it called Taekwondo. (1973 or so)

The government used it's resources to train train and recruit instructors and spread TKD. The success of the spread speaks fr itself.

 

[terryl965]

I am sorry I was not looking for actual facts but what everybody has been told over the years.

 

[chrispillertkd]

I am sorry I was not looking for actual facts but what everybody has been told over the years.

Well, I was told largely what Master Weiss related above, along with Gen. Choi's (and other Kwan founders) having learned karate while a student in Japan.

I never encountered the whole nonsense about Taekwon-Do being 2,000 years old until I had been training for several years and it is obviously much more common with Kukkiwon affiliated schools. I can understand that Koreans wanted to separate their art from its Japanese roots but I think fabricating a history was the wrong way to go, especially since both the ITF and WTF versions of the art were already developing in ways quite unlike their Japanese roots.

Pax,

Chris

 

[NPTKD]

ya know.. I found out alot more about it after reading "A Killing Art". So much that I order the ITF 500 pound text book. The whole thing is a little depressing if you think about it. When I first started it was like wow i'm learning century's old art form.. Then when you find out the truth, well it kind of sucks.. But on the other hand so many systems have been basterdized (spelling) of the years, you never really learn the true system.

 

[clfsean]

This time line is spaced out over a period of about 12 years between 1981 & 1993 when I walked away from active TKD training.

I got the thousands of years old line when I first started.

Then I went & worked out with my best friend at his Shotokan school & was like "huh?????"...

Then I checked out a Shorin-ryu book with the Pinans & lost my mind.

At that point I figured I just didn't care enough to raise a fuss & my school had started down the road to Korean association joining (which we never had) so I left for the wide world of TMA as they're found.

 

[Dave Leverich]

You mean low block punch, low block punch.... isn't from ancient Korean monks?
(I'm hiding now, chortling a bit yes ).