Folks—I'm just now getting to this thread (my usual night-into-day story, big mistake now as I'm competing in a tournament tomorrow, but the die is cast...)
Do you know Terry, that is food for thought! I suspect Exile may have some useful input here. The World Chun Kuhn Do Federation I think fits the bill.
Book sounds interesting...
The Chayon-Ryu system under GM Kim Soo preserves all of the forms he learned from his teachers. They do the old Japanese forms as well as the Palgwes with some Chuan Fa forms thrown in too.
Sincere thanks to both of you, guys—I've checked out some basic sources on the orgs you mention (
Chun Kuhn Do,
Chayon-Ryu) and see some very attactive things about both of them—in particular, their emphasis on (i) historical truthfulness, and (ii) a more complete vision of the MAs, corresponding, so far as I can see, to the old Okinawan Shuri-te concept of a linear striking art which uses pins, locks, traps and other controlling movements, along with sweeps, throws and other unbalancing movement to set up finishing strikes as rapidly as possible. I view both of these as very healthy developments, particularly in the current, ring-sparring focus of TKD... but I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir here, so I'll quit on that theme. The only other thing I wanted to say is that my take on Terry's question is a little different; I'm thinking he's interested in a
model of what an organization should be that would promote a more complete vision of TKD, one more in line with its close-quarters SD role, emphasizing practical applications (along the lines described in both of the sites I've linked to) rather than sparring-style strategy and tactics. And this is where MSUTKD's post is very germane:
I do not think any system is the true system. I think that individual instructors are what make things true. I think that students who put their all into the art are true. I have met high ranking teachers from “organizations” that did not know anything about martial arts and I have met instructors teaching from their garages that could inspire any who listened. We make the difference not the style or organization; we have to have passion, and that is contagious. My teacher always told me that rank, style mean nothing, but I have to make it mean something.[/
My view is something like this, though all such perspectives are by their very nature going to differ somewhat. The knowledge, skill and
insight of individual instructors is going to differ and vary... and that suggests that we try to get together and pool our knowledge and ideas, and
test out those ideas, in as nonsectarian a way as possible. I'm not talking about giving up our individual arts, I hope that's clear! What I'm after is more something like the approach of the British Combat Association, where practitioners of various MA frequently meet in seminars and `practical' symposia to test out things like kata bunkai, grappling techs in striking arts, approaches to pre-emptive defense and guarding techniques (such as Geoff Thompson's `fence') and so on. There is no fixed curriculum per se; what you have instead are experienced traditional MAists, many of whom have logged up years of street combat in their capacity as club security staff, doorment, bouncers and bodyguards—guys like Geoff Thompson, Peter Consterdine and Lawrence Kane—assembling at irregular intervals to put their best strategic and tactical ideas about strategy and tactics to the severest tests under `alive' fighting conditions. A number of these folks are senior karate instructors and their students benefit directly from this experimental, combat-oriented, always practical approach to the applications of their `home' TMAs. The BCA is my ideal of what a MA organization should be—not a federation or controlling directorate, but a loose association of realistic MAists with decades of expertise and hard combat experience, who jointly conduct seminars, workshops and serious testing of their martial knowledge, and share their results with each other freely.
Are there any organizational models like this on this side of the Atlantic? I suspect that our own Brian van Cise's Instinctive Response Training is at the center of an emerging North American version of the BCA. Take a look at their web site and judge for yourself (there's a link in his signature). So far as TKD is concerned, the BCA people have welcomed practitioners with open arms, and Stuart Anslow plays an important role there in hooking TKD up with its cousin arts on the Japanese/Okinawan karate side. I think one day this will also be the story for a lot of progressive TKD schools that don't want to become either McDojangs or purely tournament-sparring training halls.
And now I gotta get to bed, if I want to be able to stand up tomorrow, let alone perform Palgwe Chil Jang even a little bit coherently...
