]Are you saying that the techniques that SJON describes in this book are the hidden techniques of the Tae Guek poomsae that were intended by the designers?[/B] If so, one would imagine that the designers would have taught it someone.
No, not necessarily. As SJON points out, a lot of the component sequences that show up in the Taegeuks are found in the Okinawan/Japanese kata that the Kwan founders and their students studied, but whose content wasn't necessarily made clear to them by their teachers, for the reasons that the authors I cited summarize. The subsequences which make up the Palgwes, the Taegeuks and some of the black belt forms, and much of the Ch'ang Hon tuls, represent recombination of old kata elements (for the ITF forms, see Chris Thomas' terrific article, 'Did karate's Funakoshi found Taekwondo?' in Black Belt 21, 1988 (October issue)). And what SJON is suggesting is that the designers of the Taegeuks retained these subsequences, even though they recombined them and added to them, precisely because they were aware that there was significant combat information contained in them—without necessarily knowing
in full just what that information was.
Park, Hae Man is one of the designers of the Tae Guek poomsae. He travels the world giving seminars of these poomsae. Our own Miles is hosting him this weekend for the 2nd time that I call recall. I'm bettin' neither Miles nor his students will share in the "secret" techniques behind these poomsae. My GM is GM Park's direct student. I'd bet my last dollar that no "secret" techniques have been discussed between them.
I don't recall so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you say that some of Funakoshi's "hidden" techniques were in some of his books?
No, I
didn't say that. I said that Funakoshi's books contain illustrations and photos of grappling techniques, throws and the like, which Funakoshi was quite upfront about as being components of Okinawan karate. In
Karate-do Kyohan, GF wrote that
in karate, hitting, thrusting and kicking are not the only methods, throwing techniques and pressure against joints are also included.
—a point also echoed by Shigeru Egami in
The Heart of Karate Do, where he specifically refers to karate's 'throwing techniques'. If you check my previous post, you'll see that I was talking about the use of grappling/pin &lock/throwing techs in the earlier karate that the Okinawan expatriates brought with them to Japan. I did
not say that the 'hidden' techniques were in his books, and I'd be very surprised if he ever committed those apps, or the broader theory of kata interpretation called kaisai no genri in Japanese, to paper. I referred in the post you're alluding to to 'grappling, locks, pins and throws [being] simply taken for granted as technical elements'. I said that what's significant about the existence of these 'grappling' apps in traditional, old-era karate is that—given that they were envisaged as part of the system (or system
s, since in Itosu's and Motobu's day, each kata was regarded as a separate style)—
once that existence is recognized, their identification as part of the 'subtext' of kata—or the recombined kata elements that TKD hyungs comprise—is no longer anything controversial or even surprising. That's why people like Stuart, SJON, Abernethy, Patrick McCarthy and other bunkai theorists take pains to point out that in early-era karate, these controlling techs were taken for granted as combat resources. I most definitely did not say that these, or
any other elements, were explicitly discussed
as components of 'hidden' bunkai techs,—by Funakoshi or by anyone else, because those guys did not record those hidden applications in print.
If this is that case, why would successive generations feel the need to hide them from all but top students? How could they if the books are available to the world? Point being, how are they hidden if they're written in books available multiple languages?
I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that these techniques and methods of analysis are fully present in the published work of Funakoshi or anyone else. I
did point out that certain general principles were presented in Toguchi's book, specifically, three general principles that he described as 'basic rules'. Kane & Wilder discuss these in detail in their book; if you're interested, see their Chapter 4 for their discussion of what Toguchi said, and what the combat content of those principles was. But the details of the full theory of kata decipherment appeared neither in Funakoshi's books nor anyone else's. As Higaki notes repeatedly, it was orally transmitted, and only to senior students (Choki Motobu effectively makes the same point in one of his books, and suggests that Funakoshi wasn't senior
enough to be entrusted with the full monty; see below). That's why they are hidden.
I'd be very surprised if GM Park, Hae Man were to read SJON's book & say, "well yeah, that's what we really meant the boon hae to be for the Tae Guek's."
See my foregoing comments, which are largely a reprise of SJON's conclusions—in a nutshell, that (i) certain deeper applications of karate kata movement
were made available to Park Hae Man, Kim Soon Bae and the other members of the Taegeuk formation committee, based on their seniority under their own instructors who, O' Neill argues, probably themselves had received a certain amount of oral instruction in the hidden bunkai for the kata elements that fed into later TKD hyungs; and (ii) that, as he says,
there are two feasible explanations for the contradiction between the desire to break with Japanese tradition and produce an art superior to Karate, and the conservation of the bulk of the Karate syllabus [in the Kukki hyungs]. One is that the founding masters really believed that the simplistic 'kick-block-punch' interpretation was a practical fighting system, and that a superficial makeover would suffice to convince the world that they had invented a new, superior martial art. The other is that that they recognized the old Karate forms for what they were—codifications of highly effective vital point and grappling techniques—and were loathe to tamper with these contents beyond making a few judicious modifications and additions, and reorganizing them to some extent in order to grade them for difficulty. This second hypothesis goes a long way to validating the patterns as realistic self-defense systems...
Notice that in order for SJON's 'second hypothesis' to be true, it isn't necessary in the least that the Palgwe and Taegeuk designers themselves saw all, or even most, of the concealed techs that SJON has parsed out of these hyungs. The key point is that the form designers were aware that there
were potent applications within the source forms, just as Higaki became aware of this because of what Kubota told him.
I do see possible value in some of the ideas & options that SJON came up with. "If I were in position X & moving to position Y, here are 2-3 things I could do in between" is an interesting thing to ponder. But to claim that these are the secret &/or hidden meanings of the Tae Guek poomsae deciphered by someone other than one of the designers is utter folly. IMO.
Reasoning it out, a hidden or secret technique in the Tae Gueks makes no sense to me. In older kata, perhaps. I wouldn't persume to speak to that issue.
The point of much of SJON's work is, however, that the Taegeuks, and much if not most of the KKW hyungs historically, are recombinations of sequences from the Pinans and other classic Okinawan kata sets. So if they were present in the 'older kata', as you say, then they would be preserved in the hyungs themselves. It's the subsequences that preserve the short, effective two and three move SD applications, after all.
It would seem to me that some "masked master" would have blown the lid off of this to the complete embarassment of the designers & the KKW years ago for spite & much profit.
I don't follow this last conclusion. One of SJON's points is that the KKW hyungs preserve much of the combat instruction set of older karate, but that the composers of these hyungs, while aware that the ingredients for their new hyungs had very different applications beyond the literal, combat-impractical ones, did not know the full system for decoding those older meaning. Going back a generation, Motobu himself claimed that Funakoshi didn't fully understand the bunkai for the Okinawan kata he taught, because neither Itosu nor GF's other teachers entrusted him with the full analysis. The recovery of these techniques has largely been the result of the hints and the few explicit suggestions and instructions offered by the pioneer karateka and early TKD masters, including the one whom SJON cites in his introduction:
The process [of my research] began when I read an interview with a well-known Malaysian Taekwondo master, who mentioned that the patterns contained many soft, circular motions, joint locks and other hidden applications, and demonstrated them in photos.
To 'blow the lid off this', one would have to do the painstaking reconstruction work that people like Stuart Anslow, SJON and others have carried out on the details of pattern application in the karate based arts. And these people are, in effect, 'blowing the lid off this' by publishing the results of their research. I don't really see where the contradiction is.
If you think it's all folly, well, I doubt that anything I've written here will convince you otherwise, Ice. Everyone who reads the book will draw their own conclusion; I myself find SJON's overall perspective, as well as his detailed analyses, extremely plausible.
