TKD has to be doing something right

[Sukerkin]

I'd be interested in hearing more about what your background observations are for your point of view tho', YM. From my own training and sparring with various other disciplines, the movements and techniques for all martial arts are founded upon an appreciation of distance and timing.

On the morphology point, I have to agree with Exile; particularly when you consider the quite strong evidence that a good deal of the Japanese genetic pool is from a Korean root.


Side Note: It is not a good idea to bring that up with some Japanese, however. It is something of an explosive topic to them.

 

[jim777]

I think a very simple answer is that one of the most basic "things you need" to get your black belt in TKD is "ability and willingness to teach the tenets of Tae Kwon Do to others". (For example) There are the obvious other things, like "good sparring ability" and "mastery of the patterns" and such, but that insistence on willingness to teach you simply don't find in lots of other arts. I saw this mentioned in another thread in the Karate forum; you often see BB's in other arts who have achieved some serious rank, meaning Sandan or above, who never teach and have no intention of teaching. That's common in karate, and very rare in TKD.

So, why are there so many more TKD schools? Because TKD'ers share the love

 

[YoungMan]

This was mentioned to me by my Korean-born Instructor, who I have never heard talk badly about the Japanese by the way. He, too , is interested in reasons why Taekwondo is so popular in this country and was offering one of his theories. It was simply to get across the theory that Korean and American bodies tend to be more similar.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Grandmaster Kim is about 6'2, Master Yeo is about 5'10 and Master Choi is about 5'6. One of our Korean second dan practitioners is about 6'2. Most of our Korean students are between 5'4 and 5'10. We have one Chinese student who is about 5'8 and at one point had a Japanese student who was about 5'8-5'10. Most of the rest of our students are in these ranges, with very few being as tall as Grandmaster.

I haven't observed a major height differentiation between Koreans and Japanese, though will say that I have known several Koreans who are over 6', while I have never personally known any Japanese people that tall, so without any actual data, I could see where that notion might be thought of. But the general differentiation, at least as I have observed, is not enough to where I'd say that a martial art could be built around it.

Daniel

 

[exile]

The Japanese data actually may be skewed slightly downward (i.e., they may be a bit taller on the whole than we think) by inclusion of the Okinawan data in the averages—the Okinawans are apparently markedly lower in average height than the mainland Japanese (interestingly, they also have greater longevity, in fact greater than anywhere else in Asia, with the greatest number of centenarians anywhere on planet earth, though Sardinia is said to run a close second). The Okinawans are roughly 1% of the population of Japan, plus some change, so the negative contribution probably isn't that much. But this is the thing about averages: an average is an abstraction, corresponding to a tendency, not a uniform trait manifested by individuals, and you will find prefectures in Japan with markedly higher average heights than other prefectures—just as there's a nontrivial range in average height in Korea. The two overlap enough that you're going to find Japanese who are taller than Koreans a certain fraction of the time—and the less the difference between the average heights, the more frequent that'll be in general.

One thing that struck me in thinking about all this is that the English, who are comfortably taller than the Koreans in average height, still have some of the most formidable karateka going. I'm thinking in particular about the 'bunkai jutsu' guys of the British Combat Association, people like Iain Abernethy and legendary applied combat types, 'hard' guys like Gavin Mulholland, Peter Consterdine and Geoff Thompson, whose base art is in every case one of the classic karate styles. I really think, as Sukerkin observed, that body morphology isn't going to be enough in itself to build a difference of MA styles around.

I'm not at all denying the importance of physiological differences in making for better or worse fits between art and practitioner—but these,I think, will mostly show up in terms of stuff that you can't measure with a scale or tape: stuff like balance, neurological wiring, reaction time... and it's totally unknown at this point whether these kinds of factors vary systematically between ethnicities the way height and build do, at the level of averages, anyway.... I'd be kind of surprised if they did, actually, but that and $20.00 will get you a cup of bad coffee at the upcoming Vancouver Olympics...

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I'd be kind of surprised if they did, actually, but that and $20.00 will get you a cup of bad coffee at the upcoming Vancouver Olympics...

But why must the coffee be bad? Perhaps the answer is tied to the question, why must the rum always run out?

Daniel

 

[exile]

But why must the coffee be bad? Perhaps the answer is tied to the question, why must the rum always run out?

Daniel

:lol:

You want good coffee at Whistler, even in a non-Olympic year, you're paying probably $10 or so. During the Olympics, you'll be lucky to get bottled water at that price...

To adapt an old joke, the way to come out of the Olympic Games with a small fortune is to arrive there as a spectator with a large fortune...

More seriously, the Olympics really are a money machine for both the IOC and the participating associations. I'm not suggesting a direct connection between the TKD parents on the one hand and Olympic team candidacy, or even homegrown athletic glory. My earlier point was just that the huge network of international competition events that undergirds any Olympic sport gives a huge amount of publicity and public prominence to the sports fortunate enough to be on the Olympic dance card. There's always a bit of a low-level buzz that's a result. It's like advertising: Coke and Pepsi don't expect you to listen to their ads and think, why yes, I really must rush out right now and buy a case or two. Rather, they spend the money to make themselves be the default choice. I remember, long before I started doing TKD, having a vague sense that (i) I knew what it was (even though I really didn't) and (ii) that it was a major sport style (which didn't attract me at all, but I was conscious of it). That buzz interacts with other factors several of us have pointed out (aggressive marketing of kids' program especially, and the active support of the ROK governement—the centerpiece of whose strategy was, in fact, the Olympicization of what had been its hardest-core MA) to influence people's choices about what MA they and their family will study.

 

[mango.man]

TKD sold out. Except for the rare true traditonal school it has become a commercial art, not a martial one.

I am curious what you mean by this statement. I guess more so, what is your idea of a "true traditional school"?

For instance, is a "true traditional school" the one where if you screw up, you are forced to an hour of knuckle push ups on hot concrete? Or perhaps "true traditional school" to you is the place where if you are lackadaisical in your approach, the grand master comes to you to demonstrate how to apply a proper technique breaking your arm to demonstrate how to do it the right way.

What to you is "true traditional TKD" (in this roughly 50 year old martial art) and what makes everything that does not fit your mold of "true traditional" a sell out?

 

[Cirdan]

I am curious what you mean by this statement. I guess more so, what is your idea of a "true traditional school"?

For instance, is a "true traditional school" the one where if you screw up, you are forced to an hour of knuckle push ups on hot concrete? Or perhaps "true traditional school" to you is the place where if you are lackadaisical in your approach, the grand master comes to you to demonstrate how to apply a proper technique breaking your arm to demonstrate how to do it the right way.

What to you is "true traditional TKD" (in this roughly 50 year old martial art) and what makes everything that does not fit your mold of "true traditional" a sell out?

It is a school where someone still knows what the art is.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I am curious what you mean by this statement. I guess more so, what is your idea of a "true traditional school"?

For instance, is a "true traditional school" the one where if you screw up, you are forced to an hour of knuckle push ups on hot concrete? Or perhaps "true traditional school" to you is the place where if you are lackadaisical in your approach, the grand master comes to you to demonstrate how to apply a proper technique breaking your arm to demonstrate how to do it the right way.

What to you is "true traditional TKD" (in this roughly 50 year old martial art) and what makes everything that does not fit your mold of "true traditional" a sell out?

It is a school where someone still knows what the art is.

Cirdan, I hope you don't mind me chiming in, but I'd like to expand on what you just said.

I agree with you, and would like to add that in addition to knowing what the art is, that what makes a school 'traditional' is that the primary reason for their existence is to teach and promote that art, with any income drawn from teaching and promotion going to meeting the school's expenses and reasonable compensation of the staff.

A traditional school is one that is run by a lady or gent who teaches because they have a passion for the art. The fact that they can make enough to live while doing so is an added bonus, but not the primary motivation.

A traditional school will only pass those students who know the material for their rank; a student who cannot demonstrate the knowledge and technique for seventh geup doesn't get passed to sixth until he or she can.

A traditional school teaches the art in the way that it was originally conceived. I don't mean rigid adherence to each and every thing that the art's founder laid down; arts do evolve and grow, but rather teaching in the spirit in which the art was intended. In the case of TKD, teaching it as a martial art and as a fighting style.

Methods of discipline, such as pushups or laps around the dojang, or whatever else are a function of the teacher's style, rather than marking the school traditional or nontraditional.

I understand that there are tournament competition only schools out there. These are not traditional schools. That isn't a dig at them; just stating the fact. That doesn't make them bad; if they instil good technique and athleticism in their students and don't pass people who can't demonstrate proper technique, then fine. Such schools focus on legitamate part of taekwondo. But that isn't traditional.

Lastly, a traditional school separates daycare and afterschool programs from the martial arts lessons and will generally not offer such services; kids who need child care should be getting childcare and not get enrolled in a martial arts class simply to enable mommy and daddy to cheap out on daycare.

Sorry to run on.

Daniel

 

[Cirdan]

Thank You Celtic Tiger. I was going to write a follow up post, but it has been a busy day and I agree very much with all you said.

I don`t really think the hands on hip olympic sparring or xma spiffsuit wearing clowns are the art`s problem. It is the regular dojang where deeper understanding of core principles has been replaced by more flashyness and mysticism. With this focus they will never know what the art used to be.