Traditional or not?

[newGuy12]

I like standardization. I like to know that for things like bowing, fixing the uniform, or being at attention, everyone does it the same. Like being in the military: if one person is wrong, it ruins the harmony.
Plus, I follow the Rudy Giuliani approach: if I let this slide, pretty soon I'll let other things slide as well.

I agree whole heartedly with all of this. And, I, for one, find a great deal of satisfaction in knowing EXACTLY how to act in a Dojang. It gives me comfort.

This is pretty regular TKD methods that have to do with TKD being very para military. (regimented) Remember back in the day when TKD was first being formalized after the Japanese occupation that it was very prominent in the military. This I believe has alot to do with it

I have heard this, too. People have told me that a TKD school is run almost like a military group would be. I like it. It really seems to me to bolster up a unity, like a "family feeling". I even find that feeling with other TKD people.

I have a kinship with practitioners of other martial arts, but its not the same, because they do things differently, in ways that I am not accustomed to. But even TKD schools that are different from the one I go to are still similar enough to be "the same" as far as I can tell!

Good Old TKD!

Always a Good Time!

 

[YoungMan]

In fact, very few things in martial arts bother me more than Instructors who let their students decide for themselves how to wear their uniform (or what color), how to bow, how to act etc. Who's running the class you or them?

 

[buddah_belly]

I'm starting tkd for the first time next week and uniform was one of the many questions I asked, though I didn't ask about sleeve rolling. In aikido, I always rolled my sleeves (to get to wrists better) and my pants because I'm short and round. I didn't realize that this was frowned upon in other arts. I pretty much wore my pants at capri length but I did have a hakama on so you never really saw my pants.

 

[K31]

I'm starting tkd for the first time next week and uniform was one of the many questions I asked, though I didn't ask about sleeve rolling. In aikido, I always rolled my sleeves (to get to wrists better) and my pants because I'm short and round. I didn't realize that this was frowned upon in other arts. I pretty much wore my pants at capri length but I did have a hakama on so you never really saw my pants.

That's funny because I came from a Judo background and so I had my dobak pants hemmed about 3" above where I usually would. Then I noticed even the instructors were practically stepping on their pants hems. I still think shorter pants are the way to go and I watched an episode of a TV show featuring a Japanese "open hand" fighting style their pants were noticeably shorter.

 

[Kacey]

I prefer my pants short - then I don't step on them, or catch my heels - but I do it by hemming them; rolling is frowned on for safety reasons, and most people I know where them somewhere between the ankle and mid-calf, rather than longer as would be done when wearing shoes.

 

[newGuy12]

Some Master Instructors that I have known had tailor made doboks, and they of course fit quite nicely. As you look at the feet from behind, the trousers would stop about 1/2" from the floor or so, very nice looking.

I hem my pants up a little short, like Kacey does, because it would be better to be too short than too long, and I am not a tailor.

 

[IcemanSK]

So it seemed agreed upon that rolling sleeves is traditionally not done & that we always turn around to adjust our doboks. What other things may be debatable as to whether or not they are traditional?

 

[bookworm_cn317]

My instructor used to roll my sleeves up, when I was younger, becuz I tended to hold them in my fists-- I was REALLY insecure back then, I'm still insecure now, but I'm getting better!

And, I've actually fixed my belt in front of a black belt(this was AFTER Jay told us we shouldn't do that): I turned away from HIM, I just forgot that there was ANOTHER one directly behind me. And that one was the one who got to discipline me(pushups, BTW). At least I can laugh about my momentary lapse of brain function now.

But, still- stay tuned for more moments of gross stupidity from me! I seriously need to use my brain more.

 

[AceHBK]

We also turn away from people who outrank us when adjusting our uniforms; it's a courtesy. When someone I know asked about why you turned a particular direction, here's what he was told: someone asked Gen. Choi about it at a seminar, and his answer was, roughly, "You see beautiful woman, and realize your zipper is down... do you face her or turn away while fix?".

I personally face her, smirk and give a lil wink. Works everytime. :highfive:

 

[AceHBK]

In fact, very few things in martial arts bother me more than Instructors who let their students decide for themselves how to wear their uniform (or what color), how to bow, how to act etc. Who's running the class you or them?

What is wrong with this? I like it when your instructor asks for your opinion and gives you some leeway. My instructor let us choose how to wear our uniforms (during summer) and was a lil open to how we acted (as long as it was disrespectful). In return we made sure we gave him 110% in class.

The whole military style taught class doesn't do well for me (if it did i would be in the military). In MA where everything and everyone looks the same it is nice to have your own sense of individuality. If it is like a family then you know in a family everyone is different.

 

[foot2face]

So it seemed agreed upon that rolling sleeves is traditionally not done & that we always turn around to adjust our doboks. What other things may be debatable as to whether or not they are traditional?

How about the guard. I was taught to keep my hands up high, at least chin level, and relatively tight but I’ve seen a lot of “old school’ GMs with a low, well below their shoulders, wide guards. You hear a lot of complaints about how Olympic TKDist keep their hands low, “just another example of how they water down the art,” but I wonder if it’s actually more traditional than people think. It looks pretty similar to how older masters did it.

 

[terryl965]

How about the guard. I was taught to keep my hands up high, at least chin level, and relatively tight but I’ve seen a lot of “old school’ GMs with a low, well below their shoulders, wide guards. You hear a lot of complaints about how Olympic TKDist keep their hands low, “just another example of how they water down the art,” but I wonder if it’s actually more traditional than people think. It looks pretty similar to how older masters did it.

Well back in the seventies all the GM i knew keep there gaurd about chin level then in the eighties and nineties when the sport really started to take off it seem the younger fighter that was evolved in the sport started to keep the gaurd down and as they opened new schools that is what they started to teach because it was what worked for them in the sport. We all know in real life you would like some type of chin high gaurd for safety reason against your opponet.

 

[foot2face]

I don't know Terry...I've seen plenty of old photos and video were the masters had a relatively low open guard. I think the higher, tight guard may be a western influence.

 

[K31]

There was a thread about lining up. We didn't line up in any particular order under my old instructor but under our new one we are arranged in a somewhat "traditional" way with senior students on the right.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Two questions, about 'traditional'

1) By 'traditional' do you mean "american traditional" or "korean traditional"? I've gotten the impression that quite often westerners tend to romanticize things from the east and a lot of martial arts attitudes about protocol and such are more western inventions to add 'mystique' then actual original practices. Are the traditions "korean taekwondo traditions" or "american taekwondo traditions"?

2) What do you mean by 'traditional'? I guess in my mind Taekwondo, as it's own art, is still pretty young in terms of human endeavors... maybe three generations? As people have been talking here, there seems to still be a lot of change going on in the art as the art moves from self-defense to sport and as some attempt to retain it's martial roots and application. It seems the art is still young, still growing and changing and trying to define what it really is to be. So I'm not sure what "traditional" means in terms of something so recent and in change?

 

[terryl965]

Two questions, about 'traditional'

1) By 'traditional' do you mean "american traditional" or "korean traditional"? I've gotten the impression that quite often westerners tend to romanticize things from the east and a lot of martial arts attitudes about protocol and such are more western inventions to add 'mystique' then actual original practices. Are the traditions "korean taekwondo traditions" or "american taekwondo traditions"?

2) What do you mean by 'traditional'? I guess in my mind Taekwondo, as it's own art, is still pretty young in terms of human endeavors... maybe three generations? As people have been talking here, there seems to still be a lot of change going on in the art as the art moves from self-defense to sport and as some attempt to retain it's martial roots and application. It seems the art is still young, still growing and changing and trying to define what it really is to be. So I'm not sure what "traditional" means in terms of something so recent and in change?

FF for me and remember I can only speak for me when I say Traditional, what I'm talking about is what I saw and train in the sixty and seventies while my father was there in the military so mine is more militaey base tradition I duess. Because what I remember and such is not the same as those training in a school over there.

 

[IcemanSK]

Two questions, about 'traditional'

1) By 'traditional' do you mean "american traditional" or "korean traditional"? I've gotten the impression that quite often westerners tend to romanticize things from the east and a lot of martial arts attitudes about protocol and such are more western inventions to add 'mystique' then actual original practices. Are the traditions "korean taekwondo traditions" or "american taekwondo traditions"?

2) What do you mean by 'traditional'? I guess in my mind Taekwondo, as it's own art, is still pretty young in terms of human endeavors... maybe three generations? As people have been talking here, there seems to still be a lot of change going on in the art as the art moves from self-defense to sport and as some attempt to retain it's martial roots and application. It seems the art is still young, still growing and changing and trying to define what it really is to be. So I'm not sure what "traditional" means in terms of something so recent and in change?

I kept it open to mean what any of us understand traditional to mean. I did this because there are some things a school will call traditional when it really is a preference of a certain instructor. For example: a JiDo Kwan school may say it's "traditional" for all schools to has a JDK patch on the left chest of the uniform. In reality, it may only be a tradition for that school.

 

[YoungMan]

For me, traditional Tae Kwon Do carries two cannotations:
1. Incorporation of the three schools of Oriental thought-Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, as well as traditional Korean philosophy.

2. Incorporation of the military etiquette from when Chung Do Kwan was a police/military-based style.

I have no idea what "American traditional" is, unless you count colored uniforms and bad manners.

 

[FearlessFreep]

I have no idea what "American traditional" is, unless you count colored uniforms and bad manners.

Well for example I've heard that American attitudes about what a "black belt" is being more stringent than Korean, coming from a rather more 'romanticized' view of what a black belt is here.

However a more direct example was that when I was in DC for six months I trained at a dojang where the head instructor was an old 7th dan Korean man who barely spoke any English because he'd been in the country only about nine years and spent all his time in the Korean community, but some of the practices mentioned here as 'traditional' were nowhere in sight. Which means that either he dropped them, or the 'traditional' practices are not quite as traditional, or universal. Which had me wondering how many 'traditional' protocol elements would've been found in a Korean dojang 40 years ago, or today, and how many were added as the art moved west.

But then, I've never seen two dojangs do the same things the same way which kinda makes me think that 'traditional' is applied as 'we traditionally do this...' where the 'we' means "our school since it was started" and not "Taekwondo going back generations"

 

[YoungMan]

My view of "traditional" is based on how we incorporated it. As far as I know, the militaristic etiquette (lining up) is a throwback to the days when TKD was used primarily by the military 40-50 years ago. I would also add the ethos of the Hwa Rang warriors from 1500 years ago.
Everything else is an incorporation of the three schools of Oriental thought I mentioned previously. We have never incorporated American tradition in our practice, although if you want to count handshakes and using the American flag in bowing I suppose you could.
I firmly believe if you remove these principles, you remove what makes Tae Kwon Do what it is.