Twist Kick

[moving target]

The only reason Shotokan Karate has any affect, well, almost all, on alot of TKD is because the Japanese were so scared of the Korean Army, the Hwarang, that they wanted to extinguish the Korean's strength.

(I'm not saying that Hwarang do is messed up at all, I'm just saying that TKD was messed up during the World Wars.)

I really don't see why the Japanese army would be scared of the Korean Army's martial arts ability during the world wars. Hand to Hand combat in the world wars wasn't (for the most part) much of a deciding factor in the wars.

 

[ShaolinWolf]

No, what I meant to say was back in ancient times the Hwarang army defeated Japan and China when both countries tried to invade. So, Japan had such bad experiences with fighting Korea that they just banned the practice of MA in any part of Korea when the WWs rolled around.


And Hwarang Do was prominent up until the 1800s or 1900s and then it too got lax. Yeah, the Korean Arts had been declining for some time, but by the time Japan got to Korea, they basically finished the job, putting the large majority of whatever Korean MAs that were left out of practice and into obscurity. TKD, Hwarang Do, Hapkido, Kuk Sul and the few surviving sword arts, and the other smaller, less practiced Korean MA are all that is left.

 

[moving target]

but how did that destroy the art unless 100% of the people who kneew the arts died in that period and also that no one attempted to teach it underground?

 

[ShaolinWolf]

See, TKD has been watered down alot. Even in it's motherland, Korea. Shotokan Karate was the new MA of Korea when the Japanese came in because they didn't want the superior techniques of Korean MA to outmatch the Japanese. And the art wasn't destroyed 100%. Its pretty hard to do that with anything. Its just it was WAY harder to practice things the way of old with the eye of another foreign government on you. Japan was more strict than Korea anyways, though not as strong for some wierd reasons. Korea fought off China and Japan for centuries and centuries, which is pretty amazing, considering the country is sitting in the hot spot it sits in. Peninsula, bad place to be for a sea attack. And so many other things. Its just amazing how they had such control of their land and their techniques were amazingly powerful, fast, and efficient.

I'm sure there are still alot of the schools over there that have the traditional art and the original form and power, but the major portion, including the US, though we aren't nearly as rough or strict, has been water down due to the government. It's become more of a sport than anything due to the fact that Shotokan Karate is also a partial sport. Korea's MA were very strong, believe it or not. The only problem was the smallness of the country.

If you look at it, karate and TKD are very similar, aside from karate having hard hits, heavier, more painful conditioning, and the extra strength training. TKD also has it's own style to distinguish, it's just the fact that the power taught before the japanese invasion was much greater than now, even though there is less need for the MA when you have all the new technological weapons. That's some of it.

You don't see the Kung Fu genre getting too much weaker. Heck, some of the kung fu schools over in China won't allow non-chinese to even take part in the more pure and sound techniques that make the art what it is. It stinks and its discrimination, but for good reason, I guess. Its what makes the tradition of the country of China. But the reason is that China has always had and always will have its surviving arts, even though the government has its restrictions. I mean, with that many people over in a country that big, seriously, do you think they can control the practice of what martial art is taught in every single school out there? Secret schools teach the secret techniques and those techniques we americans may never know.

Japan brought in their own traditions and culture into Korea during the invasion and once they had established those age old traditions, it was in with the old and out with the new(ok, it was more like out with your old and in with our old...LOL). Thus, it was very hard to practice the original art without being caught. Korea isn't the largest asian country by far and Japan is even larger, though not as big as China. This being the case, even for the amount of people per square mile in Korea, there is still quite a bit less area to have too rule over. And now that there is North and South Korea, there is less space to rule for each of the two governments. So, naturally, things were and still are alot harder to keep secret.

:asian:

 

[moving target]

Well for one. The Koreans didn't have absolute control over their territory, the boarder of today's Korea is not the boarderline of the past. Second the Koreans were conqured just like everyone else in east asia by the Mongolians (with the exception of Japan).

But what I was saying is that a lot of nations have had tight control over an other nation or culture and attempted to repress aspects of that culture and very commonly ban practice with weapons, this does not in genneral destroy martial arts practice. It's not like the Japanese asigned someone to live in every home, stand in every building and follow every person around. If someone wanted to practice they could have in secret. It seems to me there must have been some other factors involved there.

Additionally I would point out that mainly armys practice to use the weapons they implament in battle. That genneraly isn't unarmed combat (I'm not saying unarmed combat isn't trained by military, I'm just saying it genneraly doesn't win/loose wars). That being said if Korea won fights based on martial prowess it would have mainly been with weapons not with their hands.

Honestly judging from how Japan behaved around the world wars I would say the ban on foreign MA was in place to disolve foreing culture rather than out of fear of the fighting ability.

I also don't think there really could be many if any hidden/unknown techniques out there that would suffice to make a major diffrence in fighting ability. I think it's mostly how you train and practice that matters. We know enough about biomechanics and physics in our present day that anyone could go to a univeristy book store and read up on the subject to the point that they could modify/tune their techniques to what ever goal they pursue. Maybe there are some tricks lying around no one sees, some dirty fighting methods, but that would be precluded by today's sport atmosphere rather than japanese ocupation.

If you want TKD to have power than you simply have to practice for that goal. Set up competitions so power is very important.

 

[Zepp]

but how did that destroy the art unless 100% of the people who kneew the arts died in that period and also that no one attempted to teach it underground?

There are some things in ShaolinWolf's answer I don't agree with, so here's the (very)simplified version of my answer:

Under Japanese control in Korea at the beginning of the 20th century, the practice of non-Japanese martial arts were banned. In fact, initially, it was forbidden for Koreans to practice martial arts in Korea altogther. So Koreans who wanted to learn martial arts traveled to Japan to live and learn there. (They were treated with more respect by Japanese there than they were in their own country anyways.) Korean martial arts continued in Korea in secret to some extent, but much of the original knowledge was lost. Near the end of WWII, one Korean man who had trained in Okinawa recieved permission to open a martial arts school in Seoul, which originally was just Shuri Te (the Okinawan form of Shotokhan). After the war, when Japan's domination of Korea ended completely, several more karate and judo-trained Koreans opened their own schools. Out of a desire to reconnect with their past, and make their martial arts more Korean, many of these instructors tried to re-incoporate the pieces of older Korean martial arts they were able to learn.

Thus Tae Kwon Do is a modern martial art, built on Japanese Shotokhan/Shuri Te, and influenced by an older tradition of Korean martial arts. Kukkiwon's claim that TKD is 2,000 years old is an extremely exaggerated advertising ploy.

Hwa Rang Do disapeared from Korean society, and into a lone secluded monastery, hundreds of years earlier. We mostly have Confucianism to blame for this. After the Korean peninsula was unified, and there was no more fighting for the Hwa Rang to do, they went from being a group of elite warriors to a bunch of parasitic nobles. The dominant version of Confucianism at that time (which was a major influence in both Chinese and Korean theories of government) held that martial arts was not an appropraite pastime of the upper classes.

 

[ThuNder_FoOt]

In reference to the twist kick...

I was taught that this type of kicking is considered an advanced cresent kick (i.e. chambered cresent). It pretty much follows the same path as the described twist kick, except you can either follow through the target with the kick, or you can rechamber it back to its original position (when kicking high section). Its a bit faster than the typical swing version of the cresent that we taught during our earlier belts. When kicking other than high section, we are taught to rechamber the kick. I find that it is a very useful technique.

:asian:

 

[ShaolinWolf]

Well, the part about the Japanese banning the marital arts of Korea for fear of uprisings is true...it says so in text books, but yeah, they just wanted total control...I just spoke about the whole thing being in the smaller point of views and the little details...

 

[moving target]

Ok that makes more sence, it wasn't just that korean MA was banned but also that japanese arts were more accessable.

 

[ShaolinWolf]

Yeah, sorry about that...

 

[DragonFooter]

In my opinion this is one of the most deceptive kick in taekwondo as it is very hard to block. opponents will register the initial twisting kick movement as a front-snap kick before bleeding in the nose! heheh. But rarely connects if pulled singlely(i.e not a part of combo), unless the opponent is inexperienced
Surprisingly it works quite well against my shorin-ryu karate friends when they close-in on me.