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Post by Colin Wee on Nov 11, 2006 22:19:27 GMT 8
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Post by Guro Cory on Dec 16, 2006 0:08:27 GMT 8
Hello Ladies and gentlemen..
I have studied traditional Tae Kwon Do, not the TKD that most around here refer to as TKD.
I studied Chung Do Kwan TKD under Master (Kwanjangnim) Ralph White...
at any rate we studied the WTF/ITF forms Palgwe poomse and the Koryo, Po-un, and some others (which I honestly do not remember off the top of my head)...
But I studied to 2nd dan under him. However, he was really a competition school much like many other TKD schools.
However, not understanding why many consider there schoools as TKD when they are a mixture of Shotokan kata and the only thing i see that is of TKD is possibly the way they teach kicks...
if anyone can explain this to me i'd love to know what is up with that.
thank you guro cory
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Post by Colin Wee on Dec 16, 2006 13:42:54 GMT 8
Hello Ladies and gentlemen.. I have studied traditional Tae Kwon Do, not the TKD that most around here refer to as TKD. I studied Chung Do Kwan TKD under Master (Kwanjangnim) Ralph White... at any rate we studied the WTF/ITF forms Palgwe poomse and the Koryo, Po-un, and some others (which I honestly do not remember off the top of my head)... But I studied to 2nd dan under him. However, he was really a competition school much like many other TKD schools. However, not understanding why many consider there schoools as TKD when they are a mixture of Shotokan kata and the only thing i see that is of TKD is possibly the way they teach kicks... if anyone can explain this to me i'd love to know what is up with that. thank you guro cory Hello Guro Cory, and welcome to the forum. Good to see you posting already. In answer to your question, there is indeed a lot of content from Shotokan kata within Taekwondo forms. However, TKD has to be taken as unique and independant from Shotokan. It's got its own personality, fight strategy, and a different approach to the striking tools which Shotokan uses. The largest event which shaped its early identify was the fact that it was used as a training program for the Korean army. What I like about TKD is that the founder and his development team included a huge spirit of innovation - from the Founder's TKD encyclopedia, you can see his team wanted TKD to further evolve and be accessible to a good many people. The style of TKD that I practice was brought out of korea in the 1950s and remained independant from the sport or olympic influenced development which most schools currently embrace. And yet when I look at the forms I use, there are instances when traditional okinawan bunkai doesn't fit into the same techniques within the Chang Hon kata. Basically the pattern set has taken on its own personality, and encourages the practitioner to look at their techniques with a different 'lens'. Apart from the style that I teach, I know that one of the major differences of modern Taekwondo is the predominance of kicking techniques. These kicks however, are very different from the basic kicks that are taught up Hwa-rang. Basic TKD kicks and shotokan kicks are essentially the same (though you'd always be able to see videos of people doing head high front kicks within lower belt TKD patterns). The high kicks from hwa-rang and upwards however, introduces a departure from the way shotokan practitioners use their bodies. Hips are opened, the back foot has a large rotational angle, power generation is more varied. This in turn influences all other combat issues such as follow up techniques, combinations, strategy, etc. So just the inclusion of this type of weapon influences the entire body of techniques which TKD uses. Last point - Koreans being fairly nationalistic would probably not be too keen on identifying their national art as Japanese, and worse of all they'd not want to call it 'Shotokan'. I'd like to think that a common thread would be to relate Shotokan and TKD as hard, linear style martial art, with some common techniques, but a different approach to self defence and combat. That in short is my view. Anyone else? Colin
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Post by Guro Cory on Dec 17, 2006 4:15:10 GMT 8
Selamat and thank you very much Colin for that very informative opinion.. I follow exactly where and what you are saying.
It was my understanding from starting in Karate many years ago 1984 to be exact..(probably not that long ago lol) but nonetheless, we were called "American TKD" and we studied the forms very basic to "shotokan system" however the movements were not as (hard) so to speak.. shotokan has this very unique style about it that sets it off from the rest... However, the forms are still the same ie. Pinan-Pihon kata. These are the forms we ran and were taught all the way up to Nai Hanchi sho and Bassai Sho. The only form we learned that was of TKD existance was Chong Gi as a Yellow belt karate ka. I was under the impression all the while to my black belt that this was Tae Kwon Do.... Later on many years later i was to begin studying Traditional Korean TKD. Hence the Chung Do Kwan system learning a whole total new sets of forms/poomse or Hyungs... Palgwe's. I was confused as we also learned a Chong GI but later found out it was not the same chong gi as i had learned years prior... so imagine my confusion... however, i took it with alot of stride and didn't question it much... But later i moved back to here "Muncie, IN" where i originally began studying the so called " American TKD" system and stayed in the same lineage as my prior or original sensei. I was beginning to find things out and ask alot of questions and we began to find that at one time when Japan had occupied Korea they had stopped the Koreans from speaking such language of thier own and hence forth the name change to Korean Karate / Hwa'rang. I found that this is the element of which we were being taught in... it was TKD nonetheless it was more a Korean Karate foundation w/ the shotokan kata and so forth .. somewhat in the same retrospect as to what you were speaking on behalf of... so i think your info and what we've found to be very simular..
Ive come to realize as in any and all martial arts Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Malaysian, Japanese, Okinawan family arts are past down from one generation to the next same principles different concepts and possibly different names and the way things are done... so why should the Korean lineage be any different right?
I think it is much more an issue however in the traditional arts as opposed to say Filipino Eskrima.. there are literrally hundreds if not thousands of different family system of Eskrima as well as Kali and the term ARNIS for that matter.. all 3 are the same yet they are different depending on your dialect and what end of the island you live on.
You won't be able to walk on to the island of the Philippines and ask about KALI and expect to get an answer w/o the common people looking at you like "what are you talking about" however mention Eskrima, or Arnis or Baston etc.. you may get a few to say " YES"
All in all a very unique and always a good topic of discussion...
have a wonderful weekend
bahala na guro Cory
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Post by Colin Wee on Dec 18, 2006 9:05:05 GMT 8
It was my understanding from starting in Karate many years ago 1984 to be exact..(probably not that long ago lol) but nonetheless, we were called "American TKD" and we studied the forms very basic to "shotokan system" I think Karate and taekwondo were both categorised as American Karate at first. The few korean instructors then interchangeably used korean karate to describe what they were doing. American Taekwondo followed sometime in the late 60s. The difference between hard style and soft style isn't typically about how hard the techniques are performed. Hard or linear styles differentiate themselves from soft styles because they predominantly send their centre of gravity directly at the opponent in order to displace the opponent's COG (or knock him out). With this definition, hard stylists can use circular techniques, can step off the line, and can relax whilst fighting! :-) But the way they predominantly knock the person out is some kind of perpendicular strike to the opponent's body driven off by some direct COG movement. That would be what some call classical TKD (hahahahah). But yes, that's Korean Karate, as how Jhoon Rhee would describe it early on. This practice is one of the key influencers on what I currently practice. It is confusing isn't it? I thought I was doing American Karate for 10 years - something related to some japanese style, until I find out what I'm doing is Korean! I have not heard of two different versions of Chungi. But your instructor may have taught a heian shodan pattern to you and may have miscommunicated it. Who knows. As we all do when we're younger.
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Post by Colin Wee on Apr 18, 2007 14:54:42 GMT 8
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