So, this is how to start a fight
with me……start off making a assertion you CAN NOT BACK UP and then push it till
I research it and throw it in your face…if you read this……you know who you
are! Okay, background time. I have this amazing friend who put her son in
Tae Kwon Do…...I know right! Well regardless he loves it and one of the reasons
he is in that and not Karate is I live like thousands of KM away (Bite it Americans)
from her and a friend of his was already taking TKD so he joined in. To be
honest I’m very proud of him and happy he is enjoying his martial arts experience.
However, it led to this awkward exchange with a different friend about the Tae
Kwon Do.
So the conversation went
something like this…and I will be brief.
Friend: Well he went with a totally different system of marital arts (I’m
of course paraphrasing). Me: Nope he
went with a more sporty version of what I do. Friend: well it comes from ancient
Korean systems of fighting not Japanese ones. Me: Nope, TKD is the child of
Shotokan Karate actually. Friend: BS its
from an ancient system. Me: well….let me write a Blog on it. (Again, maybe not
exactly as I said it…or at all, but you get the point).
Its important to note that my “Friend”
in this case studied TKD as a kid and got his Red belt before he left training.
But the owner of the club indoctrinated them into believing that the style came
from some ancient systems of fighting that only were around Korea….which is
total BS. To show that Tae Kwon do is not some ancient martial art I will just
go back to the history and the words of the founder.
Tae Kwon do was actually “Officially”
formed in the 1940/50s when Choi Hong-hi and several of his
students/contemporaries opened up the original 9 Kwons (Schools). The first
Kwon was actually opened by Song Moo Kwan, who studied….I am not kidding….under
Gichin Funakoshi in Japan….um, that’s Shotokan people. The second was Chung Do Kwans Kwon (say that
five times fast) in 1944…and Chung…studied Shotokan in Japan as well.
The Third Kwon was opened by Hwang Kee whom people
say studied his system in China and it had nothing to do with Karate….till you
study him and find out his system of Hwang do actually came to being after he
settled in Japan and studied…wait for it….Shotokan! Ji Do Kwan then opened his
Kwoon after traveling to Japan to study judo at the Kodokan…and bugger it…he
took Shotokan from Funakoshi too. Wait we have one more chance to go totally
Korean with the ancient stuff…..Chang Moo Kwan opened his Kwoon in the YMCA in
Kwon Bop in 1946. He studied martial arts…in Japan…at the Nihon university. He is said to be a student of Kanken Toyama…but
Nihon University was a big Shotokan club as well…ergo….both.
The
9 Kwoon’s represent the 9 first schools of Tae Kwon Do….None of which came from
some ancient system of Korean fighting. The first organization set up was the
KTA or Korean Tae Kwon Do association in 1959, so no ancient TKD associations. Now
the “Ancient school of Korean Fighting” that everyone likes to quote is called
Taekyeon, and as far as I can see the is much like Japans Ninjitsu in that its
an ancient martial art…that was lost or not practiced for the better part of a
century or more. The facts do not lend themselves to the idea that TKD came
from an ancient system of Korean fighting and PROVE that the history of TKD starts
as an offshoot of Shotokan Karate.
In 1952, the South Korean president watched a
demonstration by Choi Hong-hi and Nam Tae-hi of the 29th infantry
division. The Demonstration was of Japanese Karate, but the president was told
it was called Tang Soo Do, the Korean name for Karate essentially. And the
president himself said it looked like the painted pictures he had seen of
Taekkyeon, which is as it is believed to be how the “Korean Karate” system was
misidentified as an ancient martial art…but it gets even more interesting from
here.
Choi Hong Hi was not only the first person to
officially demonstrate the art, but he was the first to have his ideas
rejected. See he came out with a very very Shotokan style of training and was
told NO! The Koreans did not want a photocopy of the original…they wanted
something original…So, back to the drawing board before it was shown to the
president. Choi worked on the system and infused more jumps, lots of kicking
but the original system was still somewhat practical and grounded….this changed
later. What Choi showed the president was not modern Tae Kwon do, but it was
also not Taekkyeon or Shotokan.
So, where did all this confusion come from. Well
when General Choi introduced his style to the Koreans government and it finally
got the stamp of approval it was very important for the country (in their
minds) to attach this new Tweaked version of the art form to an ancient source.
Keeping in mind that the original intent was for the art to be rolled out in
two different forms, the first being a military art taught to soldiers and the
second to civilians as a form of exercises and self defense….what we got in the
end was the civilian form only. Well, the nation came out with propaganda that
assigned the root of Chois training to Han II Dong, a famous calligrapher and they
then stated that he was also “A master of Taekkyeon”…..which in the end it
turns out he was not AND Choi finally stated that he di dnot study any fighting
arts under Dong, and Choi said that the ancient style “had nothing to contribute
to Taekwondo”. In fact Choi stated he
had traveled to Kyoto to study English, Math and….Karate. He met up with a
Korean named Kim and was introduced to Funakoshi Gichin with whom he studied.
Choi studied Shotokan and received his Second dan
in the art before going home and going into the military where he moved up the
ranks quickly. Choi had taught several of his contemporaries the new art form calling
it Oh Do Kwan for a while till he changed the name Tae Kwon Do. Strangely the
idea of TKD being one art was not his intent. The idea instead was to form a association
of Korean arts and promote the arts under one umbrella, that did not last
however as the government felt it easier to have everyone train the same and
train the same in each Kwoon. As a way of enforcing this the government only
recognized the style they preferred and Choi’s dream of having many different
styles fell to the wayside.
In 1966 Choi broke with his KTA and created the ITF
and emigrated to Canada. The ITF was a separate body devoted to creating a
standard system of TKD with the goal of completing its transformation into a
viable martial sport and possibly a Olympic event. Choi standardised the forms
and rules for competition and then moved to promote it as a sport. Choi died in
2002 of cancer in Pyongyang North Korea and received a state funeral. He is
listed in the TKD hall of fame and is listed as the Father of TKD”. Choi passed
away having seen his art become a demonstration sport in the Olympics in 1988
and an official medal event at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
Okay, so after all that “Deworming the marketing
machine” and throwing some truth down what does a Karate guy think of Tae Kwon
Do…well the same thing I think about all styles of martial arts…they can be
good…and they can be bad. The Tae Kwon Do that I have seen first hand has run
the gambit from sloppy and horrible to sharp and impressive, From a glorified
kids daycare program to a very serious sport training club. Now, let me be clear here! I do believe that ALL TKD is a sport or martial
sport, but I also feel some Karate clubs are martial sport focused as well and
its up to the individual if that’s what they want. In the end TKD is a
hereditary descendent of the style of Karate I love, live and teach….so it cant
be that far from good right!
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