Friday 15 June 2018

What is the meaning of the term "Taekwondo"?

I videotaped myself nerding out on the term "Taekwondo". I found it a fitting next video as my last nerding out was on how to write taekwondo in Korean using Hangul (The Korean writing system), but while I went into some detail demonstraing how to write the term I never touched upon the mening of the term. Taekwondo is often translated as Tae = Foot, Kwon = Fist and Do = Art (or way), but this is a very simplified translation of the term. Choi Hong Hi who came up with the term in around 1955 wrote several books on Taekwondo and he did also give us a very clear and consice translation on what the term meant, and this should be something we all should learn straight from his own works. In this clip I have included a paraphrasing of his translation, and the exact quote from his 15 volume encyclopedias. I have gone into a little history on the term, as well as a few different interpretations around what the term means in a wider sense (combative strategy, philosophical and descriptive of the system of the whole). I hope you enjoy the clip and as always: Any like, share, comment and subscription is highly appreciated:-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubp3CM0C-5g&feature=youtu.be


Question of the day: What kind of topics would YOU like me to cover in a future "mini lecture" like this?

5 comments:

  1. Dear Ørjan:
    I am a Kukkiwon's second dan holder, of the Chung Do Kwan lineage, from Argentina, that has been training for 13 years.
    I've been enjoying your blog for a while after I discovered it by accident looking for some explanations of vital points in taekwondo.
    I like how you focus on combative applications, your pumsae¹ application analysis, and your holistic view of the taekwondo system.
    ¹ I write pumsae because in hangeul it's written with ㅜ, not with two ㅗ.

    I've already read all your posts, and I've noticed that your most recent articles tend to be videos instead of text. Please consider not doing videos where text might be more practical, for example the series of mini-lectures where you simply talk on a subject, and no demostration is performed. While your English is extremely good, many people is much better at reading it than at listening to it, so you may be cutting out part of your audience. Also, video-recodered speech is not (yet?) indexed by search engines, one cannot easily search a world in a dictionary, and most importantly: I read faster that you talk, and I can discretely read while being supposedly doing something else, but watching and listening a video is far more difficult to disguise.
    Thanks for considering and continue doing such a jood job.

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    Replies
    1. Dear "Unknown".

      I am very thankful for you giving me your time through writing this comment :-) I write Poomsae because that is how it has always been written in the books that I have read allthough I do see Pumsae being used more and more. To me it is just a habit, and as you point out the correct way of writing it in Korean is by using Hangul anyway ;-)

      I am very impressed that you have read all of my posts (there must be around 300 of them now (!) and some are quite lengthy :-P

      Your observation when it regards to videos is very accurate, I have put much more effort in to the youtube channel that I have as of late, and the advantage to that is that it among other things lets me produce content that benifit both my blog and my youtube channel.

      The reason why I have done so lately are many, but I can start out by saying that written content will resume in due time, and I am in no way stopping to produce written content. Lately I have had a lot of issues both in my private and proffessional life so I have had a lot of time constraints. Filming myself talking, adding a quick intro and editing it down is faster for me to give somewhat indepth information these days than to write a good piece. When the situation at home and at work stabilizes itself (which it will very soon thankfully) I will resume writing along with the video.

      Video content is perhaps not what you prefer, but there are people who seem to prefer it over the written content. We are all individuals who learn best through different medias, so it makes sense to make the best of different platforms when trying to get a message out there. So far most of my "mini lectures" has been tackling stuff which I have allready written about. The difference between Poomsae tul and hyung is based on an older article allthough the video version being newer is more up to date. The pulling hand has been tackled a lot over the years. How to write taekwondo was written on basic theory for taekwondo grading post I did a few years back, but this time I got to show it in real life. What Taekwondo means which is the newest one have also been written about in a few posts, but this one I will redo into an article in the near future:-)

      If you have issues watching the videos when you are supposed to do other stuff you can turn the text or subtitles on if it is the sound that is giving you away :-P Not all have been captioned yet, but I will make subtitles available for all videos in the near future. The two first mini lectures allready have them in place.

      I will also use the subtitle files as a basis of redoing them in article forms, so you will not miss out on anything at all as long as you keep revisiting the blog. You can allways "subscribe" to the blog and get the posts emailed to you which you can then quickly see if it is video content that you want to see or if it is text based.

      If you look at Iain Abernethy at iainabernethy.com you will notice that he has a blog, articles, videos, podcasts etc getting his message out there through several different mediums and platforms. I would love to try to do the same for my message (That taekwondo is much more than just kicking and punching and the olympic competition style). Myself I enjoy all the facets of Iain Abernethy. Sometimes I read an article or blog post. Sometimes I listen to a podcast on my way to work. Sometimes I view videos.

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    2. Part Two:

      Making videos is also a great way for me to learn how to talk about Taekwondo and not just writing about it. It lets me practise how to give a message in orally. It lets me practise my presentation technique, my english pronounciation, my video-editing skills, my photo-editing skills (the thumbnail for the videos), my subtitle editing skills, my transcription skills and a whole host of real world skills that I can use in the outside world and not just in my taekwondo. My blogging in written form has given me a lot in terms of practising and honing my writing skills and I appreciate what both worlds has given me.

      In the next month or so you will primarely get videos on this blog (sorry about that), but once I get on top of writing again I'll make more written content for you to enjoy :-) And as I said, you can always turn on the subtitles for the videos (I will be making them in a few days time for the rest of the videos which does not have them right now).

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  2. nice article thanks sharing the information, i really like it.Find out how you can learn self-defense through different techniques of Martial Arts.its is very beneficial for girls. https://bit.ly/2JBPePv

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