Friday 23 October 2020

The Original Koryo Hyung Part 1; an overview (Will the real Koryo please stand up???)


 This will be the first post of a small series, focusing on the history, development and performance of the original Koryo form. I will refer to this as "Koryo Hyung" for the remainder of this series to not confuse readers with the normal, mainstream, "new" Koryo Poomsae which most practise today. So when I write "Koryo Hyung" that is the old one, and Koryo Poomsae is the current one.

As a Taekwondo Nerd I have always read a lot of Taekwondo history, and one thing caught my interest many many years ago was a reference that looked almost the same in all articles and books on modern Taekwondo history. Especially if the book or article touched upon the development of the Korean Taekwondo Association forms (the Poomsae we practise today). It was something along these lines: "Around 1965-67 a committee consisting of representatives from most major Kwan (schools) developed the Palgwae and Judanja (Black belt) Poomsae. In 1967-1972 the same committee with the addition of representatives from Ji Do Kwan and Mu Duk Kwan developed a new series of forms. In 1972 the Palgwae and Koryo were replaced by the new forms, the Taegeuk series and a new Koryo form." This or a close variation of this quote appeared everywhere and it bugged me to no end. You see the Palgwae were replaced but they did live on. I could find videos, books, articles, webpages with detailed descriptions of them with no problem. A few of the books in my Martial Arts library were bought precisely because of my interest in what these forms were like. Not so with the original Koryo. 

Friday 16 October 2020

Newly produced Poomsae tutorials by Kukkiwon

 I found this such great news I had to share it here :-) Very recently the Kukkiwon made a playlist on YouTube public with very well made Poomsae tutorials. I have only watched through Taegeuk il jang but it was so well made that I want to share the whole playlist here :-) 


https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSFr5pEwo7gSwvfg4bjxoF3liyfJkCLAj


The link above will hopefully take you directly to the playlist :-) Let me know if it doesn’t work. It focuses strictly on solo performance :-) 

Tuesday 6 October 2020

Controversies in the development of the Black Belt Poomsae

 Once I read a long article on the process of becomming a black belt in Kukki-Taekwondo and what you should focus on in your training for each Dan rank. This was linked in great detail to the Poomsae assigned to the rank, and the symbolism that the Poomsae was made with in mind. The fact that the Black Belt Poomsae has a name and a philosophy or theoretical background assigned to it is written in stone in many masters minds, but as I will demonstrate in this blog post, things in Taekwondo are never written in stone. This post might be a little controversial for some but it is time someone shed some light on this to a wider audience, and it might also save a few people from going completly down a rabbit hole.