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. 

I could find a reference on the opening moves in a forum or two, but I could not get a hold of the people who posted those references in these forums as the thread(s) were dead. No video existed, and I could find no book anywhere that showed this original form. While I lived in Korea I searched for people who might now it, but the few that I found that had known it had forgotten it, and while I scoured the bookshops everywhere I never found a book old enough to contain it. Around 2009ish I finally struck gold when I came across a pdf file of an article written by Kim Soo in the 1970s. I remember still that I was stressed out of my mind because of work, christmas was approaching and I could just not find any joy in it. But the feeling of FINALLY finding something that showed me what the form was like was great. It is still etched into my mind still after all these years :-D I studied the article by Kim Soo and implemented the form into my own training and study simply because I love it :-) As luck would have it a friend of mine Jon Lennart would go and train in real life with Gm Kim Soo and I would later have a few mistakes corrected by Jon Lennart so that it was not "only" from an article. 

Later still I saw a reference to an even (slightly) older source than the article by Gm Kim Soo. In 1971 Gm Kim Daeshik and Tom Leland published a book called "Karate and personal defense". This book showed and documented Koryo Hyung but it was a little different than Gm Kim Soo's version. Then in 2013 the book "Taekwondo Black Belt Poomsae: Original Koryo and Koryo" was published by Gm Richard Chun and Doug Cook. Again they show a variation that is different in some aspects than both Gm Kim Daeshik and Gm Kim Soo's version. I have therefore called these variations 

  1. Kim Daeshik Version 
  2. Kim Soo Version 
  3. Richard Chun Version
But I stress that there are even more slight variations out there, but these three are the ones most familiar to me so these are the three versions I will document on my blog. I might expand this list later as I am aware that Master Jeremy Selch (brilliant martial artist with a strong Song Mu Kwan lineage) knows yet another version that you can probably find a video of if you search hard enough :-) 

Image Source:
Kim Daeshik's 1971 book



Version 1 Kim Daeshik version is the eldest documented one from 1971 "Karate and personal defense" written by him and Tom Leland. I have used his book as a source for what you will see later on in this series. The book is short and was meant to give an introduction to Karate and the martial arts for beginners, so it is interesting from an historical perspective but it is not worth bankrupting yourself in search of it. In addition to Koryo Hyung it also shows Naihanchi as practised in Chang Mu Kwan (which is almost identical to the Tekki of Shotokan except that the opening move is an outward knife hand strike instead of a back hand strike), as well as Chonji Hyung. With these three Gm Kim Daeshik felt he had showed an example of the KTA, the ITF and Karate. It seems that Gm Kim Daeshik travelled to Korea sometime in the late 60s or possibly as late as 1970 and learned Koryo Hyung there, but I have not gotten this verified yet. Gm Kim Daeshik's book is the earliest English reference for the form, and the only reference to it in book format until 2013.

Version 2 is Gm Kim Soo who learned the form in Korea, and then wrote the aforementioned article in "Official Karate Magazine" in April 1972. The article was titled: "A simple lesson in Karate Kata." It follows the same format and is very similar to Gm Kim Daeshik's version, but some of the stances are altered, and at one point there are differences between open handed and closed handed techniques. It was pointed out to me that the part near the end when you are moving backwards was very similar (but not identical) to Jang Kwon Hyung (Long fist form) which is a Chang Mu Kwan Yun Byung In lineage form from China. I do not know Jang Kwon Hyung so I am just putting it out there as it was related to me. 

Version 3 which is Richard Chun and Doug Cook's version is based on hard research going back to the very paperwork of the original forms committee. Yes you read that correctly, the forms committee wrote down its work and somehow through their hard work Richard Chun and Doug Cook got access to it and based their version on it. It seperates itself from the other versions in that the hands are mostly closed throughout its performance, making the form closer to what we are used to in the other KTA forms which often makes use of closed hand. It also moves the body weight different in some techniques as well, which will become apparant once I share that form with you. For instance in the opening movement according to their book the weigh actually goes backwards while you do the first strike, while the other two versions step forwards, shifting the body weight into the strike (which I would believe would be the most logical way to do it). 

"Correctedness"
Given that there are so many small differences and variations between these forms while all obviously being the same form there are some that undoubtfully will discuss which way is more "correct". In Kukki Taekwondo this is often fairly straight forward as the Kukkiwon on one side will tell you how to do the forms, and the WT will likewise tell you how to do the forms for competition. The thing is that in this case the form was dropped long before it could be streamlined and standardised. For all we know the form might even not be completly "finished" since it was dropped and replaced by a new form. The rest of the Judanja form were kept, allthough they did play around with the order and the names of a few of them, only Koryo Hyung was dropped. 

So which is the "correct" one then? The oldest documented one? Technically the oldest version in my eyes is the one by Richard Chun and Doug Cook simply because they used the forms committee's own paperwork as a basis of their version. But you could argue that Kim Daeshik's version is the one that was documented in a book first so that is the oldest version. But then again Gm Kim Soo might have learned it before Gm Kim Daeshik. Who knows? Perhaps the form was made first as Richard Chun demonstrates, then refined to be more like how Gm Kim Daeshik and Gm Kim Soo does it in their work? Perhaps the differences between these two masters represents refinements done in the forms development by the people who made the form? Finding out what was the "correct" way of performing it is in my view futile since we can not know. All three are valid versions thats for sure, but I cant for the life of me decide if any of them deserves to be called more "correct" than the other ones. 

Some might argue that those who propogated the form and kept teaching it forming a live tradition of the form is the "correct way". I have no idea if Kim Daeshik kept teaching the form or if he dropped it too, but both Richard Chun and Kim Soo kept teaching it in their schools, so we can't really use the "living tradition" argument either. 

I conclude therefore that the most correct form is: A) the way your teacher says it should be, if you learn this in a dojang setting, or B) the version you pick to be your version. Personally in my case that would be the Kim Soo version as that is the one I have "known" the longest but again that is my personal preference. I would also like to add how they often treat forms variations in Karate. Different variations in Kata (Hyung/forms) in Karate is commonplace across styles, and a few styles even have different variations of the same form within the same style(!). One thing they do is simply add the name the variation came to us from. For instance Chatan Yara Kushanku is the Kushanku version that came from Chatan Yara. Another version might be called Matsumora No Kushanku and so on. So calling it the Kim Soo, Kim Daeshik or Richard Chun version seems to be more in line with Taekwondo's tradition than the discussion on which of these are "correct". 


History of Koryo Hyung

I have already talked about its history but I will try to make a timeline here and comment on what happens outside of the "narrow view" of history when we look at a form like this.

In the period running from 1910-1945 Japan Occupied Korea. Many blame Japanese for banning the native martial arts, but there was never any such ban. Military training was of course banned, but no one stepped in to kill off Taek Kyon masters, or others. According to Morinobu Itoman in his book "The study of China Hand Techniques" it was common place among people in Okinawa who wanted to further their study to go to China AND KOREA to study more there. THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT KARATE IS KOREAN (sorry for the Caps Lock, but I want to get that off my chest), it only means two things:
  1. Korea influenced early forerunners of modern Karate
  2. There were martial arts practised in Korea during the Japanese Occupation
The book came out in 1934 originally. The Japanese did a lot of bad things to Korean culture, but banning martial arts practise is not one of them, and the myth of that ban must be stopped. The reason for the myth came to explain why the modern Korean martial art of Taekwondo resembled Karate so much. It was better to say that the masters of Korean martial arts were forced to practise Karate because the korean arts were banned than to say that the native Korean arts had been in decline for the last 100 years and that modern taekwondo was built upon Japanese Karate and some Chinese Quan Fa. 

During this occupation of Korea by Japan many people sent their sons to get a higher education in Japan. During the 1920s - 1940s several people travelled to Japan to study at Universities there. Some practised with Gichin Funakoshi (founder of Shotokan), some practised with Mabuni Kenwa (founder of Shito Ryu), some with Toyama Kanken, and some with Gogen Yamaguchi (Goju Kai Karate). It is popular to say that only a few practise Karate because the ones we hear about later is: Lee Won Kuk, Ro Byung Jik, Choi Hong Hi, Yun Byung In, Yun Kwae Byung, and Chun Sang Sung (No I have not forgotten about Hwang Kee but he never travelled to Japan to study). These people started major schools when they got back to Korea which is why they are remembered but they were not alone in practising Karate while in Japan. The Koreans role in shaping modern Karate in Japan is actually a blog post that I have been meaning to make for several years now, but that is for another time :-)

While the "martial arts ban" is a myth that was propogated later, the Japanese did a lot of bad things and downplayed Korean culture and history during their occupation. Do not let the myth of a martial arts ban fool you, there were many bad things done, and they hurt Korean culture in a very bad way that was felt a looooong time (still is to this day). Without mainstream martial arts schools like the Koreans had attended while studying in Japan, several schools were opened between the 1940s-60s. These are the Kwan that you might have heard of: Song Mu Kwan, Mu Duk Kwan, Chung Do Kwan, Yun Mu Kwan, Ji Do Kwan, Oh Do Kwan, Chang Mu Kwan etc. These schools practised what was essentually Karate and in some cases Karate with some Chinese Martial Arts within them. They used the uniform, belt system, philosophy, terminology (translated into Korean), forms, techniques etc. Even the names of the arts practised were foreign. Tang Su Do means China Hand Way and it is a Korean pronounciation for the older term of Karate: Tode. Kong Su Do means Empty Hand Way and is the Korean way of pronouncing Karate. Kwon Bup means Fist Method/Law and is the Korean way of pronouncing Quan Fa. You do not need to be a detective to find out where these arts came from or what they practised. The problem arose when people had (very understandably) negative connotations to all things Japanese, and a feverish need to chase down a new Korean Cultural Identity (or rediscover it) rose. In this light over time the arts practised started to change a little. One of the things they started doing was working together in organisations, another thing was to try to develop Korean set of forms so that they did not practise a copy of a Japanese art. 

By 1965 the schools of Chung Do Kwan, Song Mu Kwan, Yun Mu Kwan, Chang Mu Kwan and Oh Do Kwan had worked together and formed the Korean Taekwondo Association. Choi Hong Hi and the Oh Do Kwan had made forms since the mid 1950s, but it was felt that a more fair way was that each school would send representatives to form a joint forms committee that would make a new common set of forms that they could all practise and use for their belt promotions. In the period between 1965-1967 these schools sent:

  • Kwak Kun Sik (Chung Do Kwan/ Captain of millitary academy and therefore also Oh Do Kwan)
  • Park Hae Man (Chung Do Kwan)
  • Hyun Jong Myun (Chung Do Kwan/ Oh Do Kwan)
  • Lee Yong Sup (Song Moo Kwan)
  • Lee Kyo Yun (Yoon Moo Kwan/ and founder of Han Moo Kwan)
  • Kim Son Bae (Chang Moo Kwan)

I do not know how they specifically made these forms or how they worked. Did one guy develop a first draft of a form alone? Did a sub group do a group of forms? Those details might be disclosed later if the paperwork is ever translated and made mainstream. I hope it does. Suffice to say that these men in the end is responsible for the Palgwae, Koryo Hyung and the rest of the black belt poomsae we practise to this day. This group started their work in 1965, but the year after is an important year in Kukki-Taekwondo history as that year a large group of Mu Duk Kwan and Ji Do Kwan students joined the Korean Taekwondo Association. They had previously had a Mu Duk Kwan/ Ji Do Kwan joint organisation called the Korean Su Bahk Do Association, led by Hwang Kee and Yun Kwae Byung. This large group had had no say in the development of the Palgwae and the Judanja forms so a new Committee was formed with additional representatives to make new forms. The result was the Taegeuk Series and a new Koryo that replaced the older Koryo Hyung. For some reason a fair number of instructors chose to keep the Palgwae as additional forms, but Koryo Hyung was very very rare to find in a Dojang. 

I think that if you are still reading after all this time you will now have an overview of variations, "correctedness" and history of the form, so I will end Part 1 here. In the next installment I will document Variation 1: Kim Daeshik's version of Koryo as he documented it in his 1971 book :-) 

3 comments:

  1. Outstanding story. Looking forward with great anticipation to the next parts!
    George Vitale

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  2. Thank you! Great post sir.

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  3. interesting how mythology always seems to win out over real history--assuming that can even be known! While i have no issue with variations in forms, i always seem to have an issue with ever getting an explanation of what each variation meant to the person that inserted it. That never seems to surface. While i learned the form under GM Chun and practiced it many years, there was never anything above a surface kbp explanation. I was asked to supply applications for the book on the original Koryo form but they were not used in the final project, they instead chose to go back to the standard applications.

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