Yedo Ishipsa Se (List, illustrations, hangul)

Open Wing Posture

In my last post on Yedo Ishipsa Se (Yedo 24 postures) I shared the historical background, the sources we know of, the introduction into Korean Military Manuals and an overview of the system itself. What I failed to include was a list over the postures. I want to make clear that in the system I practice we regard each "Se" which is often translated as posture as a mini form consisting of 3-8 moves. For instance in the first posture: Keo Jeong Se (Kettle lifting posture) we don't just asume a pose, we move into a starting pose, do a diagonal cut from that pose, into a horizontal cut before ending with a centerline downward cut. 3 techniques for that first "posture". This applies to each and every "posture" in the  Ishipsa ban Muye Kyeongdang (which is where I get all my weapon training and muyedobotongji stuff from. As always: I remind everyone I am a yellow belt :-P You should probably keep that in  mind :-)

Yedo24se (short sword 24 forms) history and background

 I've written before about my study into weapons and how I relate that to "my" taekwondo. The last two years I have delved deeper down into that rabbit hole and I have gotten much more hands on instruction (as well as a lot of online training) and so I wanted to start sharing this aspect on this blog too. If you think that is inapropriate as this is a taekwondo blog please say so in the comments and if I get a lot of feedback like that I will open a seperate blog on that aspect of my training and study. If I don't hear anything I will just keep posting that stuff here as well as what people consider "taekwondo". After all this is a blog on "my" Taekwondo so in my mind it fits right in here  :-) 

This time I would like to write a little bit about Yedo Ishipsa Se (Yedo = Short sword, Ishipsa =24 and Se = posture loosely translated). This is a system consisting of 24 illustrations that first appears in print in 1621 in Wu Bei Zhi or as the Korean calls it the Mubiji. The book is an incredible big publication, and it is said to be the biggest Chinese military writing of all time. In it the author Mao Yan-yi (or Mo Won-ui  in Korean) includes an art he labels Choson Sebup (Korean Sword Technique).