Taekwondo Kwan history part 1; Chun Sang Sup and Yun Mu Kwan

While waiting for an oppertunity to retake photos and take new photos for new material for my upcoming ABCs of Practical Poomsae applications I kinda started with a smaller book project which is also coming along nicely. I will keep the cards tight to my chest for the time being, but I am working a different way on this one, writing it from scratch and trying to format it and polish it as I go rather than the way I did with the ABCs of Practical Poomsae applications which has grown to about 125 pages manuscript but has yet to be formatted. Anyhow, as part of this smaller book project which is veeeeeeeery niche and I doubt it will see much, I decided that for the introduction part I needed to mention and give a brief overview on each of the major Kwan or schools that opened up from 1944-1950s. It was grueling work because I needed to re-evaluate what I know, new sources has been made available and in some cases I really had to change what I believed. This post which focuses on Chun Sang Sup is a very good example of this since I was told and read that he trained in Shotokan Karate under Gichin Funakoshi, that he taught Shotokan Kata, and that Yun Kwae Byung when he reopened it as Ji Do Kwan continued teaching the Shotokan forms despite him not being of Shotokan lineage. Modern Ji Do Kwan schools do in some cases teach Shotokan Kata as their heirloom forms, but the few people I that I reached out to who actually answered admitted that they read the same as I did, and went out and learned Shotokan Kata and taught them as Ji Do Kwan Hyeong. This is what happens when we make assumptions about history, and I am betting that all this info about Chun practising Shotokan comes from one work which has influenced writers all over the place.

The other thing that made this difficult was that I decided to keep each Kwan history brief, and if you know anything about me, making me write or talk about Taekwondo history is to open up the flood gates. I never shut up or stop writing:-P So if this has intrigued you click the read more button to read a short summary of Chun Sang Sup´s history and the founding of the Yun Mu Kwan Kong Su Do Bu. 

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Chon-Ji Tul/Hyung's Karate roots

In modern ITF Taekwon-Do the karate roots of Taekwondo is often overlooked, or downplayed. I think this is also true for most schools of Taekwondo, and I think that is a mistake, because we need to have a good grasp of where we came from to see where we should continue to go. Without a proper setting off point, how can we determine the route or destination? Some "Taekwon-Do rebels" such as Paul O'Leary has written for many years on the Karate roots of different Chang Hon Ryu forms, noting how Won-Hyo Hyung is a composite of two different Pinan/Heian Karate Kata. There are several forms in Chang Hon Ryu who lifts whole sequences of Karate Kata move for move or with very small tweaks. There is nothing wrong with that, and I truly enjoy practising them, because Choi and his team really has in my opinion taken their Karate roots and infused them with a Korean identity by repackeging them, lifting sequences from Karate kata, but also expanding upon them and so on. I find great value in them in other words. One form that few people if any have noticed is also largely a repackaged Karate Kata is Chon-Ji Hyung or Tul. In this post I want to shed some light on the roots of Chon-Ji Hyung, and how it is repackaged. I have previously written about how the technical makeup of Chon-Ji Hyung is brilliant, and closely linked to philosophy, I will try to do it justice here as well. If however you want to check out a deep dive into Chon-Ji Hyung as a philosophical-Physical link you can click here for that. For the Karate roots of Chon-Ji Hyung please click to read on on this post :-)