How do we know what we think we know? A good old rambling from Traditional Taekwondo Ramblings

This post just ramblings, and is not to be considered a serious article. It is done to clear my mind and to take you back around 2 years time. 

I had seriously started writing the manuscript for my first book "The Lost Forms of Oh Do Kwan Taekwondo Volume 1 Taegeuk 1-3 Hyeong" and had decided I should include an essential history for the major Kwan. I decided to check a few details on Chun Sang Sup in Korean sources because there were so little to be found in English sources. To my horror most English sources seem to link back to an old article I wrote many years ago... Well so off I went, and my surprise was great when I found that in serious academic discourse in Korean Chun Sang Sup early training is either totally glossed over, vague (he studied Karate in Japan) to wildly conflicting. 

It dawned on me then how much we think we KNOW in English language sources that Koreans themselves are very tentative to give a hard answer to. Not because Koreans lack sources or knowledge, but the opposite. Korean Taekwondo academics researching Taekwondo history have access to all manner of sources that we simply do not have. We are talking interviews, correspondence, paperwork, reports, certificates, pictures, newsreports, first hand accounts both oral and written history that history shows itself for what it often is; messy. 

Chun Sang Sup in the west has been pinned down to Shotokan by just about everyone writing about him (including my old article). I searched and searched for an original source for this and came across an old 2000s Korean interview with one of Chun Sang Sup's students, translated and shared by Master Al Cole. We do not have access to the original interview. In the interview the student said Chun studied at a certain university which we know was aligned with Funakoshi senior and son. So naturally everyone says he studied Shotokan. That is one Korean source that trickled through to us in the west, which some oral testimony has collaborated. In Korea on the other hand serious people with direct connections to Chun (including another direct student of his) points in wildly different directions. I did not exaggerate when I opened up Chun's part with "There is scholarly disagreement over which Karate style Chun studdied."  That sentence alone is the most honest English history written on Chun Sang Sup in English as far as I know. 

We have serious people claiming he studied with Kenwa Mabuni, Chojun Miyagi, Toyama Kanken and there are some who claim Shotokan. When I say serious people I am talking about direct students, friends and authors. So in Korean discourse the norm if you are to be taking seriously has been to point people to the various theories or to make a vague "trained in Japan" statement. 

While I have received some pushback from people strongly committed to one theory, this often seems to come down to a few factors:

1: Limited access to Korean-language sources.

2: A tendency to link a preferred narrative to identity.

3: A preference for simpler, more streamlined narratives over engaging with newer or more complex research.

This experience 2 years ago changed my writing and how I view how I present things. I have spent a lot of time re-educating myself on things I thought I knew, always asking: "How do I know what I think I know?". That education is still a work in progress. 

If you think this applies to Chun Sang Sup alone, you are sorely mistaken. This applies to everything, and it is both frightening and exciting at the same time. I have been starting to look at old magazine articles, newspaper articles, letters, as well as studies and research other people have done in an effort to re-evaluate. I have also spent a lot of time reading the 1959 Textbook which itself has challenged a lot of what I think I knew. 

Myths people believe:

Early Taekwondo was Shotokan

Some schools were of Funakoshi-lineage. Shotokan as a style did not exist until right after Funakoshi died. And the people codifying JKA Shotokan changed a lot of stuff, including Kata. It is ironic that some Korean versions are far closer to what Funakoshi taught close to WW2 than what JKA teaches now. 

Schools with direct Funakoshi-lineage non-disputed are few. Chung Do Kwan, Song Mu Kwan and Oh Do Kwan are the only ones not in any dispute to a direct Funakoshi-lineage. Choi did not train directly under Funakohsi, but viewing his material it is safe to say he was very much in that lineage. 

Schools with disputed or indirect lineage to Funakoshi:

Yeon Mu Kwan (as discussed with Chun Sang Sup), Han Mu Kwan, Ji Do Kwan, Mu Duk Kwan

Schools with no lineage to Funakoshi that I am aware of:

Kang Duk Won, Chang Mu Kwan. Depending on where you land with Chun Sang Sup you can list Yeon Mu Kwan, Han Mu Kwan and Ji Do Kwan here too. Or if you count Ji Do Kwan as its own thing it can safely be put here as neither Lee Chong Woo or Yun Kwae Byung has any lineage to Funakoshi. 

So saying early Taekwondo = Shotokan is a typical modern sanitized clean narrative. It falls apart once you start looking at the primary sources themselves. 

Only ITF Taekwondo had a philosophical component, the rest were doing sport:

This is simply not true, not back then (1966 onwards, or with Choi and Oh Do Kwan earlier) and not now. The Kwan Heon series I am running this year will unpack each and every one of the "big 9" Kwan and show them all to have equally deep philosophies as ITF has. They are not better, nor worse, just different. And that should be Ok. People claiming that are people trying to lift one side up while putting others down. 

Taesudo-Taekwondo divide

Taekwondo was trained in the military, Taesudo was trained by civilians. One was a deep philosophical martial art, the other a kind of basic Karate and a sport. Sounds familiar? If you have heard it look at who is saying it and ask yourself: 1: Is he aligned with Choi and the ITF in any way? 2: Does he speak or read Korean and have looked at the primary sources of the period? 

The truth is that Taesudo had a sporting component, one that had been started in the original Korean Taekwondo Association in 1959, then when they reapplied and registered in 1961ish under the Taesudo name they continued that development. Those who think Taekwondo was outside of this is ignoring pimrary sources. Paperwork from the time reveal that "Oh Do Kwan" practitioners competed in Taesudo competitions, and their instructors were very much a part of that organisation. Nam Tae Hi is a good example as he was a standing director from 1961 until he was sent to Vietnam. The only divide between them were preferred name (Taekwondo vs Taesudo) and preferred forms (Karate derived vs Chang Hon Ryu / Karate derived blend). The first time Choi does not include Karate derived forms in his textbooks was in 1966. Talking to Vietnam War veterans some of them confirmed they were taught Taegeuk 1-3 Hyeong, Pyeongahn etc in Vietnam by Korean instructors. Others say they learned Chang Hon Ryu. So the responsible thing is to say there were a time period that was overlapping between the forms before the Chang Hon Ryu became the only forms. Plus the fact of military vs civilian framing. 

Taekwondo Naming myths

We have probably all heard that the President of Korea attended a martial arts demonstration in 1954 exclaiming this is Taekkyon (or something along those lines, Taekkyon being the constant thing). This is a later narrative put forward by Choi and his people. The story goes that by calling their karate taekkyon Choi needed to come up with a new name. What if I tell you that there is a first hand account from the 1950s of this event, written by Choi himself, but having several details of this story different to the modern accepted one? That the president is said to have said something completely different than Taekkyon, in fact not mentioning any martial art at all? This 1950s source are a couple of years after the fact, but it is by far the earliest one I have seen when compared to later interviews and stories. The Taekkyon angle seems to be brought in about a decade later than this source. 

Chung Do Kwan was the first Kwan founded (and that it happened in 1944)

Chung Do Kwan was founded in 1945. There is no room for error, and that is it. It was open for 4 days, before closing down due to the chaos of the liberation. Then it took a while before opening up again in 1946. No students participating in the original 1945 Chung Do Kwan carried over. According to Lee Won Kuk himself the 1945 students consisted of Japanese plus ONE Korean. So academics are now arguing if the founding date should actually be set at 1946 as that is the first stable one. If you can read Korean and look at the research you would not question this, because the 1945 opening (not 1944) was declared in both Korean and Japanese newspapers. The closing down after four days is from an early interview with Lee Won Kuk (only accessible in Korean) and the 1946 date is confirmed by the Lee Won Kuk interview plus it is documented in newspapers as the opening was advertised. 

So what happened with the whole being first, being opened in 1944, having to ask 3 times story? This all comes in to history by a later interview with Lee coinciding with the publication of his new Taekwondo Textbook in 1968. We can speculate as to the change in story was done to give prestige to Chung Do Kwan, himself, his students who had done a lot of accomplishments both in civilian taekwondo and military through their work with Oh Do Kwan. Being recognized as the first founder, first Kwan would help sell his book. And this later version has been uncontested in the English literature simply because we lack the sources and have to work with what we are given. 

Koreans learned suboptimal Karate in Japan

The truth is actually quite opposite. They trained with the Okinawan masters teaching in Japan at the time, and they practised right besides the ones who would later form modern Japanese Karate. In several instances Korean instructors taught other Japanese Karate in Japan! After WW2 with the outlaw of martial arts Yun Byong In became the headmaster of his own Karate school in a loophole keeping Karate practice open for Japanese and Koreans. This clever loophole existed because he as a Korean could teach martial arts, as the ban (which was lifted eventually) was in effect for Japanese teaching. They were at the forefront with hard contact continuous sparring in Japan too. Laying the groundwork that a Oyama (originally Korean himsel) took to a whole new level. 

Koreans instantly cut ties with Japanese and Okinawan Karate once the Kwan were opened

Simply not true when looking at the sources from the time. Koreans still travelled to Japan to further their martial arts studies, and there were exchanges both ways. It was semi common all through the 1960s. Later on when new forms were totally adopted, the old forms pushed out, and the sparring had evolved into its own thing in the 1970s we see a gradual stop of Karate-Taekwondo intermingling. It can be argued that it never truly stopped, but I do not see many Karate students from Japan competing and training with Taekwondo students from Korea after 1970s, I do find Japanese Taekwondo students exchanging with Korean Taekwondo students. So I guess that would be at the point when Taekwondo could be said to truly have become its own thing. 

Conclusion

If the answer to these questions unsettles you, then perhaps the real question is not what is true, but why we need certain versions of history to be true. I would wager it is because at some level you have also linked some or several of these kinds of thinking to your identity instead of looking at them seeking truth. 

Does it really matter if President Rhee said Taekkyon? Does it matter if Chung Do Kwan was established after Song Mu Kwan and Mu Duk Kwan? Does that make your Taekwondo any less of a martial art? Why is it important to link Chun to Shotokan and not any other style? Does the change in narrative discount anything you have done in your own training?

Since this is ramblings I can end on my personal theory looking at the forms practised by Han Mu Kwan and Ji Do Kwan, looking at who exactly Chun hired to help him teach. Shito Ryu and or Shudokan makes perfect perfect sense where Shotokan doesnt. But I stress, this is my own personal subjective speculation. I have no paper trails to back this up.