Micro post; This months quote

Hi there:-) I was reading "The unfettered mind" the other day and one of the things Takuan Soho writes made me think about why we do Poomsae over and over again. It made perfect sense to me, so I thought I should share it with you here. As you know I think that Poomsa (among other things) display tactics and strategy, or principles through a collection of techniques in other words.

The Unfettered Mind by Takuan Soho page 11:

"Even though you know principle, you must make youself perfectly free in the use of technique"

The relationship between sparring and forms, a Taekwondo perspective

This article was originally published in Totally Taekwondo Magazine 1st of July 2016. It looks at Taekwondo litterature ranging from 1958 to 2010 and looks into how Taekwondo textbooks have defined sparring and forms individually and then tackles the age old quesiton wether the two have a relationship between them. I hope you will find this interesting, and since this is meant to be a serious article and not "just a blogpost" it contains references to all the books I have used for this article, as well as exactly where each of my quotes has been found. Earlier I have done a lousy job With this, just providing the person behind the quote and maybe a title, but if a reference is to have true value it needs to pinpoint a location so that people can go and check all my claims, and do it easily instead of having to sift through a whole book each time. It is my hope that more will try to write and produce more serious Taekwondo litterature over time so that we can elevate the martial art we all love and respect. I might not be a scholar but I do try, and this is the result of just that.

Dangkinun Son - The pulling hand

Dangkinun son (당기는손) or the pulling hand refers to the arm/hand that is seemingly doing nothing

in the textbook applications of Taekwondo basic techniques. This is the hand on the hip in most techniques in Poomsae. While one hand is punching, striking of blocking the other hand is pulled back to the hip. We know based on the writings of Funakoshi (and several others) that this part of the technique is actually a very important active part of it and not something passively done for the sake of it. Nor is the hand placed on the hip to be "ready" for the next move (although that happens also sometimes). More often than not the other hand is checking the opponents arm, removing his defenses, pulling him off balance and generally opening the opponent up for a strike. Taekwondo is often said to be a simplified version of Japanese Karate, Japanese Karate being an already simplified version of Okinawan Karate. I think that the Taekwondo we generally see today is simplified in the extreme (albeit with a lot of added foot techniques), not because it was based on Japanese Karate, but because over time Taekwondo has been sportified and defanged in many ways to appeal to new students. This has worked a lot when looking at the number of students as the number one sucsess criteria, but in my eyes a lot has been lost over the years. The concept of the pulling hand is one of these things. Why I devote so much time on this concept you ask? It is one of the most distinguishing features of our basic techniques, and after reading Richard Chun`s 1976 book I again was firmly reminded of what has been lost.

Micro post; This Months quote:

«One of the ultimate objectives of Taekwondo training is free style fighting. Of course, free style fighting is a substitute for the real ultimate of Taekwondo, self-protection against any attack at any time under any conditions» -«Korean Karate The art of Tae Kwon Do» 1968 by Duk Sung Son and Robert J. Clark page 267.

Warm up for Taekwondo

I got an interesting question the other day when I chatted with a friend about general Taekwondo training, and the conversation turned toward warm up. This is something that is often a missunderstood part of training, and it also comes with its own myths as well. I like to believe that Taekwondo being in the Olympics has made more instructors aware of sport science and that we generally have moved on from the 1950s/60s idea of a warm up based on army training. I see that modern Dojang that leans toward Olympic sparring is actually more up to date on this area, and holds an advantage over "traditional" oriented Dojang around the world. It is more often than not those "traditional" oriented Dojang that does not understand what a warm up is for in my own opinion. There is a lot of heavy science and theory behind what a good warm up should be, and what the purpose of a warm up is.

However instead of sharing a lot of dry research material, and a lot of theory, I would rather just share my thoughts on the topic of warm up, both its purpose, its length and proposed drills, and why those drills have been selected.

Review on Taekwondo; Origins of the art: a historic photospective

Taekwon-Do - Origins of the art:

Bok Man Kim`s Historic Photospective (1955-2015)

Review by Ørjan Nilsen

Being a self-appointed "Taekwondo-nerd" and amateur historian of Taekwondo, I noticed that the name Kim Bok Man showed up frequently during my studies of Taekwondo history. Despite his name showing up in several places, I did not really know much about him other than the fact that he was one of the original instructors of the Oh Do Kwan and close to General Choi Hong Hi during the formative years of Taekwondo. I am very interested in the history of Taekwondo (any lineage), so when I first heard about this project I anticipated opening the finished product, especially since photos and documentation in Taekwondo`s formative years (1950s to early 60s) seem to be quite rare. Being the lucky man that I am, I was asked if I was interested in doing a review for the book, to which I immediately said, «Yes!»

Micro Post; This months quote

"If you study carelessly or haphazardly, your Poomsae* and techniques will never come to life"
-Gichin Funakoshi 1943

(*He obviously said "Kata" where I have put "Poomsae" in the quote)

I hope to provide much more video content to this blog in the future. I have therefore set up a GoFundMe page on www.gofundme.com/traditionaltaekwondoramblings which I hope I can crowdfund a video editing software so I can make good quality videos for the blogs readers. If you want to contribute please visit the link to my GoFundMe page. Every donation helps :-)