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. 

Newly produced Poomsae tutorials by Kukkiwon

 I found this such great news I had to share it here :-) Very recently the Kukkiwon made a playlist on YouTube public with very well made Poomsae tutorials. I have only watched through Taegeuk il jang but it was so well made that I want to share the whole playlist here :-) 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSFr5pEwo7gSwvfg4bjxoF3liyfJkCLAj

The link above will hopefully take you directly to the playlist :-) Let me know if it doesn’t work. It focuses strictly on solo performance :-) 

Controversies in the development of the Black Belt Poomsae

 Once I read a long article on the process of becomming a black belt in Kukki-Taekwondo and what you should focus on in your training for each Dan rank. This was linked in great detail to the Poomsae assigned to the rank, and the symbolism that the Poomsae was made with in mind. The fact that the Black Belt Poomsae has a name and a philosophy or theoretical background assigned to it is written in stone in many masters minds, but as I will demonstrate in this blog post, things in Taekwondo are never written in stone. This post might be a little controversial for some but it is time someone shed some light on this to a wider audience, and it might also save a few people from going completly down a rabbit hole.

How the Sword has influenced Taekwondo

I have been playing around with the sword lately and I am having a lot of fun doing it. Sword training is perfect for the times we are finding ourselves in these days: you always keep at least a swords distance between yourself and your training partner, if they come to close you hit them. If you are practising alone no one will come close to the crazy guy swinging a sword arond and so it is also great at social distancing :-D 

This is not a post on how fun I am having or how I train, but rather how the sword is related to an unarmed martial art such as Taekwondo. It is now time to go back in history.

Basic Sword training; "Gibon Ta" drill, fundamental sword cuts

After the sword training we did a little while back I kept brushing off on my sword training, and part of that was the Gibon Ta or fundamental sword strokes drill that I learned a loooooong time ago. The drill is pretty stationary, and when you have done the sequence you have effectivly gone through most of the fundamental sword cuts in the system I practise. I filmed myself when doing the exercises so that I could look at the footage and find things to improve upon (and there was a lot). Practising on my own and with no mirrors video seems to be a descent way of getting feedback (by reviewing the footage).

The Gibon Ta consists of front cut, diagonal cut, wrist cut, thrusts, horizontal cuts, upwards diagonal cuts, and upward cut. 

Sword training again

I wrote a lengthy post on my experiences with sword training, some history and information on gyungdang (or Kyeongdang) a "short" time ago (2016???????? Damn where did all that time go??) which you can read by clicking here. A few days ago I got the chance to do some study time with the sword again because Joakim came to visit and he was kind enough to spend most of his Saturday teaching me and my teacher :-) Most of my sword training so far has been a seminar here, a training camp there, a short training session with someone here and there, looking at videos, reading books etc, so it was great to be a student and being taught again (thanks man if you're reading this :-) ). I realized to my horror that I haven't been writing much or publishing much on my blog lately so I thought I could share a little of my day with you guys and girls :)

Sharing some of my favorite Taekwondo Poomsae Quotes (On application)

I recently made a 30 minute video of myself sharing a few of my favorite practical poomsae application quotes. These are taken from many sources, but both from the Karate roots of taekwondo and from "modern" taekwondo masters, as well as a short discussion on the stages of poomsae training as outlined in the Kukkiwon Textbook.

Below is the video itself, and if you click the "read more", you will be treated to the quotes themselves in text format as some prefer them in text. For more context and my own thoughts about them watch the video :-)