The Pillars of Taekwondo training part four; Ho Sin Sul

In an earlier post I mentioned "The pillars of Taekwondo training". I defined them as Basic techniques, Forms training, sparring, self defense and breaking.(The post I am reffering to can be read by clicking here:)This has long been the format of what is usually labeled "Traditional Taekwondo" and I thought that I should write a little more indepth about each "pillar" this time. In this the fourth part of this rant I will look closer on what many consider "the fourth pillar" of Taekwondo training namely Ho Sin Sul (self defense). I would recomend readers to go through this series in the order they came out. Click here to go to part one (basics), click here to go to part two(Poomsae), click here for part three (Sparring).

What was old hard style TKD like?

I often get the question of how old hard style Taekwondo was like. This is a good question and I must say it is very difficult to have an accurate answer to it. You see old hard style Taekwondo was formed in several different schools. The different schools had their simularities but also differenses. For a quick guide to see when the schools opened and who founded them see my Taekwondos Karate roots post. I also had a post titled Taekwondo time travel that featured old style Taekwondo. Because of the number of schools involved and their differenses I have to talk generally here. The other problem is that old hard style taekwondo can be many things. In this post I will focus on the striking art as taught in Korea in the 40s-60s.

The Pillars of Taekwondo training Part Three; Sparring

In an earlier post I mentioned "The pillars of Taekwondo training". I defined them as Basic techniques, Forms training, sparring, self defense and breaking.(The post I am reffering to can be read by clicking here:)This has long been the format of what is usually labeled "Traditional Taekwondo" and I thought that I should write a little more indepth about each "pillar" this time. In this the third part of this rant I will look closer on what many consider "the third pillar" of Taekwondo training namely Sparring. I would recomend readers to go through this series in the order they came out. Click here to go to part one (Basics), and here to read part two (forms/poomsae).

Part Four; A Dan Promotion Test in 1962

Ok ready for the fourth and last part of this series? We have seen the requirements for 1-4th Dan. This time lets see what the students had to do for their 5th Dan. If you are wondering about the background for this post and its source please read through it in order:-)

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three

Part Three; A Dan Promotion Test in 1962

In my previous posts regarding the requirements for Dan Promotion in 1962 I covered the forms required for 1st to 3rd Dan. This post contiues from part two. As such we are now going to step into the Taekwondo Time machine and see what forms were required for Dan promotion for 4th Dan in 1962. Here is a video from Youtube (please leave a comment if the link dies) with early Korean Taekwondo students doing Heian/Pinan/Pyungahn 2 (the last half at least) and whole number 5. Enjoy

                                                                   

Part Two: A Dan Promotion test in 1962

In the last post I showed what the students had to do to reach their 1. Dan and 2. Dan in 1962. I started listing all the forms they had to do and I found it interesting that there were so many forms to choose from. Maybe it was not so strange after all beacuse the forms on this test was collected so that the students from each Kwan could choose a form he was familiar with. One thing that was interesting however was that there were three names for the Naihanchi form (see my last post). I guess there were three names because the different schools had different versions of the same form. For instance if someone would say that they were about to show me the Naihanchi form I would expect any of its variations accross all the Karate styles, while if someone said they wanted to show me the Tekki form I would expect the Shotokan version as they are the only school using the term. In this post I will continue with the forms list and try to give video examples from the forms as well as little on their background information.