Thoughts from "Advancing in Taekwondo"

Image Soruce: Amazon kindle

I recently read one of Richard Chun`s books since they were recommended by a few of this blogs readers. The only book that was available from him on Kindle was "Advancing in Taekwondo" and is aimed for black belt students (my Guess those who are nearing the jump from 1st gup to 1st dan or those who have recently gotten 1st dan). It is a generic Taekwondo textbook which covers a multitude of different aspects of Taekwondo and I found it to be a great read. It is one of those few Taekwondo textbooks that actually treat Taekwondo as something more than a combative sport. Something that grown ups can practise and something serious. In fact the way Richard Chun presents Taekwondo is extremly (not quite but) close to the Taekwondo I practise with the Dojang I belong to. If his other books becomes available on Kindle I will not hessitate to buy them as well (I will probably have to order the "analoge" books on Amazon though). I will share a little more from his books in the future but for now here are a few interesting quotes from "Advancing in Taekwondo"`s self defense section

Image Soruce:
Richard Chun
Advancing in
Taekwondo

I am not sure how much of an introduction a legendary Grandmaster such as Richard Chun would need but he wrote some of the most important English language textbooks for the Kukki TKD stylists, he is of Moo Duk Kwan lineage and while he has incorporated the newer KTA forms (Palgwe, Taegeuk and Judanja forms) he has kept his older Moo Duk Kwan forms for study as well as the older Kwan era way of looking at Taekwondo as a way of life and art of self defense rather than just sport. If you have read many posts and their comments you will no doubt have had the pleasure of reading Richard`s comments which often expands the original blog post to a whole new level. Richard does not have books under his belt but he has a blog which can be found on the list of "interesting blogs" and he has produced some great video on youtube. Richard is originally a student of Richard Chun correct me if I am wrong). Another student of Richard Chun is Doug Cook who has written several books on Taekwondo. Below is the first quote I am sharing today:



"Taekwondo is the art of kicking and punching.

It relies for its power on chock or impact force,

rather than on throwing techniques, as in Judo or on holds, as in Aikido.

However situations do arise in which the student of Taekwondo

 would be well served to know some of these techniques."

The reason I loved this quote is that it very nicely defines what Taekwondo is and what it is not. It is a holostic martial art but it relies on impact. In short it is primarely a striking art not a dedicated grappling art. He also makes clear that eventhough Taekwondo is not based around throws and holds those kind of techniques do have their place in Taekwondo. There is a tendency in later years when people have learned Taekwondo only as a simplified sport system that they cross train in dedicated grappling arts and then just sort of "tack on" the missing pieces instead of adapting them to the overall strategy of Taekwondo. Likewise in Poomsae Applications (this area started out virtually unknown a few years back but now I feel I see it everywhere) there is a tendency to make everything into a grappling technique. I understand that tendency because the prevalent paradigm has been purely striking, but the real Applications to Poomsae I feel is not pure striking nor pure grappling it is both striking and grappling methods Integrated at once. The grappling part only as a supporting method to the striking techniques. This short quote from Richard Chun is brief but it does cover a lot of ground when describing Taekwondo as a martial arts system without it excluding aspects of the martial art that has allways been a part of it while it has been largely forgotten in recent years.

Another quote from Richard Chun from the same book and chapter:

"You should know how to fall without getting hurt"

The importance of falling techniques has been adressed by another grandmaster from another Kwan lineage:

As I have written before; If you are going to have high kicks as a part of your martial art you need to know how to fall just because you are kicking high. A common tactic used against high kickers is to grab the foot and sweep or throw the kicker. Another danger that I have seen time and time again in  Olympic sparring is that the foot gets caught on the opponents shoulder and when the opponent moves forward the kicker falls. The falling techniques are therefore important to know in Taekwondo even if you do not or will never throw or grapple anyone. Of curse once you start practising the Complete system of Taekwondo as a martial art and incorporate throws you need to know how to fall too but just the reason that we have high kicks makes break falls vitally important. It is also the only "practical" aspect of Taekwondo that you are most lilely to use in real life on the street :-)

Below is the last quote from the same author book and chapter:





"... suppose someone grabs you from behind

and you can`t use your hands or feet.

Your punching and kicking techniques would then

be of minimal use. In such a case,

it is helpful to know how to properly apply throwing techniques.

After you throw the assailant,

 you can then use basic Taekwondo techniques."



Image Soruce:
Richard Chun
Advancing in
Taekwondo

Here Richard Chun gives a scenario and gives a great description on how Taekwondo is supposed to work. Once you find yourself in a situation where you can not use your primary skill set (striking) you should be able to use grappling methods to change the situation so that you can fall back on your preffered skill set again. The strategy of Taekwondo is that of striking the opponent. The grappling methods employed in Taekwondo are supporting methods so you can make use of the strategy of Taekwondo again. Therefore the grappling in Taekwondo can not be compared to the grappling of grappling dedicated arts but to exclude Taekwondo grappling in favour of only striking will severly limit the student in a real life situation and the instructors who claims to teach Taekwondo as a martial art (those who claims to teach a sport I have no problem with) does their students a disservice if they do not include these aspects of Taekwondo. I like the ending of the above quote. Once the grappling technique you did has served its purpose you fall back on Taekwondo`s strenghts again.