What was in Hwang Kee`s 1958 book; A Commentary

In my previous post about the content of Hwang Kee`s 1958 Tang Su Do textbook I said I did not
want to shape the readers mind about the content as any commentary I would give would probably do just that. I did write that I would revisit it and that is what I am doing today. Hopefully if you read it you will allready have developed your own opinion and the translation can stand on its own. If you want some of my thoughts on the matter you can feel free to click the read more button and read what I think about the book.

What was in Hwang Kee`s 1958 Tang Su Do Textbook?

A long time ago I was surfing the net when I stumbled upon a "web library" of rare Karate books that
was scanned as PDFs. Among the more "common" works of Funakoshi, Mabuni (in Japanese) and many others I found to my suprise a book by Hwang Kee from 1958 in Korean! I have known for a long time that Hwang Kee was among the first to publish works on the Korean Martial Arts and this book was certainly one of the older ones dating back to 1958. The book title is Tang Su Do Textbook, but judging on the table of content he likened Tang Su Do, Hwa Su Do and Taek Kyon to be very much the same martial arts with different labels. I knew he had first referred to his martial art as Hwa Su Do (Way of flowering hand) but I thought he had long since abandoned that label by 1958 and replaced it with Tang Su Do (Way of China Hand).

I was curious to know what was in the book and my basic Korean skills made me understand a few of the headlines and instructions along with the illustrations he gave but there was also a lot that I did not understand. Therefore with the help of "Løbak Consulting inc" I translated the table of content and had him check that my translation was within reason "correct". Jon Lennart`s Korean skills are second to none, and he is truly an inspiration for a "Taekwondo nerd" like myself. I have set this post to become published on december 24th marking the Norwegian day for Christmas celebration. Think of this post as Traditional Taekwondo Ramblings`s Christmas gift to all the Taekwondo nerds out there :-D

Drilling application from Taegeuk Chil Jang

Image Source Choi Hong Hi 1965

Taegeuk Chil Jang is for some reason one of the Poomsae I have written very little about when it
comes to practical application. In the clip a little later in this post I demonstrate a short drill on the "makki tul" or 막기틀 that explores the back fist strike, inward crescent kick, and target elbow. I believe I am using the back fist strike from the form in a little before seen way in Taekwondo circles.

Micro Post: The use of "Taekwondoin"

In Karate and other Japanese styles you often see the term "ka" at the end of a martial art to signify a

student, practisioner og just some person doing the aforementioned martial art. Karate-ka, Judo-ka, kendo-ka etc. This is OK for Japanese styles as they are essentually using Japanese to Japanese terms.

The problem that I have is when I see Hapkido-ka, Taekwondo-ka etc as here they are mixing terminology from the Japanese Martial Arts with terminology from Korean Martial Arts. If you are going to use foreign terms in your martial arts study you should stick with established terms from your martial art. The correct term for Taekwondo student, practisioner or person in Korean is not "-ka" it is "-in". Taekwondo-in, hapkido-in, gumdo-in, etc. Sometimes I see this ridiculed in online forums but it is correct usage of Korean language and I find it very odd that the Japanese ending -ka is tolerated but the Korean ending -in is not.

Actually I will ramp this upa notch: If you are going to use foreign terms for your "foreign martial arts" study or instruction, strive to keep the terminology the same Language as the native land of the martial arts you are studying and or teaching. If you study or teach Taekowondo use Korean terms. Insted of Bunkai, use Boonhae. Instead of Hikite use Dangkinun son. Instead of using Oyo use Eungyoung. Instead of using Hojo Undo, use Buchu Undong. The list goes on. If you have any troubles just swollow your pride and ask. It is really that simple, and especially today when you have twitter, facebook and other social media where there are so many people to ask.

Micro post: Drilling "Makki-concepts"

I`m not sure what to call this clip. I am simply drilling and freestyling bakkat makki while sticking to the simulated limb. It is a great way to drill what to do if your punch is blocked and how to work your way from the inside to the outside and vice versa. I can start pretty simple and stationary (not shown in the clip) then with footwork included, and then with strikes included, and then with multiple strikes included. The last part is me including move 2 from Taegeuk Sa Jang and it was totally improvised. It is a multipurpose drill making use of the "traditional" basic techniques of Taekwondo.

 

Hope you enjoy :-)

8 traditional techniques that are generally missunderstood



Again and again I see people lamenting the use of traditional techniques because they are simply to

longwinded or outdated etc. I do believe that as Taekwondo is different things to different people, one movement can have different applications. In this post I will not go into detail on applications but I will demonstrate a lot of common techniques as presented in Poomsae first in solo form and then in application form. Depending on your skill and experience you might see this as advanced applications but for me they are pretty basic. What I have done here is to use the whole movement of traditional technique (not just the end part but the complete movement) and applied it against a single opponent. The pictures was taken "on the fly" after a recent training session so they are "staged". You will note that the attacker does not present a "guard" or anything like that, but the pictures should still get the message across.

Traditional techniques have been passed on to us from the past for a reason. That reason being that they are combat proven techniques, and they have been deemed effective enough that they have been refined and passed down to us. It saddens me when I see that so many people dont believe in the traditional techniques just because they are not seen in Olympic sparring or MMA.

Drilling application from Taegeuk il Jang

Again I post a clip of me playing around with the blocking apparatus or Makki Tul. This one is lifted
directly from my series on Taegeuk Il jang part three. I will include the pictures of that application below before the video so you can clearly see the link from application with a humanbeing and this short drill. As the blocking apparatus does have its limitations in that it is static I do not follow through completly with the application I got this from. I am here focusing on the high block, kick, punch, turn and do a low block (which in the form is followed by a step forward and punch but here it is omitted because of the static nature of the blocking apparatus.)