Another live training session :-)

I just published my second live training session on YouTube:-) This time I did:

- Opening meditation 

- Olympic sparring footwork

- Dynamic stretching exercises 

- Kicking (front, round, side)

- Basic Hand techniques in Horse stance

- Taebaek Poomsae in depth

- Taegeuk 5-8

- 2 step sparring 1-5 as practised in the TTU

- Stretching 

- End of session meditation 

It’s in Norwegian language but it will be easy to follow along for anyone regardless of language :-) it is live so there is no editing or anything. It is therefore complete with water breaks etc. Just plug and play :-)

So If you’re interested go to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/XtSkHcb7j7o

Or see it here

(Epic) Guest post: The flower boys of old

 A long time ago (so long I don’t really remember if we were discussing history or what, Øyvind sent me a draft of an article he has started writing about the hwarang. It was easily one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever read on them, so when he asked me if I remembered the draft he sent me and if I was willing to post his finished article I was overjoyed, humbled and homered all at once :-) I’ve been called a Taekwondo nerd many times, a badge I wear with honour, but Øyvind as you will see operates on a whole new level of greatness :-D This I am sure will be a great read for you, and unlike some people Øyvind has used good sources and critical thinking in his research. Thank you Øyvind :-) 

The flower boys of old

Written by Øyvind Kveine Haugen, independent researcher

 

If you have been involved with taekwondo for any period of time, you will undoubtably have been told that once upon a time, there were these mighty warriors in ancient Korea called "hwarang". They are usually mentioned in the curriculum when trying to explain the ancient roots of the martial art, right after the cave paintings of Goguryeo (37BC-668AD) but before the unification of Silla (668AD) and the Goryeo-Khitan wars (perhaps more correctly explained as a series of unsuccessful attempts of invasion, spanning roughly from 993-1019AD). In the ITF Chang Hon syllabus there's even a hwarang tul (tul being the ITF suffix for their forms, comparable to poomsae in WT style taekwondo), complete with the following description: "It is named after the hwarang group of scholar-warriors that originated in the Silla Dynasty in the early 7th Century." (Taekwondo Wiki).

The hwarang ideal has become a popular symbol in modern Korea. It has been used in the name of the Army Officers Training School, as the name of a high-ranking military decoration, as the name of multiple bars (one of which was frequented quite often during the author's stay in Seoul in 2010-11 due to its 3-hours-long "happy hour"), and generally brings about a sort of national pride mixed with romantic ideals of earlier days, much the same way as Shaolin monks are revered in China. However, this way of thinking about the hwarang is relatively new. It is an idea that has grown parallel to Korean independence after the war, and as far as I have been able to work out, the source of this idea might have been Yi Son-gun (李瑄根), who in 1949 published "a study of hwarang-do" (花郞道研究, hwarangdo yon'gu), which reads like a, frankly, speculative essay on hwarang ethics and ideals, and how these ideals influenced the entire Korean populace in the centuries after.

So, today I'd like to dig into these scholar-warriors and try to separate facts from fiction. 

All translations are my own unless explicitly noted. 

 

My first ever Live training session

This is my first ever live practise session. As of November2020 there is no regular Dojang practise allowed in my town because of COVID-19. So to motivate myself, and to perhaps give some motivation and structure to others training I went on my Dojang’s Facebook group and did a live training session. 

Its all in Norwegian language but it should be very easy to follow along the session if you know the Taekwondo terms.

The Original Koryo Hyung Part 2: Kim Daeshik version

In part 1 I wrote a general overview on the history of the form, who developed it, the different main
versions out there, and then I promised that in this part I would look at the performance of the form itself. I have selected the Kim Daeshik version to be the first one, as this is the oldest published version out there. 

The book "Karate and personal self defense" written by Kim Daeshik and Tom Leland back in 1971. If you remember the form was developed between 1965-1967 before it was replaced in 1972, so while the book is very close to the making of the form, there is a little gap between the introduction of the form and the publication of the book. As for Kim Daeshik himself, I think he is one of the best kept secrets of "Kukki-Taekwondo". He is no longer with us, and I am very sad that his work did not get more widespread recognition because he did write some awesome material during his career. The book this form is from is not one of them though, but it does contain a few gems like the original Koryo. I will try to write more about Kim Daeshik in the future and give a few book recommendations, because seriously some of his works are must reads. This post also lets me introduce my own teacher; Master Erling Oppedal. I sometimes get negative feedback on this blog since I am "rocking the boat" so I have purposefully kept him a little anonymous on this blog, but I asked him if he could pose for the illustrations for this post and I was so happy when he said yes :-D 

So with those introductions out of the way let us jump into the form itself :-) 

“Train along video” Home training helper

Recently our Dojang made a bunch of reference videos to help home practise. I was in charge of editing the videos, so after making those I repurposed footage of me into a “train along” video :-) My teacher does all the traditional commands, he counts and I do the techniques. So if you do a quick 10-15 minute warm up, press play and follow me, then do some stretching and or strength after the video and you’ve done a great traditional Taekwondo training :-) 

I do hand techniques, foot techniques and forms in this clip. If the video is well received I’ll try to get going on some dedicated home training videos👍🏻 

On another note, I’m nearly finished with the first post on “original koryo” performance, the Kim Daeshik version so stay tuned for that in the near future :-) 

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 :-)

Taekwondo and Corona Virus

We are living in a historical time. I have never read about a single other time "everyone" has been part of a social experiment at this scale. Some countries have done a lot to prevent Corona from spreading to rapidly, and other countries have done nothing, yet others have opted to isolate the people in high risk group while the rest of the population "roams free". Only time will tell what is the best solution, and how this will affect the society at large. In Norway based on the little information knwon to us in our Dojang we decided to close down the Dojang to help social distancing early on (a few days later the government kept up with us and ordered all sports to close down). In our Dojang we felt that social distancing and self quarantine would benefit the society more than keeping the Dojang open. As Taekwondo is supposed to help society we felt that closing down the dojang to help fight the spread and hopefully keep the hospitals and health services at capacity would be more beneficial than keeping it open. Read the whole thing as I come with a lot of tips later on how to keep providing a service to your students.

Teaching a class using only one technique?

I've been a fan of "repetition by stealth" ever since I heard about it, and last Friday I wanted to
challenge myself as an instructor and see if it was possible to teach a whole class with a narrow focus on one technique without it being boring for the students. To challenge myself even further I decided on going on the most basic of techniques, the traditional straight punch (one hand going back to the hip as you punch). It is heavily featured in our Poomsae, and it is also the perhaps most often trained hand technique in traditional Taekwondo. The Friday class consists of students from 13 year old to people in their 40s. Theres beginners (just gotten their uniform) to black belt students in that same class. Teaching this kind of class where everyone gained something from it, and narrowing the focus down into one technique was a challenge. So I made a rough plan, then tweaked it into a more detailed plan and "went to work" :-) Below is how the class was done.