The tragedy of Ji Do Kwan

I have often written about the roots of Ji Do Kwan, and I have "talked them up" because I am biased when it comes to Ji Do Kwan coming fra a Ji Do Kwan background myself through one of my first primary teachers in Taekwondo; Grandmaster Cho Woon Sup. In this post I will try to give a more balanced view and talk a little about the link in the lineage problem. I might do another post where I discuss this more thouroughly because this is not only a Ji Do Kwan problem, but I am going to gift Ji Do Kwan practisioners with a small treasure (in my view) that I happened to come across in my research, but before gifting it, I want to give a little perspective so people can appreciate what I am giving. 

The establishment of what was to become Ji Do Kwan

Ji Do Kwan did not start out as Ji Do Kwan. It did not even start out as a school teaching kicking, punching and blocking. It actually started out as a school teaching Judo (or Yudo which is how Koreans pronounce it and often writes it). The school was called Yun Mu Kwan, but a man named Chun Sang Sup who had studied Karate (or Kong Su Do as it was called in Korean meaning empty hand and was the Korean way of pronouncing the characters for Karate in Japanese) in Japan was hired to teach Kong Su Do at Yun Mu Kwan. The class proved popular so they moved into a new building and named themselves Yun Mu Kwan Kong Su Do Bu, where Bu means roughly translated department, so it was not a new school or Kwan, it was simply the Karate branch of Yun Mu Kwan. I have a little conflicting information regarding Chun Sang Sup's martial arts background. Most sources say he studied Shotokan Karate, but he had a close relationship with Yun Byung In and Yun Kwae Byung who both had studied Shudokan Karate (Toyama Kanken's Karate). Noted Taekwondo historian George Vitale told med Chun Sang Sup studied Shudokan Karate, but no matter what he did study he would have a link to Shudokan through his close friendship with Yun Byung In. In fact both Yun Byung In and Yun Kwae Byung taught at Yun Mu Kwan, but Yun Byung In went on to found what was to become Chang Mu Kwan after a while. Yun Mu Kwan Kong Su Do Bu was established around 1946, so it got to operate for four years before having to close down in 1950 due to the outbreak of the Korean war which obviously lead to the closure of all Kwan. Unfortunatly Chun Sang Sup dissapeared sometime during the Korean war, so he only got to teach his students for four years before he disapeared from the martial arts scene. We can "talk up" Chun Sang Sup all we want, but four years is not a long time to truly teach a martial art. In Korea traditionally they believed that to truly master somtehing you would do intensive training or learning for 3 years as a minimum, so looking at it from that perspective 4 years is not bad.

Yun Kwae Byung takes over, Ji Do Kwan comes into its own  

Yun Kwae Byung is one of the most interesting taekwondo pioneers in my opinion due to his diverse roots. He did not study with Gichin Funakoshi in Shotokan, he studied with both Kenwa Mabuni the founder of Shito Ryu (This will be very relevant considering the "gift" I will give in a near future post) and he studied with Toyama Kanken the founder of Shudokan. Both Karate pioneers and legends. Another thing that sits him apart from many of the Kwan founders and first generation korean martial arts pioneers is that he achieved a very high dan rank and formal instructor status. He also published a Karate book while in Japan and he also made his own staff form which only survives in Grandmaster Kim Soo's Chayon Ryu today. 

In 1953 after the Korean war was finally over he reopened Yun Mu Kwan under the name Ji Do Kwan (meaning Wisdom Way School). Apparantly he taught a very traditional karate style to his students, but the students seemed more interested in the application of what they learned through live free sparring than other things. Ji Do Kwan became very famous for their sparring, and they won a lot of victories against other Kwan in competition. Due to martial arts political turmoul Yun Kwae Byung allied himself with Hwang Ki and was organised in the Su Bahk Do Association, creating some tension since the students who was interested in sparring and wanted to stress competition felt they might be better served in the Korean Taekwondo Association. In 1966 a pretty large part of Mu Duk Kwan (Hwang Kee's school) and Ji Do Kwan broke away and joined the Korean Taekwondo Association and was from then on out focused on the sportive application of Taekwondo and what was to become the Kukki Taekwondo style, having representatives on the second forms comitte who made Taegeuk and a new Koryo poomsae. Some say that the focus of Ap Seogi or short walking stance in the first three Taegeuk Poomsae is a direct result of Ji Do Kwan influence since that stance most closely reflect an upright sparring stance. 

After the break out in 1966 Su Bahk Do Assosiation went downhill in Korea and Hwang Kee would eventually move to the USA reestablishing himself there. Yun Kwae Byung lost political power within the martial arts and vanished from the martial arts scene in the 1970s. When he died in 2000 there was little to no notice in the martial arts comunity in Korea. Yun Kwae Byung got to teach from 1953-1966 when many students left him to join the Taekwondo comunity, (he still taught for a few years after that but his taekwondo influence if we call it that ends in 1966). That is respectable 13 years, and in my opinion if you follow a teacher closely for 13 years you should have gained quite much "depth". Unfortunatly like I said, most of his students lived for and breathed for sparring in a competition format, so how much of his martial arts legacy that continued and took root can be debated, and this is where the "tragedy" part of the title in this post comes into play.

The tragedy of Ji Do Kwan 

We have a founder who disapeared after only four years of teaching, and another who lost most of his influence due to his students wanting to focus much more on competition sparring than focusing on martial art forms, basics and self defense. The tragedy of Ji Do Kwan is that despite impressive roots through Chun Sang Sup, Yun Byung In (who taught for a while) and Yun Kwae Byung, not any of the Hyung or martial heritage flowed on to us. The philosophy is still available (8 paths, the Ji Do Kwan creed etc), so that survived. The way basic techniques were performed in the Ji Do Kwan survived through instructors teaching what they learned to their students (something Kukkiwon has almost stamped out after 2006 when they started having World Championship in Poomsae and started stressing uniformity), and basics and the sparring applications of the basics survive throught Sihak Henry Cho's "Secrets of Korean Karate; Tae Kwon Do" published in 1968. Only what the students were interested in survived (basics and sparring applications), and some remnants of what self defense they learned can be found in Sihak Henry Cho's self defense for women book. But the only widely available book is the sparring applications book. What forms did they teach? How many? What variants of these forms were taught? Was there a strong Shotokan link or was the Shudokan side more pronounced? Did they have their own Ji Do Kwan spin on the forms they taught? Did they teach weapons? So much is lost when it comes to Ji Do Kwan in the martial arts area. My own teacher is from a Ji Do Kwan background and stresses tradition like 1, 2 and 3 step sparring, forms, self defense, sparring, throws, locks etc. But when he introduced additional poomsae to the curriculum he did not start teaching Ji Do Kwan Hyung like their versions of Pyungahn, Chulgi etc, he made his own Poomsae called Soak Am Ryu, forms which he made ground up. 

I found a european Ji Do Kwan group years ago who said to practise the original Ji Do Kwan Hyung (forms). I reached out and asked if they had any material on them because I was interested in these forms. The instructor sent me JKA made material for the Heian Kata, JKA being Japan Karate Association, and the material was pure Shotokan Kata, so there is no way of telling if this is indeed what was practised in the Ji Do Kwan, but this instructor had simply come to the conclusion that Chun Sang Sup studied Shotokan Karate so the forms of Ji Do Kwan had to be Shotokan Kata. If you look at material from other Kwan that survives down to us, Chang Mu Kwan to Chayon Ryu through Grandmaster Kim Soo, Mu Duk Kwan which Hwang Kee documented himself, Chung Do Kwan where the secong Kwangjangnim Son Duk Sung documented many of the Hyung in 1968 and a follow up book later) and Oh Do Kwan where Choi Hong Hi documents the Karate forms of Oh Do Kwan in 1959 and 1965 we see that even Kwan that are very closely related (Chung Do Kwan and Oh Do Kwan for instance are both from a Shotokan background and many top instructors in Oh Do Kwan came from Chung Do Kwan) their forms differ. Where Chung Do Kwan most often punch to the middle section in the Pyungahn series, Oh Do Kwan punches face height for instance. Where the Karate Do Kyohan 1958 edition demonstrates the Heian Kata where they do back stance, quite often both Oh Do Kwan and Chung Do Kwan do a forward stance. So eventhough "they all come from Funakoshi" they are still different from Shotokan and as I previously said; each other. The Ji Do Kwan uniqueness which I am sure existed sadly did not flow down to us. 

I am sure you are curious as to what "gift" I am going to give in the near future, it is a small peace of this Ji Do Kwan uniqueness that I happened to come across in an unlikely place. The first three Hyung that they taught. They are not completly Shotokan, they are not completly Shito Ryu (but their closer to Shito Ryu than Shotokan) they are simply Ji Do Kwan. And seeing as I do not want them to die out, I can at least share them with those that are interested, and save a small piece of Ji Do Kwan's own Hyung eventhough it is "only" the basic forms. The tragedy of Ji Do Kwan is that while some Kwan are well documented in forms etc (Mu Duk Kwan, Chung Do Kwan, Chang Mu Kwan, Oh Do Kwan for instance) Ji Do Kwan is simply not. Only the sparring applications of basic techniques survived. That a Kwan with such diverse and profound sources lost its Hyung or forms is heartbreaking. If you practise Ji Do Kwan today and you practise Shotokan forms you are most likely practising forms reimported by someone in your lineage to serve as Ji Do Kwan forms, not the forms that were originally taught in the Ji Do Kwan. The reason I say this is that all Kwan differ a little from each other and from Shotokan. 

Stay tuned for a blog post series documenting the "original taegeuk hyung" (NOT THE MODERN TAEGEUK POOMSAE)