Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 12:34:15 -0800 (PST) From: the_dojang-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: The_Dojang digest, Vol 9 #101 - 9 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.8 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Sender: the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net List-Help: List-Post: X-Subscribed-Address: rterry@idiom.com List-Subscribe: List-Id: The Internet's premier discussion forum on Korean Martial Arts. List-Unsubscribe: Status: O Send The_Dojang mailing list submissions to the_dojang@martialartsresource.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to the_dojang-request@martialartsresource.net You can reach the person managing the list at the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of The_Dojang digest..." <<--------------- The_Dojang mailing list --------------->> Serving the Internet since June 1994. Copyright 1994-2002: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource The Internet's premier discussion forum devoted to Korean Martial Arts. See the Korean Martial Arts (KMA) FAQ and the online search engine for back issues of The_Dojang at http://MartialArtsResource.com Pil Seung! Today's Topics: 1. Re: Korean History Thoughts (Bruce Sims) 2. Re: MuYe ToBo Tong Ji Stuff (Bruce Sims) 3. full armor? (Gregory Giddins) 4. Re: Chinese Influences (Bruce Sims) 5. Re: One-step stuff (David N. Beck) 6. Re: Step sparring (WTF) (Piotr Bernat) 7. Re: various styles of hapkido (what is Hapkido?) (Michael Choi) 8. Discipline Shoes (Sun Mu Kwan-USA) 9. Re: The_Dojang digest, Vol 9 #92 - 12 msgs (Michael Choi) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:00:29 -0600 From: "Bruce Sims" To: Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: Korean History Thoughts Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Dear Neil: "...Hi, I'm new to this thread, and I'm still trying to figure out how to read these things... hehe. I'm a long time TKD player, and I also play Muay Thai (Siamese boxing). I keep hearing that HRD isn't the same martial art that the Hwarangs of the Silla used to practice. I hear HRD comes from HKD and Jujutsu, and was invented at a more modern time like TKD. Also, is HRD in any relation to Taek Kyon? I get mixed up when it comes to TKD's history, saying that TKD came from Taek Kyon which the Hwarangs practiced...high kicks to knock soldiers off horses etc... but then where does HRD come into play?? Because TKD and HRD both share the same codes of conduct... very confusing for me. Sorry for my naivety, I just have little knowledge of HRD and hope to get a better understanding. Thank in advance to anyone whom contributes..........." Your thoughts are the stuff of which hours of discussion on this Net have been made. For me personally, the struggle over identifying a sound, accurate characterization of Korean MA/MT development is not a strictly historic research challenge. What I have found is that a.) Most of the information regarding the development of Korean MA/MT has been oral. b.) What information that HAS been written down has been revamped, edited and censored many time by various individuals wanting to present a particular picture--- and many times well-after the events reported. c.) There have been a number "false starts" in reporting Korean history with several individuals or groups of individuals essentially saying, "OK, today is DAY ONE--- History starts here." After a few of these, people start taking a pretty elastic view of reporting history. d.) From what all I have experienced and read regarding the Korean culture, they generally suffer from the same psychic scars that many peoples who have been routinely run-over internally and externally. My own people, Rusyns (Ruthenians) also have a heritage of being run over again and again for centuries. The result is that it is very hard to get them--- the Koreans or the Rusyns-- to think of themselves as a sovereign nation when such thinking has produced very little security and most protection and survival has been the product of provincial or even community action. We don't KNOW much about Korea prior to the Mongols. There is a lot of evidence which is controversial, and even more with gaping holes in it. Nor does it help that the Korean culture was subjected to half a century of repression and over-writing by the Japanese who took great pains to tell the Koreans who they were and who they would be. Nor does it help for the country to be divided courtesy of post-WW II policy between the USSR and the US at Potsdam. Personally I look upon invoking connections with the THREE Kingdoms period a lot like some Americans invoking connections with the Mayflower-- nice status thing, but what does it really mean? Add to this, the fact that most folks would rather argue about some vague connection to the Three Kingdoms period, which is very difficult to document, than to resolve the more modern history of the 20th century which is more easily documented but much less romantic. Romance, and image, is what a lot of KMT school owners have been selling. Best Wishes, Bruce --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:31:30 -0600 From: "Bruce Sims" To: Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: MuYe ToBo Tong Ji Stuff Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Dear Andrew: "...Second, the sword all the demonstrator used were katanas -- Which is fine for the Japanese sword arts, but not all the swords used in the Muye Dobo Tongji forms are katanas. (They looked like katanas to me in any case.)...." Having gone through the trouble of securing a Korean sword I can tell you that it is MUCH easier to get ahold of a Japanese Ken than a Korean Guem for practicing sword work. If we are talking about the same tapes as the ones I have I noticed that the demonstrators often used Korean swords rather than Japanese, but then, they live in Korea and don't have to deal with import/export problems for their swords. There is the KOREAN SWORD COMPANY which has a website on the Internet and their prices are comparable to purchasing a Japanese sword. I would support practicing sword hyung with the heavier weapon for authenticity if at all possible. The extreme alternative is to be published in a national magazine executing ersatz sword postures for consumption by the un-informed (Does anyone know how "he" sleeps at night?). "...Am I glad I have them? YES! Could they have been better? YES! Should more tapes be produced that go over the material in a comprehensive manner? YES YES! I would hope that the National Demostration Team of Kyung Dang (The people featured on the two tapes) would sit down and put together a series of Professional-quality tapes that would teach these forms and give those who are us who are intrested to learn them....." I'm going to throw in a qualified "no" here. The reason I say "qualified no" is because I get scared for Martial Traditions any time some starts marketing things. There are costs for such stuff and usually the intent of turning a profit. This means that the material must be made attractive. Truth be told, true combat sword work is pretty boring (witness the time honored biomechanics of some Japanese arts). I would support the call for a second generation of tapes on the same material only if I could be sure that the effort would remain loyal to the material regardless of how time and circumstances may have made such material anachronistic. "...I came across the civil service bible of the time which describes the requirements for each rank. On the military side, this means that it lists the techniques, pon'guk-kom, yedo, chekkom, etc., that each rank should know. This does not necessarily mean that the regular soldiers did not practise these techniques but it does seem to imply that these techniques were limited to the officer class. If the techniques were indeed limited to the officer class then that probably greatly reduces the total number of soldiers who practised these techniques...." You and I have discussed this very issue, Andrew and I think we are of like mind here. I can't believe that the average soldier was issued a manual or perhaps even drilled in the comprehensive knowledge of the sword. Rather, I think such manuals as the MYTBTJ were meant of use by authorities to monitor and hold sword practitioners to some standard of quality and uniformity concerning the weapons of the time and their use. "....I believe that Katana-style blades were adopted during the Hideoyoshi invasion. There was the practical reason because many blades were captured during the fighting. I also think that the Koreans recognised that the Katana was a superior weapon and so, sensibly, they adopted the design...." I suppose we could go round and round about who invented the curved architecture for the sword. The Japanese were well-known to have exported many of their swords to both Korea and to Ming China as part of their yearly or bi-yearly tribute. On the other hand Gen. Chi, Ji-huang is said to have designed the Miao Dao ("Ming Saber"), which seems to be the pattern for the Korean sword about the mid-1500-s, as a counter to the weapons used by coastal brigands of the time. I definitely think that there is a hitch in the giddy-up when it comes to the point on dress. According to the MYTBTJ dress for the foot soldier and the officer were very different and it seems that the weapon of choice for foot soldiers were pole arms and bows, not swords. I wonder, sometimes if many of the moves we learn in handling a sword were meant not for engaging a person armed with a sword as much as a person armed with a polearm. Statistically, the chances of having to deal with someone with a polearm (friend or enemy) would be much greater on a battlefield. At any rate, like you, I can't imagine warriors on the battlefield done-up like the folks on the tape. Best Wishes, Bruce --__--__-- Message: 3 From: Gregory Giddins To: "'the_dojang@martialartsresource.net'" Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:33:03 -0700 Subject: [The_Dojang] full armor? Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net An interesting comment by Craig: "I would expect that the forms would be done in full armor -- if for nothing else, to get the soldiers use to wearing the armor." It raised an interesting question in my head: Did the majority of rank and file soldiers wear 'full armor'? Has your research turned up information regarding the 'battle dress' of the rank and file in that time period? Obviously, full armor existed, but was it made available to every soldier? Just curious, Greg G. --__--__-- Message: 4 Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 10:03:16 -0600 From: "Bruce Sims" To: Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: Chinese Influences Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Dear Carsten: "....Or maybe the discussion should be "does every country in the world, except Japan have forms with flows from one technique to the other?" I think it's only Karate and styles which are heavily influenced by Karate (aka Taekwondo) that uses the hard "stop-and-go" forms? Forms in Thailand, the Philipines, India, Burma, Malaysia flows, but not Korea...?...." I just know I am going to get my a** in a jam for saying this but I have recently finished rereading CHINESE BOXING by Robert Smith. The majority of people with whom M Smith had experience routinely discounted what they characterized as "external" boxing as much to labor-intense, brusque and crude. I suspect they would include much of the Animal Form training, Okinawa-te, Karate, and by extension, TKD-TSD. Now, remember, this is coming from folks who are devotees of the "internal" arts. I must also say that in all of the interviews in M Smiths' book there were only a handful of Shaolin-style boxers and he seemed to have little positive say about them and their technique excepting Li Kim-sui (18 Lohan Boxing) and Kao, Fang hsien (Northern Shaolin Boxing). Overall, the attitude seemed to be that practitioners of arts related to Southern Chinese traditions seem to be much too goal-oriented and pre-occupied with the mechanics of fighting. Repeatedly, M Smith, has each well-known Chinese personality stating that key to effective boxing is fluidity and relaxation. When I studied Karate (Shudokan) these two points were stressed but never quite made it into practice. Personally, I think that if we could raise the consciousness in the KMT of focusing on the Chinese qualities of fluidity and relaxation it would not take long eclipse much of what I have seen in the Japanese traditions in combat effectiveness. Best Wishes, Bruce --__--__-- Message: 5 Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 13:12:52 -0600 (CST) From: "David N. Beck" To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: One-step stuff Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net >Help out a non-tkd person, would you? Am I given to believe from these last few posts on 0ne-steps that particular styles or organizations within the TKD/TSD community have organized, discrete sets of one-step responses? I had seen folks do one-step sparring before, and at the beginning the techniques were taught in a particular order to facilitate remembering the techniques. However, I had concluded that with time and profficiency the techniques were executed spontaneously and in no particular order. Has anyone checked around to see if this is actually the best way to teach such material? What GM Sun Lee does and I do is have a set of organized discrete three steps and one-steps at the first few belt levels (although which you do at testing is your choice), then at upper belt colored ranks and Dan ranks you make up your own. Best way? How do you decide? Probably depends on the learning style of the individual. David N. Beck, WATT Lead Engineer Internet: David.Beck@alcatel.com Phone: 972-519-3103 Address: MS SDVS-2, 1000 Coit Road, Plano, Texas 75075 ** Opinions expressed are not those of Alcatel USA ** --__--__-- Message: 6 From: Piotr Bernat To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 15:25:09 +0200 Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: Step sparring (WTF) Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net > Hi Dizzy, I believe that the books you have by Yeon Kwan Park, are the > closest you will get to the step sparrings. I haven't really seen a book > that reviews the step sparrings yet, but they might be out there. Two titles that come to my mind are: - Daeshik Kim, "Complete One-Step Fighting. Prelude to Sparring from Beginner to Black Belt", published by Nanam Publications, Co. This book is endorsed in the preface by Dr Un Yong Kim and has WTF logo on the cover. - Hee Il Cho, "The Complete One and Three Step Sparring", also an interesting piece of work. Regards -- Piotr Bernat dantaekwondo@lublin.home.pl http://www.taekwondo.prv.pl --__--__-- Message: 7 To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 14:45:05 -0500 From: "Michael Choi" Organization: Lycos Mail (http://mail.lycos.com:80) Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: various styles of hapkido (what is Hapkido?) Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Carsten, thank you for the corrections and evidence. I remember seeing in the booklet that I previously mentioned and a photo of Grandmaster Joo Bang Lee and underneath it said "Hwarang-kwan Kwanjang Lee, Joo-bang" alongwith other kwan masters, such as Yun Moo Kwan Kwanjang Myung Kwang-shik and then Kuk-Sool-Kwan Kwanjang Kim Woo-tek (the Kuk-Sool-Kwan really confuses me because in Dr. Kimm's book, Kim Woo-tek is one of Kim Moo-hong's students, but he is the Kuk Sool Kwan Headmaster. I've always associated Kuk Sool with the Suh/Seo brothers). That's all the past so I don't dwell on it. Anyway, there seems to be a point in history where Grandmaster Lee Joo-bang was in the original Korea Hapkido Association and his school was called Hwarang-kwan. I'm not saying that Grandmaster Lee was either Grandmaster Ji's equal or Grandmaster Ji's student. Only that they were associated with each other in the same organization. I guess eventually they went their separate ways. I have never discussed Grandmaster Lee, Joo-Bang with Grandmaster Ji. I do not judge Grandmaster Lee at all. I can understand why some would believe that "hapkido" is a generic term, but that unfortunately undermines the style itself. For hapkido practitioners, it's awfully frustrating when Taekwondo masters say they teach hapkido when they have absolutely no certification in it and can only do elementary joint-locks and throws. That's not fair! Hapkido is a unique style. Hwarangdo is a unique style. Kuk Sool is a unique style. None of them are Taekwondo. Also, Hapkido of Grandmaster Ji's original students is different than Hwarangdo and Kuk Sool, so we, who are of that lineage, have a right to have our own name to distinguish ourselves from hwarangdo and kuk sool. Hapkido also has a large number of participants and adherents presenting again the need to distinguish ourselves. My style is hapkido not taekwondo, not hwarangdo, not kuk sool. Sincerely, Michael Choi --__--__-- Message: 8 Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 12:08:49 -0800 (PST) From: Sun Mu Kwan-USA To: Dojang digest Subject: [The_Dojang] Discipline Shoes Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net I ordered a pair of the discipline low-top shoes this afternoon, and was wondering if anyone tried them before? ===== International HKD Federation-Sun Mu Kwan USA www.ushankido.org Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com --__--__-- Message: 9 To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 14:49:27 -0500 From: "Michael Choi" Organization: Lycos Mail (http://mail.lycos.com:80) Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: The_Dojang digest, Vol 9 #92 - 12 msgs Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Ray, In reply to your question regarding Hwarangdo schools in Korea. I remember seeing a dojang near Sookmyung's Women University and Yongsan in Seoul that had signs saying both "hwarangdo" and "hapkido." I think it also said "kukjae yunmeng" which is Korean for int'l federation which makes sense since it is the Int'l Hwarangdo Federation. I've asked about this before in the Dojang Digest, but got no responses. This is the only dojang in Seoul that I saw with a sign that said hwarangdo. Michael --__--__-- _______________________________________________ The_Dojang mailing list The_Dojang@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang It's a great day for Taekwondo! Support the USTU by joining today. US Taekwondo Union, 1 Olympic Plaza, Ste 104C, Colorado Spgs, CO 80909 719-578-4632 FAX 719-578-4642 ustutkd1@aol.com http://www.ustu.org Old digest issues are available via ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com. Copyright 1994-2002: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply. Remember 9-11! End of The_Dojang Digest