Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:57:19 -0700 (PDT) From: the_dojang-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: The_Dojang digest, Vol 9 #241 - 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: OR 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. The Origins of the ChosOn Dynasty (Ray Terry) 2. RE: Bruce comment, nothing to do with Sin Moo :) (Gregory Giddins) 3. Duk Sung Son (Dunn, Danny J RASA) 4. TKD Sparring videos (Harris, Mark) 5. New schools and reputation (Chris Holmes) 6. Re: ITF expulsions (ChunjiDo@aol.com) 7. RE: "...and when I die.."(everybody sing along) (Bruce.Sims@med.va.gov) 8. Re: Saito, Morihiro Passes (Bruce Sims) 9. Korea trip (Rudy Timmerman) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: Ray Terry To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 9:52:58 PDT Subject: [The_Dojang] The Origins of the ChosOn Dynasty Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Forwarded message: _The Origins of the ChosOn Dynasty_, by John B. Duncan. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2000. 395 pages. ISBN 0-2959-7985-2. Reviewed by J. Michael Allen Brigham Young University - Hawaii [This review first appeared in _Acta Koreana_, 5.1 (2002): 97-99. _Acta Koreana_ is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.] Perhaps partly because we live in an age in which dynasties do not dominate the political landscape, a change in dynasty seems like it should be a momentous event with wide-ranging effects. Indeed, so seductive is the dynastic-change paradigm that we still tend to divide up long histories into dynasty-sized chunks. Such divisions compartmentalize history into what appear to be more manageable portions. One of the effects of such comp artmentalization is to emphasize discontinuities and apparent new starts, often at the expense of comparable attention to structures, ideas, and institutions that are resistant to changes in the surname of the ruling family. It need not only be dynasties that have the powerful effect of attracting= to themselves credit for fundamental changes that either did not happen at= all, or happened over a much longer period of time than a simple change of= government can account for. I remember as a graduate student being= intrigued by Princeton historian (now emeritus) Arno Mayer's book _The= Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War_ (New York:= Pantheon, 1981). Mayer argued that the origins of World War I lay in the= desire of Europe's old aristocrats and those aspiring to such status to= maintain their position. He directly challenged the view that Europe's old= aristocracy was a museum piece in the first two decades of the twentieth= century, stripped of effective influence in favor of the bourgeoisie, the= group assumed to have emerged by this time as the real actors in the= European historical drama. It was Mayer's work, rather than other studies of Korean history, that= first came to mind when I took up John Duncan's important new book. Duncan= argues persuasively that the fourteenth-century change from KoryO to ChosOn= was not the wholesale replacement of an old aristocracy by a new group with= new interests. Rather, he examines the KoryO-ChosOn transition in the= context of centuries-long developments in governing structures going back= at least to the beginning of the KoryO kingdom in the tenth century. It= was the structures put in place in the early KoryO period that led to the= development of the yangban aristocracy-a group whose interests were not= only opposed to those of the hyangni local elite (from whose ranks many of= the yangban originally sprang), but were increasingly at odds with royal= authority as well. In this situation, the forces of reform represented by= the powerful and ambitious Yi SOnggye were a magnet for the yangban not= because the latter were revolutionaries, but because they hoped to protect= the privileges to which their class had become accustomed. Duncan argues that the institutions of KoryO rule were designed to= accommodate the needs of the locally based hyangni, and to recognize the= government's need for their cooperation in the absence of a tradition of= strong central rule. The coalescing of the yangban as a new, centralized,= bureaucratic elite changed everything, however. By the late fourteenth= century, according to the author, "what was needed was a radical reshaping= of the dynasty's institutions to reflect the reality of the central= yangban's emergence as the dominant social group" (202). In other words,= Duncan does not argue that there were no important sociopolitical changes= across the KoryO-ChosOn expanse. The most important ones, however, occurred= not at the time of, or following, the dynastic transition itself, but much= earlier, as the institutions of power took shape after the founding of= KoryO. It was only in the late fourteenth century, however, that serious= thought was given to reshaping the state's institutional structure to= reflect sociopolitical realities that had changed long before. As Duncan= puts it, "a major feature of the KoryO-ChosOn transition was the continued= domination of the central bureaucracy by the great yangban descent groups= of the KoryO, making it very unlikely that revamped institutions= represented the concerns of a new social class" (204). In other words, as= the title of Mayer's book suggested, the founding of ChosOn represents in= important ways the persistence of the old regime. Chapter 1 of Duncan's history, "The KoryO Political System," draws on the= work of S. N. Eisenstadt, among others, to describe the early KoryO= political system and its limitations. KoryO's kings are shown to have been= severely compromised in terms of their ability to wield the power of a= centralizing state. The primary check on royal authority was a new= hereditary group of land-owning high officials who dominated politics at= the center. This group is described in more detail in Chapter 2, "Central= Bureaucratic Aristocracy." Though the new bureaucratic aristocracy had its= roots and its wealth in land outside the capital, over the course of the= KoryO period their interests and identity lay more and more in the capital,= and they increasingly defined themselves in terms of a history of= office-holding rather than by reference to their earlier status as members= of more localized elites. By the late KoryO period, this group's sense of= itself had taken on the characteristics normally used to describe the= yangban of the ChosOn period. "The use of the term yangban by late KoryO= elites to refer to themselves as a discrete social entity appears to be a= natural consequence of the great official descent groups' awareness that= the source of their prestige lay in their history as central= office-holders" (88-89). In Chapter 3, "The Yangban in the Change of= Dynasties," Duncan examines in detail the continuities in the elites of the= KoryO and ChosOn periods. This chapter is full of statistical analysis and= contains the majority of the book's twenty-six tables illustrating the= connections between descent and central office holding. Chapter 4, "Institutional Crisis in the Late KoryO," discusses developments= in the second half of the KoryO period that are crucial for understanding= the author's contention about the timing and nature of the sociopolitical= changes preceding the fourteenth-century dynastic transition. Just at the= time when royal power was severely compromised due to military and Mongol= domination, the yangban moved into a stronger position in the central= bureaucracy. The problem for these yangban was that the KoryO political= system was designed to meet the needs of local elites who had become= accustomed to exercising influence and controlling resources in a state= that was not strongly centralized. As described in Chapter 5, "Reform and= Dynastic Change," it was largely in order to resolve these contradictions= that the central yangban supported early ChosOn reforms. This led to= important areas of royal-yangban common interest, particularly in reforms= designed to reduce the power of local elites. In Chapter 6, "The Ideology= of Reform," Duncan takes up the question of the role of "a new and vigorous= Confucian discourse," based on Chinese Ch'eng-Chu Learning (he shuns the= term "Neo-Confucianism) in the KoryO-ChosOn transition. Having already made= the case that there was no new group of scholar-officials that rose to= prominence only with the advent of the new dynasty, he now challenges the= view that Ch'eng-Chu Learning was the "class ideology" of any such group.= This is not to say that Ch'eng-Chu Learning was unimportant in the early= ChosOn period, or that it was used only cynically to buttress a new= dynasty. Interest in a revitalized Confucianism dates to the time of the= Mongol Yuan dynasty and its influence on KoryO, but it always had to find= accommodation with a Korean "Ancient Style" intellectual tradition. Indeed,= the set of ideas that Duncan sees motivating and justifying political= reform in the first half of the ChosOn period is a hybrid of Ancient Style= and Ch'eng-Chu. This appears to be another case in which the obvious (a= dynastic transition) obscures the less obvious but perhaps more important= (a mixing of intellectual traditions providing an ideological basis for reform). In the concluding chapter Duncan steps back from the details to discuss how his findings relate to broader questions in Korean Studies and points to= some themes of interest to those whose specialties lie outside of Korea. = Here and throughout the book, Duncan very usefully compares his conclusions= about Korean sociopolitical arrangements with what is known about China. He= uses an impressive array of Korean primary sources as the foundation for= his argument, which he augments with wide reading in relevant secondary= material in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and English. The latest volume in the Korean Studies monograph series from the= University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies, under= the general editorship of James B. Palais, this convincing and important= contribution to our understanding of Korean history should also be of great= value to scholars interested in comparative studies of social structures= and political power. Citation: Allen, J. Michael 2002 Review of _The Origins of the ChosOn Dynasty_ by John B. Duncan (2000) Korean Studies Review_ 2002, no. 7 Electronic file: http://www.koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/ksr02-07.htm --__--__-- Message: 2 From: Gregory Giddins To: "'the_dojang@martialartsresource.net'" Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 10:08:38 -0600 Subject: [The_Dojang] RE: Bruce comment, nothing to do with Sin Moo :) Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Bruce brought up an interesting comment earlier, it piqued my interest and I really don't want to let it pass, so I'd like to ask a question to everyone about it. Bruce said: "The idea of "self-defense" is something of a misnomer, because the folks most instructors identify as potential threats are usually obnoxious malcontents, nothing more. The folks you need to worry about are the dedicated sociopathes. They can main, rape or disfigure with impunity ..." That brought up a question that I've had for years. It's a very personal question, and I've found people usually have some very strong feelings about it... In short: Who do you train your students to defend against? And why? In many schools, imagery of your oppoonent is an important part of the learning process, and I've seen teachers use the 'bar thug' (malcontents) and the 'boogie man' (sociopaths) far too often for *my* personal comfort (see freak comment below). And their techniques and level of retalitory violence are usually tailored to these imaginary opponents and situations. But if I'm correct in my thinking, a resident of the US is MUCH more likely to be assaulted by a non-stranger in a domestic situation than they are to be attacked by a serial rapist, even in the worst of neighborhoods. I try to keep the majority of our self-defense training and imagery tailored to compassionate (deosn't mean weak, just non-maiming) control of a friend/relative, with a smattering of boogie man training thrown in. Does anyone else take this approach, or am I just a freak? Greg Giddins --__--__-- Message: 3 From: "Dunn, Danny J RASA" To: "'the_dojang@martialartsresource.net'" Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 11:10:28 -0500 Subject: [The_Dojang] Duk Sung Son Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Can anyone tell me anything about the training of Duk Sung Son, and in particular the Kwan he originally belonged to in Korea. He is the senior author of "Korean Karate, the art of tae kwon do". Thanks, Danny Dunn --__--__-- Message: 4 From: "Harris, Mark" To: "'the_dojang@martialartsresource.net'" Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 08:46:25 -0500 Subject: [The_Dojang] TKD Sparring videos Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net I just recently started sparring at my TKD school but feel like I need a lot of work. Can anyone recommend some good TKD sparring videos? I know it doesn't take the place of the actual class but I'm just looking for some training tools. Thanks, Mark Harris --__--__-- Message: 5 From: "Chris Holmes" To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 12:40:42 -0500 Subject: [The_Dojang] New schools and reputation Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Hello to all, first let me thank all that replied about my student with one kidney. He is the best student in his group and he has great falls. I even let him do high falls and long falls. He has a great attitude and good technique. My next order of buisness is about recruiting new students. My school has been open 4 months and we are growing some by reputation but the newspaper ads have not been very effective. How do you get the word out? How do you sell your school if people will not even come watch? I was at a dance recital yesterday and the lady had 150-180 students. They were awful but the recital was a big deal and the auditorium with seating over 500 was full. She charges almost as much per month as I do for my martial arts but she has lots of hidden charges and people gladly shell out their money. She has been around 8-10 yrs but still how do I make parents and perspective student realize that I offer a better service that will stay with them from now on if they will not even come through the doors. Thank you all in advance. Chris Holmes _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com --__--__-- Message: 6 From: ChunjiDo@aol.com Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:42:46 EDT To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: ITF expulsions Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net <> any reasoning for this? just curious. melinda Chajonshim Martial Arts Academy http://www.cjmaa.com Chajonshim Martial Arts Supply http://www.cjmas.com Toll Free: 1-877-847-4072 Proud Sponsor of the 2001 10th Annual US Open TKD Championships --__--__-- Message: 7 From: Bruce.Sims@med.va.gov To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 08:18:25 -0500 Subject: [The_Dojang] RE: "...and when I die.."(everybody sing along) Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Dear Ray: ".....If we are lucky we will live long enough to discover the problems that come with age. Gm Ji is pushing 70. Will you still be out there on the mat teaching the young bucks when you're that old???...." Yes, please God, my expectation is to be out on the mat, giving and taking technique, teaching and listening, shaping and changing. And I fully expect that when I die, you, Michael, Rick, Hal and a host of others will be willing volunteers to sit on the coffin lid so that my manic body can be kept in the box long enough to nail the top down and get me in the ground. :-) Best Wishes, Bruce --__--__-- Message: 8 Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:53:22 -0500 From: "Bruce Sims" To: Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: Saito, Morihiro Passes Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net I know this is not exactly "Korean" news but we have lost another Martial Arts giant. "...... Aikido Great Morihiro Saito Shihan passes It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Morihiro Saito Sensei in Iwama, Japan early Monday morning, May 13, 2002. Saito Sensei was truly one of the giants of modern aikido and his strong presence will be sorely missed. This editor was among the thousands of students touched by Saito Sensei during his lifetime. His son and successor Hitohiro Saito Shihan plans to hold a private funeral for family members shortly and a formal ceremony to be held in Japan in about one month's time. He asks that anyone planning to go to Japan to pay their respects attend the formal funeral to be announced soon. For those interested in learning more about Saito Sensei, here are two articles available on our website: http://www.aikidojournal.com/articles/_article.asp?ArticleID=159 http://www.aikidojournal.com/articles/_article.asp?ArticleID=758 Stanley Pranin ....................." For people both in the Aikido community as well as in the larger World MA community, OS Saitos' lifetime contributions to cataloguing technique, authorship, teaching and leadership have made him a legend. "The Golden Bell which rings but once; Peace upon his pillow." In Gassho, Bruce --__--__-- Message: 9 Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 15:11:15 -0400 From: "Rudy Timmerman" To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] Korea trip Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net I'd like to wish GM Choi a speedy and complete recovery. I had the pleasure of meeting the GM on several occasions and, regardless of allegiance to styles or Masters, he has made a tremendous impact on Korean martial arts. Ray writes: > You made it over the pond to visit Korea? Tell us more... Hello Ray: I enjoyed my visit to Korea immensely, and the hospitality of Grand Master Seo In Sun and his family (as well as that of the many Korean Masters) was overwhelming. Beside the usual tourist visits, (I even made the hike to the top of the mountain to visit the Temple) there was a tremendous Martial Art Masters show followed by the 3rd world Hap Ki Do Championship. The lone student who accompanied me, Lorne Keatley, earned a bronze in Hyung competition, and he managed to ring some bells in the sparring competition before losing in the semi-finals. Sparring rules included throws and takedowns etc, and there was no punching to the head. This hampered the North - American competitors to some degree. The Masters exhibition, in which I was proud to participate, was unusual. Beside Masters of a wide variety of martial arts it featured a number of Korea's most popular musicians and groups, and the entire event was televised by Korea's #1 TV Broadcasting company. I had hoped to perform a bit better in the demo but, due to my blood circulation problems from the back injury, the trip really took toll on my legs. Next time I will definitely not go the economy route, and I will likely also miss out on some of the bus rides. There is not a Korean bus made for a six foot five old geezer like me, and it near killed me to sit in such cramped quarters for so many hours. The drive to JR's seminar is a piece of cake compared to that. An enlightening experience (for me) was to see that Kuk Sool Hap Ki Do is alive and well in Korea, and several Masters of that art demonstrated their skills. After being led to believe that most Kuk Sool pratitioners followed the WKSA, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this is simply not so. A huge contingent of Kuk Sool practitioners, including many Masters I had formerly met through WKSA, appear to be members of and support Kido Hae. To be sure, these are just personal observations, and there was no formal statement to that effect by anyone (I felt to ask would be rude). I had thought that, after leaving the WKSA, my friendships with many of the Masters who had stayed at my home over the years would be finished, and it was nice to be able to renew these friendships. In all, it was a very rewarding trip, and I am looking forward to returning in two years with a larger group of NKMAA members. Interested NKMAA members can contact me now to begin a saving program toward the expenses of the trip. Well, that's about all I can tell you. Again, glad to hear you are OK. Sincerely, Rudy --__--__-- _______________________________________________ The_Dojang mailing list The_Dojang@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang http://the-dojang.net 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 719-866-4632 FAX 719-866-4642 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