Taekkyeon or Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 76

Ok so I'm getting it. Slowly, but I think I'm getting there. You see it's difficult when you've been fed the Tang Soo Do party line for a long time you kind of ... accept it. But after a bit of digging and reading around you realise that things aren't quite what they seem.

All the official manuals would like you to believe that Tang Soo do is an indigenous Korean martial art with a heritage of 2000 years and including the Hwarang Knights in its family tree. You can tell I thought something wasn't quite right:

Chinese heritage of Tang Soo Do

Korean Kicks (all through the night)

...and these ruminations were confirmed by reading 'A killing Art' by Alex Gillis which shows how General Choi and his main technical director Nam Tae-hi both trained in Karate-do, called in Korea Tang Soo Do. When Choi met the South Korean president, Rhee Syng-man,  soon after the Korean war it was the president who insisted that the demonstration of martial ability that had just been laid on for him by Choi be called Taekkyon. Rhee, understandably, didn't want to hear that these Korean warriors were practicing a Japanese martial art. This got Choi thinking about a new name and a new art form and he ultimately went on to form Tae Kwon Do.

What Rhee was talking about, Taekkyon, is a traditional kicking martial art performed in Korea and while it may not be the pre-cursor to Tae Kwon Do or Tang Soo Do as some insist it must have an influence on these styles post-Second World War. How can I be sure? Check out these videos and you'll see what I consider to be typical Tang Soo Do kicks. Of course there may have been some cross-fertilisation between the two arts. Taekkyon had been banned during the Japanese occupation (and before that Confucian ideals frowned on physical feats in favour of intellectual ones) so both Tang Soo Do and Tae'kkyon attempted to recreate themselves in the late 20th Century. 

Tae'kkyon has an intriguing dance-like quality similar to the jinga of capoiera but the kicks look powerful and focused enough to make a mess of your face! Interestingly it is has the crazy sub title of 'Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 76'!

Good Taekkyon history site (in French only).

...and compare the Taekkyon initial 'dance' to the Brazilian martial art of capoeira and it's 'Jinga':

Chinese heritage of Tang Soo Do

This is to finish off the series of articles on the subject of the history and influences of Tang Soo Do. In the last article I focused much on the Japanese influences owing to the occupation of Korea by Japan (1905-1945) and the influence it had on Tang Soo Do: kata and framework of the style seem to have been drawn largely from karate. Contemporary Tang Soo Do differs in many ways from karate, notably with its acrobatic and powerful kicks and this is what I'll examine here.

Some official Tang Soo Do training manuals are swift to point out that this Korean art can trace its lineage back 2000 years and has particularly been developed by the Hwarang warriors. It's easy to see why this claim is made as the Hwarang were an elite fighting corps which unified a once fractured Korea. What I don't understand is how this claim can be substantiated given that the forms are of Japanese origin and many of the drills and combinations are also shared by Japanese and Okinawan styles. What is certain about Tang Soo Do is that the kicks used in this style are different from the Japanese styles. There are much more acrobatic kicks used and this, I feel, is where the indigenous Taekyyeon and Subak may have passed on some of their martial arts 'DNA'. 

Northern Chinese style Kung Fu must have influenced Korean martial arts such as Subak and indeed King Sunjo (1567-1608) took an interest in Chinese arts after having read a Ming dynasty martial arts manual by Chuk Kye-Kwang. He was so interested that he invited the Ming military officers to demonstrate their warring arts and the notes which were taken eventually became the Muye Jebo (Martial Arts Illustrations) which is seen as the benchmark of martial arts documentation in Korea. As well as technical aspects of martial arts the Chinese may well have passed on some of the Northern style of Kung fu with its high kicks, flowing movements and jumping techniques. This is said to come from a people who lived in the plains of China where horse communication was made easy by the lack of great mountain ranges or rivers to bar progress. Jumping techniques may have been developed to dislodge mounted warriors and the Korean arts were certainly influenced by the Chinese martial systems of the time.

Check out this impressive performance of Chang Quan - a Northern style of Kung Fu. It isn't Tang Soo Do but the kicking techniques seem closer than to karate. Even to the extent of the way this practitioner turns and flows into jumping and spinning techniques.

Korean kicks (all through the night)

This is a post in reply to Dan Prager's comment here and follows on from my previous post about which kicks are used within hyung (forms) and drills and what proportion of drills are kicking based.

This is a very good point as traditionally Korean martial arts are heavily oriented to kicking techniques, notably high kicks and jumping and spinning techniques and this can sometimes be seen in competition Tae Kwon Do. Indeed whenever I have trained with the University Tae Kwon Do club all we seem to do is incredibly tiring kicking drills with jumps a-plenty. This influence on Korean martial arts is said to come from the Northern Chinese Kung Fu tradition of high, acrobatic kicking and high stances as opposed to the Southern styles which were more 'grounded'. (Following is cut from Wikipedia: "The main perceived difference about northern and southern styles [of Kung Fu] is that the northern styles tend to emphasize fast and powerful kicks, high jumps and generally fluid and rapid movement, while the southern styles focus more on strong arm and hand techniques, and stable, immovable stances and fast footwork.").

It has to be said though that Tang Soo Do is Korean 'karate' and effectively a traditional martial art with it's main heritage in Japanese karate. Karate's name was originally taken from the logograms for Kara and Te (唐手): China and hand. It was later (~1930s "a few years after I came to Tokyo...I was then able to suggest that the art be renamed" ref1) that Funakoshi changed the meaning to 'empty hand' (空手) for political and ideological purposes. Tang Soo also means China hand. 

So we see the semantics of the names but are the arts themselves similar? It's true that the core forms are very similar which I have outlined previously and I have trained with Japanese clubs and compared forms. One of the sensei actually noted that the version of the form I was doing seemed like an 'older' version which had since further developed in his style. It's certainly interesting to see how seeds are planted and grow into the same plant but with slightly different variants.

Tang Soo Do is a kicking-based karate but as it has it's roots firmly in the Japanese/Okinawan heritage there is a lot of traditional hand techniques to be practiced and this brings me directly to Dan's question: what is the proportion of hand/kicking combinations in drills outside of kata? The short answer is 70/30 kicks/hands. The longer answer is that it's a bit more complex. Often the combinations are mixed and after hand techniques there may be a period of combined hand and feet. 30% techniques in the class may be done from front stance (chungul ja sae) which lends itself to the hand combinations with a few kicks interspersed much like in the hyung. We then develop into kicking from back stance (hugul ja sae). Finally we'll practice jumping kicks and jump spinning kicks.

Tang Soo Do is a Korean martial art with strong traditions within Japanese karate, as the similarities of the original names imply. It does, however, hold on to some of the indigenous high, powerful and acrobatic kicking typified by Northern Chinese influences. This is reflected in the training: traditional forms, altered only slightly with higher kicks but more leg-based drills than traditional 'te' derived Japanese arts.

(ref1 p. 34. Karate-Do, My Way of Life, Gichin Funakoshi. Published by Kodansha, first paperback edition 1981)