Styles
TaeKwonDo
The earliest records of Martial Arts practice in Korea date back to about 50 B.C. These earliest forms of korean martial arts are known as 'Taek Kyon'. Evidence that Martial Arts were being practiced at that time can be found in tombs where wall-paintings show two men in fighting-stance. Others reject this evidence and say that these men could be simply dancing.
Back then, time there were three kingdoms:
Koguryo (37 B.C. - 668 A.D.)
Paekje (18 B.C. - 600 A.D.)
Silla (57 B.C. - 936 A.D.)
Silla unified the kingdoms after winning the war against Paekje in 668 A.D. and Koguryo in 670 A.D. The Hwa Rang Do played an important role at this unification. The Hwa Rang Do was an elite group of young noble men, devoted to cultivating mind and body and serve the kingdom Silla. The best translation for HwaRang would probably be "flowering youth" (Hwa ="flower", Rang="young man"). The HwaRang Do had an honor-code and practiced various forms of martial arts, including Taekyon and Soo Bakh Do. The old honor-code of the HwaRang is the philosophical background of modern Taekwondo.
What followed was a time of peace and the HwaRang turned from a military organization to a group specialized in poetry and music. It was in 936 A.D. when Wang Kon founded the Koryo dynasty, an abbreviation of Koguryo. The name Korea is derived from Koryo.
During the Koryo Dynasty the sport Soo Bakh Do, which was then used as a military training method, became popular. During the Yi-dynasty (1392 A.D. - 1910 A.D.) this emphasis on military training disappeared. King Taejo, founder of the Yi-dynasty, replaced Buddhism by Confucianism as the state religion. According to Confucianism, the higher class should study the poets, read poems and and play music. Martial arts was something for the common, or even inferior, man.
Modern-day Taekwondo is influenced by many other Martial Arts. The most important of these arts is Japanese Karate. This is because Japan dominated Korea during 1910 until the end of World War II. During WWII, lots of Korean soldiers were trained in Japan. During this occupation of Korea, the Japanese tried to erase all traces of the Korean culture, including the martial arts. The influence that Japan has given to Taekwondo are the quick, lineair movements, that characterize the various Japanese systems.
After World War II, when Korea became independant, several kwans arose. These kwans were:
Chung Do Kwan
Moo Duk Kwan
Yun Moo Kwan
Chang Moo Kwan
Oh Do Kwan
Ji Do Kwan
Chi Do Kwan
Song Moo Kwan
The Kwans united in 1955 as Tae Soo Do. In the beginning of 1957, the name Taekwondo was adopted by several Korean martial arts masters, for its similarity to the name Tae Kyon.
General Choi Hong-hi required the army to train Taekwondo, so the very first Taekwondo students were Korean soldiers. The police and air force had to learn Taekwondo as well. At that time, Taekwondo was merely a Korean version of Shotokan Karate. In 1961 the Korean Taekwondo Union arose from the Soo Bakh Do Association and the Tae Soo Do Association. In 1962 the Korean Amateur Sports Association acknowledged the Korean Taekwondo Union and in 1965 the name was changed to Korean Taekwondo Association (K.T.A.). General Choi was president of the K.T.A. at that time and was asked to start the I.T.F. as the international branch of the K.T.A. The southern government was overthrown in 1961. General Choi Hong-hi left for America and established I.T.F. (International Taekwondo Federation) Taekwondo, as a separate entity, two years later.
Demonstrations were given all over the world. It took a while before real progress was made, but eventually, in 1973, the World Taekwondo Federation (W.T.F.) was founded. In 1980, W.T.F. Taekwondo was recognized by the International Olympic Commitee (I.O.C.) and became a demonstration sport at the Olympics in 1988. In the year 2000 taekwondo made its debute as an official olympic sport. There were several attempts to unify I.T.F. and W.T.F. Taekwondo, but unfortunately, these failed.
Ju Jitsu
Ju-Jitsu is a true combat form. It is not a sport. It was developed and used by unarmed samurai warriors to survive on the battlefield It is quick, effective, and deadly.
No one art can claim to be the best for all practitioners, but Ju-Jitsu has been noted as "the most effective means of self-defense for the majority of people."
Ju-Jitsu is based on the following:
Effective joint locking and immobilization techniques.
Techniques applied using basic circular movements.
Using the force and speed of the attacker's assault against him.
The essential principle of Ju-Jitsu is to conquer an enemy using any and all means available with minimal force.
A Ju-Jitsuan must be able to judge the force of an attack and use it against the attacker.
The Ju-Jitsuan is skilled in:
· Body mechanics
· Timing
· Momentum
· Balance
Hapkido
Hap Ki Do is a Korean art of self defense emphasizing "Ki-Gong" internal energy development in combination with a wide range of both defensive and offensive techniques. Some of the skills utilized in Hap Ki Do are:
punches and other various hand skills such as palm strikes and finger strikes
a wide variety of kicking skills
blocking skills utilizing circular nonresistance, redirection, trapping and locking skills
vital point and pressure point skills
joint locking skills and body throws
ground control pinning skills and choking skills
opponent restraining skills.
These skills are designed so that an individual can overcome and subdue an attacker or several attackers with minimum effort and maximum results. .
Yudo
Yudo (in its current form) is a traditional martial art derived from Judo. However, unlike Judo, Yudo focuses on self-defense applications rather than competition. Yudo is the Korean form of a former Japanese martial art. It is based upon the philosophy and teachings of Kano, Jigoro Sensei who taught this art, which he called "Kodokan Judo" (a system of the Japanese fighting art of Jujutsu), in Korea during the Japanese Empire's occupation of the Korean peninsula during the first half of the last century. Kano, the leading Japanese figure of the last century, had developed his fighting art - now reduced to an Olympic sport (outside Korea) - from the best of the Jujutsu systems still extant at the end of the 19th Century. Ironically, research indicates that these Japanese systems were most probably derived from the Korean fighting systems carried to Japan by prisoners of war among the tens of thousands of Korean monks, nuns, artisans, intellectuals, and skilled tradesmen, forcibly taken captive during the Imjin War (also known as the "Hideyoshi Invasions") during the last decade of the 16th Century.
During the Japanese occupation, Judo in Korea was under the direct supervision of Judo's headquarters, the Kodokan. After the military defeat of the Empire of Japan and the liberation of the Korean peninsula from Japanese rule, the Choson Judo Association was formed in October of 1945 by senior Judo black belts, many of them trained by Kano, Jigoro himself. In 1950, the Choson Judo Association was split into the Korea Judo Association, for the practice of sport judo in Olympic and other international competition, and the Republic of Korea Yudo Association, for the practice of the traditional military art. This division of Yudo into a sports component and a traditional military art component continues today in the Republic of Korea.
Web Master Instructor Felix Lugo
