Karate and Korea

[Richard Scardina]

How much has Japan influenced Korean arts such as Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, and Yudo, to name a few?

[Joseph Svinth]

That's a troll, right?

[Richard Scardina]

I dont know what do you mean by that. however, i am opening a discussion with sincerity.

[yoj]

Influenced? They are all arts of Japanese origins.

[Josh Young]

Japan has influenced Korean arts a great deal. However Korea was a major dynasty for over a thousand years and had it's own martial arts that like many martial arts of Japan are developments of the Chinese martial arts.

Korea underwent major change in the early to middle 19th century, including being brutally separated by US military force just after the pacific theater ended. During this time Korean MA traditions (and other cultural aspects) were essentially outlawed and the Japanese culture became the most prominent Martial arts influence in Korea.

So now Korean martial arts are endangered species and many of what are considered Korean are borrowed arts to a degree. However the idea that any martial art belongs to a culture is a naive and somewhat ignorant concept.

Give credit where it is due but do not fail to realize that no culture lives in a vacuum and over thousands of years cultural exchange occurred in many areas and in many directions. Just look at the spread of Buddhism for an example, Zen is very much Japanese, and yet it is not wholly Japanese in origin nor is any culture or people limited in their ability to comprehend employ or benefit from it, martial arts is no different.

Avoid ethnocentric and racist generalizations and you will be wiser for it.

[Neil Yamamoto]

I'll post something of substance once Richard starts a thread BY CONTRIBUTING HIS OWN VIEWS FIRST.

[Trevor Johnson]

No kidding. I'd love to hear what experiences Richard's had that make him think this true. Otherwise, I think I'm going to wholeheartedly agree with Mr Svinth.

[Juan Perez]

I'll post something of substance once Richard starts a thread BY CONTRIBUTING HIS OWN VIEWS FIRST.

Ditto. And, I think this has been pointed out before.

[TommyK]

Greetings,

I have studied the history of Chi Do Kwan Korean Karate and I have found that the art I practised for over 23 years, simplistically, was developed and is descended from Japanese Karate. However, Japanese Karate is, in turn, derived from Okinawan and then even earlier in its history, descended from Chinese Martial Arts.

If the thread starter is not a troll, then I will devote numerous pages and sources on the influence of Toyoma sensei and Mabuni sensei on Chi Do Kwan Korean Karate, in addition to other Japanese influences on other Korean Kwans. (As many now know, Chi Do Kwan was one of the original kwans pressured to join other kwans to become Taekwondo by various and assorted Korean military and national poliitical factors.) I would suggest that anyone interested read "A Killing Art, The Untold History of Tae Kwon Do" by Alex Gillis, who really explores this vile period in terms of political coercion.

Lets see if this is a troll, or just a 'newbie' looking for the truth.

Regards,
TommyK
Tom Militello

[dsomers]

Here's an article on Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan that I put together a few years ago: http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/okinawagojuryu/tsdarticle.html

[Joseph Svinth]

I second the recommendation on Alex Gillis's book. Very good stuff.

[Cady Goldfield]

Hm. Sounds like either a troll or a very naive person.
I trained in TKD for over 20 years, about 10 of them with a former personal student of Gen. Choi (Hong Hi), one of those reputed founders of "modern Taekwondo." It was a hush-hush fact that Gen. Choi had gotten his nidan in Shotokan Karate, and for those of us who had some Shotokan background, it was glaringly obvious in the forms, which were so transparently the Heiean and Tekki kata from Japan-via-Okinawa.

Even so, Korean national pride and the Confucian hierarchical tradition prevented TKD teachers from ever, ever openly admitting this, as in-your-face as it was.

[Trevor Johnson]

One of my teachers was invited to a TKD dojo, and amazed the students (and probably irritated the teacher) by walking down the dojo wall, which was filled with pictures of general choi, and showing the students that the early pictures had Japanese characters on general choi's belt, which eventually switched to korean characters meaning the same thing.

They'd never asked why his belt changed, apparently.

[Black and Blue]

Hm. Sounds like either a troll or a very naive person.
I trained in TKD for over 20 years, about 10 of them with a former personal student of Gen. Choi (Hong Hi), one of those reputed founders of "modern Taekwondo." It was a hush-hush fact that Gen. Choi had gotten his nidan in Shotokan Karate, and for those of us who had some Shotokan background, it was glaringly obvious in the forms, which were so transparently the Heiean and Tekki kata from Japan-via-Okinawa.

Even so, Korean national pride and the Confucian hierarchical tradition prevented TKD teachers from ever, ever openly admitting this, as in-your-face as it was.

My TKD instructor (for 17 years) knew many of the Japanese kata really well. He was a Major in the army during the Korean War and for some time after. It would not surprise me if he had ranking in karate also. He did have a 2nd dan in yudo/judo but did not cover it up, Interesting.. also his sign hanging outside for years said Korean Karate not TKD. I have a photo from an old magizine of Gen Choi and my teacher along with a few others I knew many years ago. Its tittled The Founders of Tae Kwon Do.

Phil Scudieri

[Richard Scardina]

Musul, Muye, Subak, Kagju, Hwrangdo, Tae Kyon, Choi, Jae, Won Gwang, Tang, Kara, whatever names of arts and people one is likely to reference, influences of one culture were always passed to another. Could one of the main problems within Asian martial arts is the issue of Asian "face"?

[Cady Goldfield]

My TKD instructor (for 17 years) knew many of the Japanese kata really well. He was a Major in the army during the Korean War and for some time after. It would not surprise me if he had ranking in karate also. He did have a 2nd dan in yudo/judo but did not cover it up, Interesting.. also his sign hanging outside for years said Korean Karate not TKD. I have a photo from an old magizine of Gen Choi and my teacher along with a few others I knew many years ago. Its tittled The Founders of Tae Kwon Do.

Phil Scudieri

Phil,
In the 50s and 60s, TKD was called "Korean Karate." And, it looked like karate -- low stances, hands brought back to the waist to chamber punches, lots of powerful hip torque powering strikes and punches, low kicks.

It was in the 70s that TKD started to really take on a different identity, moving away from karate in a show of Korean national pride. There was a schizm between North and South Korea, and it's well known that Gen. Choi was blacklisted from the south because of his affiliation with North Korea -- his willingness to teach TKD to them. Meanwhile, a crop of newer students (the product of South Korea's new organization, the WTF) started changing the look of TKD: higher stance, less emphasis on punches and strikes (with a concommittant loss of knowledge in how to use hip torque for punching/striking), lighter on the feet, high and acrobatic kicks... more sporty and acrobatic than the old karate.

My first TKD school started out as Korean karate, but we shifted over to the "new way" and joined the WTF in the early 80s. We shifted from Choi's "Blue Wave" hyung/forms to the WTF "poomse."

In the early 1990s, I visited one of the old-style teachers who had a school in New York City. He had written a number of books on "Korean Karate," and I was curious whether he was also changing with the time. It was like a blast from the past watching his class -- pure Shotokan!

[Black and Blue]

Cady,
Some very good points. I first learned the ITF poomse then WTF then others they came up with and then said forget it... I was a USTU official for 15 years and my "sa bum nim" was principle advisor to the 84 and 88 Olympic commitee.When he put on his USA team sweats it was time for me to go.
I still use the long deep stances and pulled back fist etc like the old days lol
I still use a few Korean forms but I also use Kan Ku Sho etc. I also incorporated a lot of aiki into my style. So I just use the term Karate. All the advanced kicks I let the kids do because they can, but in sparring its a different thing when we use hands to the face/head unlike TKD which only alows kicks to the head (in compitition)"How you practice is how you play"
Phil Scudieri

[Parmenion]

quick clarification.
WTF only allows kicks to the head, ITF allows both punches and kicks, but in copmetition spars at what is called "semi-contact", the exact level of contact usually being decided by the ref at the time, often taking into factors such as the level of competition, the grade, experience etc of competitors and so on. (/pedantic)

Nobody seems to have commented yet that in Chinese characters I believe that Aikido and Hapkido are written the same........

[Andrew S]

Nobody seems to have commented yet that in Chinese characters I believe that Aikido and Hapkido are written the same........

Correct. 合気道. The founder of Hapkido studied Daitoryu under Takeda.
And Tang Soo Do is written with the same characters used for 1920s-30s karatedo 唐手道.

[Cady Goldfield]

The founder of Hapkido studied Daitoryu under Takeda.


That's the "party line" in the hapkido organizations, but it is as yet completely unproven.

[elder999]

That's the "party line" in the hapkido organizations, but it is as yet completely unproven.

Maybe no documentary evidence exists, and it will never be "proven," but there is this bit of an interview Stanley Pranin did with Ueshiba's son:


AikiNews: It is true that a Korean named “Choi” who founded ‘hapkido” studied Aikido or Daito-ryu?

Doshu:I don’t know what art it was but I understand that there was a young Korean of about 17 or 18 who participated in a seminar of Sokaku Takeda-sensei held in Ashikawa City in Hokkaido. It seems that he studied the art together with my father and would refer to him as his “senior”.

AikiNews: If that’s the case the art must have been Daito-ryu.

Doshu: I’ve heard that this man who studied Daito-ryu had some contact with my father after that. Then he returned to Korea and began teaching Daito-ryu on a modest scale. The art gradually became popular and many Koreans trained with him. Since aikido became popular in Japan he called his art ‘Hapkido’ (Written with the same Chinese characters as Aikido). Then the art split into many schools before anyone realized it. This is what my father told me. I once received a letter from this teacher after my father’s death.”

- Aiki News Magazine No. 77

Richard Kim once said that Choi studied with Yoshida Kotaro-and that Choi’s Japanese name was also Kotaro-though they were not related at all.

In any case, Choi was in Japan, and learned something there-before he called it hapkido, he called what he was teaching in Korea yawara, which is a lot like saying “jujutsu” in a very (even more?) generic way.

Anyway, no documentaion, but plenty of anecdotal evidence.

In the end, we’ll never know for sure: there are lots of reasons that Choi’s name might not appear on a register of diato-ryu students, even though he studied:nationalism, odd relationships-someone once suggested that he just “peeked in the door” and gleaned enough info that way, which would be waaay impressive, considering the product.

All the players who could answer definitively are dead, though

Hey, Cady-was your New York visit to Duk Sung Son? I started my formal martial arts career with his organization....

[Cady Goldfield]

Hey Aaron,
No, it was S. Henry Cho's dojang I visited in mid-town Manhattan back in 1993 or 94.

True, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that leans in favor of Choi having met and trained with Sokaku Takeda, just no documentation. The claims that Choi was Takeda's houseboy/servant and was taught there by Takeda seem completely without merit, particularly because Takeda was never home -- he was an itinerate teacher who traveled to cities all over Japan, leaving his wife and family alone without any communication with them for years at a time.

The idea that Choi attended one of Takeda's seminars is much more feasible; though how much more training he might have gotten one-on-one thereafter from Takeda will likely never be known, as you note. Takeda was strict (some say almost paranoic) about having everyone who trained with him - at seminars and wherever - sign his emmei roku, so I have a feeling that even a Korean would be required to sign. It was more so Takeda could keep an eye on anyone to make sure they weren't teaching his Daito-ryu without permission, or claiming anything they weren't qualified to claim, etc., and I doubt that a non-Japanese would be exempt from that. Quien sabe?

I once watched a video of Choi doing a demo, and what he was doing could easily have been jujutsu from a number of Japanese systems; it did not look anything like the Daito-ryu I've seen. But hey, who knows - he could have altered it to suit his own goals in the decades of training and teaching back in Korea. There also didn't seem to be any signs of internal power involved -- but since Choi was Korean, your thoughts about nationalism might be quite accurate... very unlikely that Takeda would give aiki goodies to a Korean.

Fun to speculate, but not much chance of solid answers surfacing.

Maybe no documentary evidence exists, and it will never be "proven," but there is this bit of an interview Stanley Pranin did with Ueshiba's son:

Richard Kim once said that Choi studied with Yoshida Kotaro-and that Choi’s Japanese name was also Kotaro-though they were not related at all.

In any case, Choi was in Japan, and learned something there-before he called it hapkido, he called what he was teaching in Korea yawara, which is a lot like saying “jujutsu” in a very (even more?) generic way.

Anyway, no documentaion, but plenty of anecdotal evidence.

In the end, we’ll never know for sure: there are lots of reasons that Choi’s name might not appear on a register of diato-ryu students, even though he studied:nationalism, odd relationships-someone once suggested that he just “peeked in the door” and gleaned enough info that way, which would be waaay impressive, considering the product.

All the players who could answer definitively are dead, though

Hey, Cady-was your New York visit to Duk Sung Son? I started my formal martial arts career with his organization....

[Richard Scardina]

Perhaps, as it is known, Chinese martial arts having inlfiunces upon Okinawan arts, thus few Japanese, a few Chinese and Japanese arts can have influence upon Korean. And the events of war, per ex, WWII could alter such influences. The perniciousness of this is shown from many Korean martial art practitoners who rather adhere to attenuated tales or history than look upon anything else with slight consideration.