kozushi

Judo and karate both take advantage of the enemy's clothing - a very smart strategy. Both judo and karate work in MMA, but they work even better in real fights. If you are a karateka fighting a judoka, you have one chance to get a killer strike in. If it lands, and you have done your homework on the makiwara and all, you stand a good chance of winning. If it doesn't land, then you will be grabbed and thrown onto the ground where you will be beaten senseless or crushed. The two martial arts complement each other well. The famous Kimura was an expert at both.

Learn the names of all the judo moves and what they represent. This will speed things up a lot. Walking is a good overall exercise in balance and fitness that helps a lot in any sport, including judo. Obviously running is even better! Skipping rope and similar helps too. Lifting weights is very good stuff for judo. Practicing your old TKD skills is good too. Judo has a branch called "atemi" that is striking skills - now not really formally done, but it is part of the original system. It's basically the striking techniques of karate without the katas. Hitting bags is good. If you have no equipment, then walking, running, pushups, striking the air. The rope on the tree for throwing practice is good if you can manage to do it conveniently.

Thanks for the links. According to the Stanford one, which is a translation from a Korean book, all the founders were Shotokan guys, except one guy ALSO had learned a Chinese martial art of some kind, and one other guy ALSO taught judo. So, it's basically a development of Shotokan.

So the big question is as to where the 10 founders learnt their stuff. If we can find that out, we're in business.

Two former South Korean soldiers visited my house today, one in his 50s the other in his 20s. Both learned the Taeguk forms and neither had ever even heard of the Palgwe! I guess that cinches it!

So, just to clarify: The Palgwe poomse are NOT DONE in South Korea anymore?

Okay, but I read somewhere that the 10 founders were all students of Won Kuk Lee, and he was one of the very best produced by Gichin Funakoshi in Tokyo, Japan. Lee was at that dojo from the 20s until 1944, I assume. Then in Korea, he says that he taught the various future founders of the other "kwans." Lee fled back to Japan in 1950 at the start of the Korean War. One of his students joined the North and taught Lee's Shotokan Karate (aka Tang Soo Do) there. I totally can see Choi as an important force behind moulding TKD into THE martial art of Korea, but I think he's more of an organizer, politician, popularizer, than the originator of the movements in the poomse and kibon. If we're talking technique, then would it not be Lee who is the origin of the stuff? Did any of the 10 founders learn his Karate from someone else other than Lee???

Trust me, Canada's "history" is full of a lot more @#$% than Korea's is.

But what about Won Kuk Lee??? I thought he was the real founder.

Actually, I'm a history teacher, and in my opinion, what we call "history" would be better termed "legend."

I agree. And, if the Muye is just as obscure in Korean/Chinese as it is in English then I too think there is no real way of ever fully deciphering it. Nothing wrong about borrowing and adapting from other cultures! If TKD comes from Shotokan, then so what?

I haven't read the Muye book in Korean yet; I own it in English. There is almost no way to actually bring the movements correctly back to life from the English translation. However, maybe some superior scholarship, cross-referencing names for techniques and postures from Chinese and Japanese living traditions, could do it though. I have a hope that the guys into doing this work in Korea know what they are doing. A lot of the stuff I've seen recreated looks pretty convincing. I tried to learn a halberd poomse from the book, and what I came up with was significantly different than the one the recreationists performed on Youtube. But if you're willing to accept that you might get it 5 to 10% wrong but 90-95% right, and this doesn't bother you then I think there is definitely something to it. I think the unarmed stuff is more interesting these days since we don't walk around with weapons much. Having said that, I do stick fighting an hour a week with my judo buddies, and it is a very interesting activity! The TKD stuff is gold, since you don't need hardly any space to do it; you can do it at home; and you don't need any equipment at all! Taekkyon, Ssirum, Muye stuff and archery all take either someone to do it with or lots of space.

I don't know why the Koreans can't take pride in their excellent traditional Ssirum wrestling and archery prowess, and accept their own modern inventions (like TKD) as modern, and it is okay to be modern! Even the Muye Dobo Tongji is made up of a great many Japanese and Chinese weapons forms. Taking something foreign and then modifying it for your own use is what everybody does. Even Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Christianity came from elsewhere.

I guess the analogy would kind of be hockey for Canada. But I'd assume hockey is more popular in Canada among all age groups than TKD is for all age groups in Korea. Are you doing your master's degree in Korea, or are you going back to the States to do it? Hey, don't the police and army in Korea practice TKD? They'd be 'specialists' in a sense, right? I remember doing judo with some air force pilots and police officers... So, my study programme will be the Taeguks and the Black Belts forms then, and next time I'm in Korea, which could be in three years or so, I'll visit some dojang, if there is an adult one, and have fun for a few months there.

Tang Soo Do is the Korean pronunciation for Kara Te Do. You can look to Shotokan for its induction to Korea via Won Kuk Lee in 1944, opening the Chung do Kwan in Seoul, the first martial arts club allowed under Japanese rule there. Lee moved there in 1944 from Japan to escape the bombing runs. He left Korea in 1950 at the start of the Korean war, and his students who stayed behind went onto create the army's hand to hand combat system - Taekwondo.