Vagabund

You are right, there were two "seeds" in the renaissance period of Taekkyon who influenced the present stlyes: 1.) Song Deok-gi (also trancribed as "Dukki" etc.) Born in 1893, he learnt Taekkyon in his youth, until the Japanese prohibited it indirectly. There is an interview with him about this indirect prohibition. You can find it at http://taekkyon.de/html/en/download.html (song_interview_translation_EN_DE.pdf) Song was not the only master after 1945 who knew Taekkyon, but one can say that he was the only one who passed it down. There was no need to "reconstruct" Taekkyon because of him. He died in 1987 and taught Taekkyon from 1971 to Shin Han-seung, Do Ki-hyun, Lee Yong-bok, Jeon Gyeong-hwa and many others. 2.) Shin Han-seung Born in 1928, Taekkyon had already more or less disappeard when he grew up. He learnt Taekkyon mostly from Song. However, he added some techniques and had his own philosophy. There was actually no philosophy at all before Shin. I like to compare this history with the Capoeira history, because Shin played a similar role as mestre Bimba, I think. Nowadays, there are three Taekkyon styles: 1st) Kyulyun Taekkyon Association: This stlye is not influenced by Shin. At least not more than a tiny little bit, if at all. Do Ki-hyun is the leader of the style. 2nd) Korea Taekkyon Association (or Federation): This one is a mixture of Shin, Song and Lee Yong-bok (who learnt from both masters). Maybe comparalble to the "Contemporânea" stlye of Capoeira. 3rd) Korea Traditional Taekkyon Association: They follow Shin's stlye pretty exactly. However, all three stlyes have a lot in common. They also do competitions together. Competition (kyorugi) was one of, if not THE, most important things about traditional Taekkyon. It was mentioned in earlier posts that Taekkyon was a game. It was not only a game, but this side was definately crucial. As a consequence, the aim in kyorugi of all three styles is still the same: Hit the other's face with a kick or take him down. We had the first European Taekkyon Meeting this month and members of all three stlyes attended. It was no problem to train and compete together. I did Taekwondo before I switched to Taekkyon. As far as I can see, Taekkyon masters are careful not to mix Taekkyon with other influences. So I would claim there is no TKD influcence in Taekkyon. I too tried to eliminate all my TKD techniques and motions. It took a while, as I can see from videos I made about myself, but I can say that today my motion does not tell that I once did TKD. Is there an influence of Taekkyon in TKD? I would say "yes, but indirectly" because none of the TKD founders (such as Choi Hong-hi) learnt Taekkyon.