truejim

Here's a really good article on the topic: http://www.kidokwan.org/articles/the-evolution-of-taekwondo-from-japanese-karate/ Lots of supporting references.

Agreed. Especially the part about people having an agenda. Also agreed. I think people get too caught up in who invented what first. The history of Asia is one of shifting borders, rising and falling dynasties, military conquests, and frequent trade. It was cultural soup, all these cultures influencing one another. In addition, for much of that history, many of these countries weren't even countries, so to say China/Korea/Japan simplifies (understandably) that those nations didn't even exist for much of the time period under discussion. I would also add that I think Buddhist philosophy had a big influence on Asian martial arts (the concept of the spiritual warrior providing a philosophical basis for the serious study of martial arts), so you can even include India in that soup. I think that's a good summary.

I would be interested in learning more! None of the references you provide mention kihapsul. When I Google search on kihapsul, I find references to acupressure and controlled breathing, no references to kihapsul and breaking. I did find a kouksundo reference here: http://www.kouksundo.com/ehtm/kouksundo_origin.php but the claims are pretty bold! "Kouksundo appeared approximately 9,7000 years ago..." Considering that recorded history (i.e., written records) are roughly 5,000 years old, this claim would mean that somebody has been able to trace kouksundo's history back an additional 4,700 years before the start of recorded history!

As an example, back in the day, you'd hear people say that Chuck Norris practiced taekwondo, when of course it was Tang Soo Do. As an aside, I recently re-watched the movie Best of the Best after not having seen it in many years. It's also interesting how often that film uses the terms karate and taekwondo interchangeably. I mean like seriously...it treats them like synonyms. Perhaps the most famous example is this poor guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Kyoungjong The poor guy (Korean) was conscripted into the Japanese army, was captured by the Soviets and then conscripted into their army, then was captured by the Germans and conscripted into their army, so that on D-Day the Allies found a Korean man (and assumed him to be Japanese) in among the Germans! He fought on BOTH sides of World War II! The movie "My Way" is a fictionalized version of his life, and it's an entertaining flick: recommended.

http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_Taekwondo Certainly most of the founders of taekwondo studied karate at some point (as well as other martial arts), but it wasn't always shotokan. For example, Byung In Yoon of YMCA Kwon Bop Bu/Chang Moo Kwan studied Shudokan karate. Kwe Byung Yoon of Jido Kwan studied Shito-rye karate. Also, often young Korean men were conscripted into the Japanese Army; from what I've read, the Korean men might learn a little martial arts that way as well - not just by watching Japanese soldiers, but by being in the Japanese military themselves. The key founders of taekwondo though, most of them were able to attend university in Japan during the occupation, outside Korea, so they learned karate at university and then brought karate (as well as other martial arts) with them back to Korea after the war. http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/taekwondo/images/f/f9/FiveKwans.png

http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Chun_Kuk_Do Chun Kuk Do uses many of the same forms as Tang Soo Do, though Chun Kuk Do has a few forms that are unique to the style. I've also heard Moo Duk Kwan Taekwondo sometimes referred to also as American Tang Soo Do. I don't think there are any universally agreed-upon definitions for some of these things though...different authors will use the same phrases to mean different things.

It's interesting that that webpage lists Tang Soo Do, Hwa Soo Do, and Soo Bahk Do as all deriving from Moo Duk Kwan, but as I understand it, in all the splinering that took places, there's also a portion of Moo Duk Kwan that went on to practice Kukkiwon/WTF-style taekwondo.

Here's my take... They're very similar, but they're not the same thing. Hwang Kee developed his style of martial art, which he eventually came to call Tang Soo Do, from the 1940s onward. Sometime around 1960 he read the ancient Korean martial arts text the Muye Dobo Tongji and decided he wanted to incorporate some of the principles he learned from that text into his martial art. Having done so, he then renamed his martial art Soo Bahk Do. So Tang Soo Do is a predecessor to Soo Bahk Do, and understandably enough they're very similar. You can read more about that here: http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_Taekwondo

My son is also 8, but my experience is very different from yours. At our school, the instructors are all friendly, cheerful, playful, and they interject a lot of humor into the teaching. But that having been said, the class is very focused and disciplined. The instructors clearly always have control of the class. The instructors never, ever get angry. For the regular classes, pushups and such are not used as punishments. The playfulness of the school is evident even from just their Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/majestmartialartssterling ) but at the same time you can see how good the kids are. Playfulness and good instruction go together well. The main instructor wears a headset blue-toothed to the speaker system, so when he wants to get loud he can, without shouting. Just like at my son's elementary school, the instructors use a school-clap to regain control of the class if the class starts to not pay attention. With regards to technique, there is a lot of *instruction* about technique, but for younger children (like 5 - 8 ) there's not yet a lot of *enforcement* of technique, because the gross-motor skills for most young children simply aren't there yet...so there is more focus on physical fitness and learning forms at that age. I'll also add: it surprises me how often children pick up good technique just through observation and repetition. We have one young teen with a learning disability who went from really-bad to not-too-shabby with very little correction from the instructor, just via observation and repetition. Our instructors would never be coy about whether you passed a test or not. At that age group, children are very concerned about things being fair, so being coy about tests would be very demotivating. Bottom line: Based on what you've written, personally, as a parent, I would look for a better school, if you can find one.

On the taekwondo wiki, I wrote brief articles about Tang Soo Do and Soo Bak Do just because I don't think you can have an encyclopedia about taekwondo that doesn't reference those arts as well, at least obliquely. But I don't really know anything about TSD, SBD or even Chun Kuk Do besides what little I've read. These articles would benefit from a heavy edit by somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Tang_Soo_Do http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Soo_Bahk_Do http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Chun_Kuk_Do http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Moo_Duk_Kwan_Taekwondo http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Moo_Duk_Kwan http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Hwang_Kee

Tons of YouTube videos about applications. Here are some... This one is by the K-Tigers, which is perhaps ironic since they're often criticized for being just taekwondo "dance". Then if you go on YouTube and search on Lee Dong Hee, he has a bunch of videos about applications; for example, this one was quite popular on Facebook a couple months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o_Dhq0W79k Plenty of discussion on the topic of applications as well; a recent example is here: http://www.martialtalk.com/threads/assisted-block-in-sipjin.117884/

At the school my son and I attend, we start off with three basic (kibon) forms before we study the Taegeuk forms -- and these basic forms primarily use front stances. I remember when I first started learning the Taegeuk forms, I felt the same way as you do. After a while though, I came to really enjoy the short walking stances. Specifically, I came to enjoy the transitions from the walking stances to long stances, especially in Taegeuk 2. Like, if you want to be sloppy about it, a person can just awkwardly drop into a long stance...but it's so much more fun to try to control your fall into the long stance. It's hard to make it look graceful, but once you do, it feels good. Like, on the way back, at the end of this form, I notice you do a nice job of kicking and then falling gracefully into the walking stance after the kick, instead of just "dropping" into the walking stance. It's that same type of feeling at the beginning of the form...I've actually come to enjoy it quite a lot.

Focus is definitely a problem at 3-4-5 even. I started my son at 5 and he was barely able to manage to pay attention most of the time...barely. Once he hit 6 though he was fine. We have some 7-8-9 even who still struggle to stay on task though. At the school my son and I attend, I sometimes help-out with the 3-4 "cubs" class. Of course the "cubs" are not really doing much taekwondo per se. They do a lot of balancing drills, jumping drills, some forward rolls...all good stuff for developing gross motor skills. Then they also do middle punch, low block, high block, front kick, and the first 8 steps of Kicho Hyeong 1. I will say this, when our "cubs" finally do turn 5 and hit the regular "kid's white belt" classes, the time they put in as cubs really does show. They immediately tend to have a lot more focus, better balance, better technique, etc. Kids learn so fast anyway though: I would say that a few months down the road it's hard to tell the difference between a prior-cub and just a regular new-student. Still...the cubs seem to enjoy their time rolling around on the mats and hopping around on one leg!

I started my son in taekwondo when he was 5. By age 6, he had a lot more discipline and focus. It's hard to know though: how much of that was attributable to taekwondo, and how much was attributable to the extra year in age? Personally, I think taekwondo had a lot to do with it. I've seen the same sort of transitions among many of the younger kids at our local school. Our instructors do a great job though of mixing discipline with fun and humor. The kids love it there, but they also know to be serious when it's time to be serious. I think the quality of the instructors is a huge factor, in terms of benefiting younger children. I don't think you'll find it difficult to change from karate to taekwondo. I studied karate back when I was in college, and my son and I do taekwondo together now. There are differences of course, but they're easy to pick up. http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Taekwondo_History#World_War_II_to_the_Present

As I understand it, all ATA forms are based on the same floor pattern, the Songahm Star, an 8-pointed star-shape. http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Songahm_Star Not every ATA form uses the entire star though. Sok Bong uses an "hourglass" floor pattern within the star. Here's a diagram: http://frontiernet.net/~bovitz/tkd/documents/sokbong_form.pdf