Is TKD/TSD punching mechanically different from karate?

[tufrthanu]

Well it's true that Choi's training was in Shotokan in Japan...however he didn't institute the sine wave into his forms until 1983. And if you look at a non ITF practioner doing the Chang Hon forms you will see that they try to stay low and linear.

[JaseP]

Well, you train in TKD,... so you'd know better.

I don't follow TKD history much after 1965... since it doesnt effect my style much after that. I only know what I've been exposed to over the last 23+ years and what I've read.

Frankly, I don't see a lot of "sine wave" in any Korean arts...

[tsdshep]

i dont mean 2 be rude but tkd is based of a styel of tsd and i have never see the sine wave in the styel i train in or the kuk soul studios in our area or the hapkido school around hear but thean agean thats the only korean styels ive see around hear only the tkd studios n my arwa use it

[tufrthanu]

Thats not true. There wasn't even a name for Tang Soo Do until after 1955 when the other kwans unified under the name taekwondo.

[mikaveli]

From my experience, Karate punches are near identical to Korean punches. But chops are much more direct/quick compared to the flowing/powerful form of chopping in TSD/TKD

[JaseP]

There wasn't even a name for Tang Soo Do until after 1955 when the other kwans unified under the name taekwondo.

That's not true. Tang Soo Do was bandied about as a name right after WWII. TaeKwonDo wasn't used until the early 60s. Prior to that the name was TaeSooDo (not to be confused with the Hwa Rang Do curriculim of the same name).

In fact the early Chinese characters that were used for Karate prior to WWII and the Chinese characters used for Tang Soo Do, are the same. During the nationalism craze in Japan, the Japanese started using the "empty" hand character instead of the "Chinese" hand character... Attempting to distance themselves from Chinese arts. Kinda like the Koreans who had Japanese/Okinawan martial arts experience did after WWII, maybe???

From my experience, Karate punches are near identical to Korean punches. But chops are much more direct/quick compared to the flowing/powerful form of chopping in TSD/TKD

I don't know what your experience is, but all of the classical Japanese/Okinawan stylists that I know do not generate power with hip rotation in the punch in the same way as in TSD. It is a shorter, more jerky, more jiggly movement... Now the more "modern" practitioners, that's a different story. It's an example of cross pollenation. Even in the relatively short time I have been training (23-24 yrs), I've seen a good deal of changes, and a lot of things becoming more homogenized.

[tufrthanu]

Tae Kwon Do was the official name adopted by the kwans in 1955 so I'd like to know where you got your proof that they didn't use it til the early 1960's. And yes taesoodo was the name used prior to 1955 by some schools that is not the same as Tang Soo Do.

[TSDforChrist]

Actually, you are both wrong in some cases. True, the name Taekwondo was adopted in '55. Tae Soo Do was the name for the art of one of the original kwans. Hwang Kee took the name Tang Soo Do (using the same characters as Karate-Do) upon a suggestion from Won Kuk Lee, after Hwang's original martial art program failed (same art, but Tang Soo Do marketed better than Hwa Soo Do - the characters were familiar to those who lived through the Japanese Occupation). Taekwondo as a name was a national pride, government mandated change. Before that, the various kwans called their art many things, such as Tang Soo Do (Chinese/Empty Hand Method), Soo Bahk/Soo Bahk Do (Smashing Hand Way), Kwon Bup(Fist Method) or many other names that bore no relation to the arts that may currently bear those names. They were, in essence, a way of saying "Martial Arts" rather than referring to a specific art as we do in English. The Kwan affiliation was the determiner of art. When translating from Korean, you will also find that Korean nationals have a tendancy to use the terms Tang Soo Do, Soo Bahk Do, Tae Kwon Do and Martial Arts interchangeably. Hwang Kee wanted to use Tang Soo Do as the general term, but was denied by the government - Taekwondo became the general term. Now, in english, they refer to specific arts (except among those who are conscientious enough to differentiate between kwan). Confused yet? It gets worse. Remember, we are currently talking about Chinese characters pronounced in Korean, or Hanja, that when taken together have 2 or 3 different meanings. It gets worse when you try to read period history or find accounts written in Hangul - the "Soo Do" character alone has 11 different English translations.

So what does it boil down to? You are both arguing over semantics. You are both right, because each of you is defining a word or phrase with a different English translation.

Oh, and the date discrepancy about the use of Taekwondo as a name may stem from TSD history: They decided in '55, and Hwang Kee resisted. I think the power struggle (that eventually resulted in both a TSD and a TKD Moo Duk Kwan) lasted into the early 60's. So it's all about who is using the TKD name for when it was first used.

In Christ,

Phil Stewart

4th Dan Tang Soo Do

[tufrthanu]

Thanks for the edification Phil. Good Post!

[mattyj]

i love how gen. choi is ignored in most tkd history discussions... (sarcasm)

tkd is based on shotokan karate (which gen. choi learnt as a student) and taekyon (which he learnt when he was younger) as well as other influences from the kwans etc. so its wrong to say "TKD came from a style of tsd".

Well it's true that Choi's training was in Shotokan in Japan...however he didn't institute the sine wave into his forms until 1983. And if you look at a non ITF practioner doing the Chang Hon forms you will see that they try to stay low and linear.

100% true.