Is TKD/TSD punching mechanically different from karate?

[JaseP]

You'll want to go here for a candid look at modern Tae Kwon Do:

http://www.bstkd.com/ROUGHHISTORY.HTM

It's an article I've seen several other places that pops up, disappears, and resurfaces from time to time.

[tufrthanu]

I got it from a differnet source but thats the text I use. I have it on wordpad. That one you showed has been highly edited however and from what my version shows it was the late 50's when the various kwans started stealing each others names.

[TSDforChrist]

Um, mattyj, I was trying to illustrate that at the time TSD was a generic word - the fact that many of the kwans that became TKD called their style TSD before making the switch is the same as them calling it "martial arts". So did TKD come from a "style" of TSD? Nope. But, was TKD at one time called TSD because TSD was used as a generic term for martial arts? At least in some kwans, yes. You are coming in even later in the discussion - bringing in Gen. Choi takes us to the unification (somewhat) of TKD, and the dying out of the kwan system (no, it never did die, but it sure has come close. You'd be surprised how many TKD practicioners there are that have no idea what kwan style they practice). That was after (even if just barely) anything called TSD was out of the picture (at least historically - locally I'm sure people called it whatever they wanted to, haha).

In Christ,

Phil Stewart

4th Dan Tang Soo Do

[EternalRage]

well back to the original topic at hand,

In Soo Bahk Do (HC Hwang's Federation), we still do the palputki horse stance punching, but as several of the postings by Tang Soo Do practictioners have already stated, the power comes from a hip drive.

The effects of this hip drive cause the punching to be slightly different from other karate or TKD or even some Tang Soo Do schools, because with the hip driving, the shoulders do not stay square once the punch is fully extended. This is even evident in basic techniques. When doing punches in front stance, you can even see Soo Bahk Do practicioners are driving with their hips so much that their shoulders and upper body are not square, but actually on a slight twist (but upper body is still vertically straight).

This is in stark contrast to many schools with Karate influence, who have square shoulders and hips when the punch is fully extended.

[tufrthanu]

It sounds like overextension to me though.

[Aodhan]

It sounds like overextension to me though.

It depends on how much you twist through. If you stop completely with the shoulders square, then by the very nature of body kinesthetics, you have to be slowing somewhat to get the shoulders to stop at square.

When I teach, I let my students know that to get full power through the punch, it's fine to let the shoulder/trunk rotate past square (Within reason, if you reach too far you ARE overextending), but the return to the square position after finishing the punch execution.

Aodhan