Ok history buffs, how about a recommendation

[IcemanSK]

Toptomcat has a really good understanding of KMA history, here. The KMA's owe a great deal to the JMA's. Hwang Kee, Lee, Won Kuk & many other of the founders of KMA's got their start in Japanese Karate. If I'm not mistaken, Hwang Kee learned a bit in China during a time period where he worked on the railroads, there.

With the Japanese occupation of Korea, there was a understandable hatred for anything Japanese. Therefore they needed Korean names for their Arts. The link to the Hwarang came about the first time (to my knowledge) when Gen. Choi was standing next to President Rhee in the 1950's during a demo. President Rhee asked, "what is this called?" "Taekyon," Gen Choi replied. Taekyon was at least Korean. Had he said, "Shotokan Karate that I learned from Gichin Funakoshi," that might have stopped the whole movement right there.

The 2000+ year old history of the KMA's roots them in Korean history & gives the Korean people a sense that these Arts are their own.

There is much value in the KMA history of the founders of the Kwans. They were brave, tough men who worked hard to develop their Arts..even during the Korean & Vietnam wars. Sadly, their stories are not often told.

[GeoGiant]

Toptomcat has a really good understanding of KMA history, here. The KMA's owe a great deal to the JMA's. Hwang Kee, Lee, Won Kuk & many other of the founders of KMA's got their start in Japanese Karate. If I'm not mistaken, Hwang Kee learned a bit in China during a time period where he worked on the railroads, there.

With the Japanese occupation of Korea, there was a understandable hatred for anything Japanese. Therefore they needed Korean names for their Arts. The link to the Hwarang came about the first time (to my knowledge) when Gen. Choi was standing next to President Rhee in the 1950's during a demo. President Rhee asked, "what is this called?" "Taekyon," Gen Choi replied. Taekyon was at least Korean. Had he said, "Shotokan Karate that I learned from Gichin Funakoshi," that might have stopped the whole movement right there.

The 2000+ year old history of the KMA's roots them in Korean history & gives the Korean people a sense that these Arts are their own.

There is much value in the KMA history of the founders of the Kwans. They were brave, tough men who worked hard to develop their Arts..even during the Korean & Vietnam wars. Sadly, their stories are not often told.

Toptomcat has been a big help so far. When I started to look into KMAs I didn't realize how difficult it was going to be. This may be the first time I’ve had difficulty finding the information I wanted to learn. Typically, if I want to know about topic “x” I go out and buy a book on the topic. Usually there is a generally accepted explanation.

I’m sort of at the crossroads on how I want to move forward – I realize now that I will be researching this topic with the hope putting the pieces together. Based on the direction I was given by Toptomcat and my limited research background, I’m thinking that I will need to understand (1) the pre-WW-II Korea, (2) the Japanese occupation & (3) post-occupation to maybe 1960’s. Without these fundamentals I don’t think I will be able to evaluate why someone may be writing a certain version of Korean history. It appears that everyone has an angle that they want recognized as the truth so without knowing the author’s motive(s) I will have no way to evaluate what is being presenting as fact.

[Toptomcat]

As I said earlier, if you can verify that an author is not Korean, not Japanese, and not a practitioner of a Korean martial art, then they can probably be reasonably assumed to be free of bias, or at least the kind of bias that will give you grief on this particular topic.

That said, you're right in that your project seems to have problematically expanded in scope. What, exactly, do you need to do with this information? Do you need to write a book, give a speech, write a paper, write a magazine article? Knowing that might help me give you some advice on where to go from here.

[GeoGiant]

As I said earlier, if you can verify that an author is not Korean, not Japanese, and not a practitioner of a Korean martial art, then they can probably be reasonably assumed to be free of bias, or at least the kind of bias that will give you grief on this particular topic.

That said, you're right in that your project seems to have problematically expanded in scope. What, exactly, do you need to do with this information? Do you need to write a book, give a speech, write a paper, write a magazine article? Knowing that might help me give you some advice on where to go from here.

I just want to know for my own knowledge. I'm the type of person that needs to know why. Since I started taking TSD I find myself thinking about it a lot. I feel like I should know where this art came from and how it evolved. I hated it when someone asked me a few questions about TSD and I couldn't provide an answer

[IcemanSK]

I can not help with TSD history as such, but there is a great book called "A Killing Art" by Alex Gilles. It's about early TKD history to present & gives a bit of background on early Kwan heads . The book really follows Gen Choi & Un Yong Kim & their quest to rule the world with TKD. That's only a little tongue-in-check

The book came out in 2008, but it's not easy to come by. It might be worth a look for you.

All my best.

[GeoGiant]

Thanks IcemanSK! I like to read so any type of MAs material that isn’t intended for instruction (I like those too but not for casual reading) or isn’t a textbook is desirable reading to me.

Toptomcat - once again, I tip my hat you! After your initial post to this thread I started to search wikipedia for background information…starting with Hwang Kee. 99% of the citations I found referenced journal articles and most of these journals were out of print. As I stated before I see now that I will not be able to find one or two comprehensive sources that will provide me with the level of detail I’d like to know. I had a physics professor in college that used to say, “when things become cloudy or uncertain, go back to a point where things were clear and start over” [Did he steal that from Bruce Lee???]. Since I don’t have a clear beginning I thought I’d start by reading something on pre-occupation Korea and move forward from there.

BTW- I agree with your assessment of wikipedia. It is a great starting point for any type of information search and over the past few years it seems that wikipedia has gotten better about removing people that provide false information. When I searched for earth science information I would quite a bit of false information on controversial topics such as evolution but that is another discussion altogether.

[tonydee]

Just chipping in with my understanding - pieced together over the years. Tang Soo Do is a translation of the word "karate", in it's original Okinawan meaning of "way of the Chinese hand". Tang is the reference to China, as in Tang Dynasty (famous for vases?). The Okinawan-born Gichin Funakoshi brought his knowledge of a karate system to mainland Japan circa 1917. Sometime afterwards - with the Japanese wanting to distance themselves from acknowledging they were practicing a Chinese art, they picked another kanji (Japanese letter imported from the Chinese writing system), also pronounced "ka", which meant empty. Hence, the Japanese version of the art was still known as karate, but the meaning became "way of the empty hand". With the Japanese military occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945, many young Koreans were sent to Japan to learn Japanese language and disciplines that could help with the administration of Korea. (Others - often children - were kidnapped and effectively made slaves). Some of those Koreans - while studying in Japan - had a chance to learn Funakoshi's style of karate - which has evolved into modern forms we now commonly call Shotokan (or, a little less commonly, Shotokai). One Korean learned another Okinawan style, a couple learned a little judo. These Koreans - to the best of my knowledge the Shotokan stylists were at best 1st and 2nd dans, and the other karate-ka a 4th dan - started teaching in Seoul. One dojo/jang - whose owner had a close and friendly relationship with the Japanese administration - was actually able to teach before the military occupation ceased, while many, many others opened very soon afterwards. The names tang soo do and kong soo do were commonly used, literal translations of the two meanings for karate (kong means empty). Some styles kept the Japanese kata (patterns), while others were forced together through political/military pressure and disowned those kata in favour of rather similar patterns "created" by Koreans (chang hon hyung). Many of the more karate-like styles - especially overseas - may have kept the tang soo do name, while others grouped under taekwondo - the governing bodies for which evolved the style quite quickly away from the karate origins, particular in kata/hyung, sparring, and the biomechanical basis for technique - which was often overlooked.

It's overwhelmingly likely that the ancient hwarang have nothing to do with modern Korean martial arts, including the revivalist "hwarang do" schools. They're just cashing in on a name popularised to lend credibility to the claims of taekwondo to be Korean, and have ancient roots.

Sorry for not taking the time to provide references, and not covering the way modern tang soo do links to that history, but hope that might give you some ideas re what to look for in the historical period you're interested in.

It's worth keeping in mind that modern South Korea is a democracy and enjoys considerable freedom, but for most of its post-WWII history it was a military dictatorship masquerading as a democracy, and the government, military and secret police were pretty much integrated, controlling taekwondo along with all other important aspects of Korean life. Patriotism was used as a tool of control, and control of the media, text books and other information was practically absolute and deliberately directed towards that ends.

Regards,

Tony

[GeoGiant]

What seems odd to me is that my school seems to use a mix of Japanese & Korean terms. I haven’t asked my instructor why we mix these terms but I plan to ask in the near future. I’ve been trying to collect a little background information so he can see that I’ve made an effort to educate myself.

For example, we perform katas and the word kata appears on my belt test requirement sheet. However, it appears that the kata names are Korean words – this is based on my LIMITED experience. The first yellow belt kata I’m learning is Gie Chul Hyung Cha Ke…. It is my understanding that Hyung means pattern in Korean. I’ve tried several online translators and I haven’t found the meaning of any of these words.

[Toptomcat]

The words 'hyeong' 'pumsae' and 'teul' are variously used for forms/patterns in Korean. It may be that 'kata' is used because it's more universally recognized among martial artists in general, or just in frustration for the lack of standard terminology in Korean arts.

[IcemanSK]

I need to correct something in my post. The author of "A Killing Art" is Alex Gillis (not Gilles).

I'm sure they will have another printing of the book, but you can find it on Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Art-Untold-History-Kwon/dp/1550228250/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268193594&sr=8-1