Japanese or Korean-Karate or TaeKwon Do

[Daryl]

I just started TaeKwon Do classes this week. I had a short brush with TaeKwon Do about 6 years ago but had to give it up at that time. Something that really perplexes me is that for patterns, my current instructor uses the term "kata" which, as for as I can learn is a Japanese word used in Karate. TaeKwon Do uses the term "hyeong". I have searched high and low on the web and I do not see evidence that this varies. My instructor says that "kata" is used in TaeKwon Do.

He also stated that Cheon-Ji, which I learned long ago, has been phased out.

Can anyone explain these things to me?

[ninjanurse]

In my experience KATA is exclusive to Karate styles and I have been practicing TKD for almost 20 years. Korean arts usually refer to forms as hyung or poomse...and the chon-ji forms are still taught by some TKD styles today. That being said...there is a lot of mixing of terms today due to public perception, i.e., many TKD schools advertise themselves as "karate" because people recognize it better as "martial arts"....I am sure that this causes some confusion and blurring of historical elements of the art.