A Question To My TKD Practitioners...If I May?

[sensei8]

Karate styles have Bunkai [applications] within Kata's. A block isn't always a block and a strike isn't always a strike; what one see's isn't exactly what one is doing in kata's of Karate.

My question...

Is Bunkai practiced in TKD Forms as explained in the opening paragraph above?

In advance, I thank you!

[ninjanurse]

In my experience yes but it varies from style to style. I encourage my students to analyze each movement and come up with solutions (bunka) as my teachers did.

[sensei8]

I've nothing against a block being a block and a strike being a strike, and so on and so forth. Afterall, that's what they are in there most generalistic terms.

On the other hand, to view a block, for example, as nothing more than just a block; that would appear quite limited and restrictive to the many possibilities within the most basic of blocks.

[isshinryu5toforever]

I practiced Taekwondo in university, after 13 consecutive years of Isshinryu Karate, so I came in wondering about their forms and about application. In my admittedly short (4 years) experience with Taekwondo, this is what I thought:

The Taekwondo Taeguk forms are simple in both principle and application. Everything you do is exactly what it's meant to be. A knee strike is a knee strike, a block a block. Nothing is hidden. Taekwondo is an external martial art with external applications, and the forms show this.

Here's why it makes a lot of sense to me, bunkai is a Japanese word for an Okinawan principle. Japanese Budo uses kata as an external practice looking for aesthetic perfection. There isn't a lot of concentration on application. The stories you hear about Okinawan Karate are always about someone getting taught a single kata, going away for 3 years to practice it, and then going back to see if they're remotely right in its application. There is a lot more concentration on a "monkey see, monkey do" approach first, and then it becomes the student's responsibility to figure out what the fighting techniques are, and how they're applied to the real world.

As we covered in an earlier topic, Japanese Karate influenced modern Korean martial arts in some way. I won't argue about how big or small, everyone's opinion is their own. I think that influence comes out in the forms a lot. They are there for aesthetic perfection of technique, not for a whole lot of application. That's just my 2 cents.

[IcemanSK]

Among Kukki-TKD practioners (WTF-style folks) there is also Simon John O'Neil (sp?) & his book "The Tae Guek Cipher." Like Anslow, he follows the lead of boon hae (Korean for Bunkai). Like Anslow, some folks buy it, some don't...& many are just confused as to why a block isn't just a block, or a punch just a punch.

[bushido_man96]

Among Kukki-TKD practioners (WTF-style folks) there is also Simon John O'Neil (sp?) & his book "The Tae Guek Cipher." Like Anslow, he follows the lead of boon hae (Korean for Bunkai). Like Anslow, some folks buy it, some don't...& many are just confused as to why a block isn't just a block, or a punch just a punch.

I've read this book, as well. There are some good things in the book, but I felt that his translation of the WTF forms were a bit more stretched than those of Anslow's and the ITF forms. Still, reading it made me think.