Things change,

[JusticeZero]

I was rereading the whole debate about Taekkyon and TKD, and it reminded me of something.

What if Gen. Choi was trying to keep Taekkyon.. but had an incomplete or corrupted seed to work with?

Imagine that a bunch of children are abducted by aliens to a huge dome on Venus. After years, they regain their independence, and want to rebuild their culture. One of them says "You know, a long time ago, I remember watching this game once.. A bunch of people were running back and forth, dribbling an orange ball, and throwing it into a hoop.."

And someone says "Did it have tackling?"

"I don't remember! But I think I saw someone fall down, so it must have had."

"How high was the hoop?"

"Uhm.. i'm not really sure. Let's just kind've stick one up and guess at it."

And through such a process, a game is born that has a lot of semblance to basketball.. except for the random football elements in it that end up changing the tactics and the like completely.. At least until someone else remembers they didn't tackle each other, but by then there are entire leagues of the way they came up with, so the two end up being different things entirely. And they never did figure out exactly how to keep score. But they can still stomp visiting athletes!

Every generation must use what they are given to rebuild their art anew. They only have the previous generation to appease with their interpretation.. usually.

I've said it before - the core of a martial art is just a few seeds. All the strategies and variant techniques spring out of those few techniques, attitudes, body dynamics, and philosophies. If we can communicate that seed vividly to new students, the art will be kept alive.

[Jeffrey]

I agree but would much rather use the term evolve rather than change.

[JusticeZero]

I don't like using "evolve". I know how the word is correctly and incorrectly used in context, and it gets misused a lot. Particularly as what I described is philosophically probably closer to Lamarck rather than Darwin, and "evolution" was coined to describe Darwin (who didn't actually use the word) rather than Lamarck (who was soundly disproven by the genetics discoveries to follow which verified Darwin.)

[Jeffrey]

I don't like using "evolve". I know how the word is correctly and incorrectly used in context, and it gets misused a lot. Particularly as what I described is philosophically probably closer to Lamarck rather than Darwin, and "evolution" was coined to describe Darwin (who didn't actually use the word) rather than Lamarck (who was soundly disproven by the genetics discoveries to follow which verified Darwin.)

Ok Mr. Zero,

You win

Honestly I use both. But when you talk about a sport or a Martial Art you can "change" the rules. Which I think you example clearly points out. But when you keep everything the same but change maybe one small thing like increasing a racket size but a 1/4" I consider that evolution of a sport. Not to be confused with my new genetical enhanced super MMA guy.

[Jay]

I see where you coming from in that as long as you retain the essence you can change the rest as much as you like the underlying principle or idea stays the same. Personally I think this is correct. I really think that all martial arts have the same principles deep down they are just used differently. For instance some of us throw punches which is just based on the scientific principle of floor reaction. But although we use the same principle we all look different. All grappling styles are based on the effective use of leverage which is force x distance. But they don't look the same either.

[JusticeZero]

Well, there are some principles that are the same. Some are different, though. In one of the threads in KMA I addressed a controversy where some people were claiming that one of the Taekkyon variants had roots in Capoeira, which is what I do. So I looked at some clips. The power generation used for kicks by the Korean martial arts are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the power generation principles used by Capoeira (and others in it's class). As such, they were very distinctive from each other, by simply watching the lines of force. We both kick, but where we generate the power differs so dramatically that the kicks don't look at all similar if you know what to look for.

Specifically, the Korean arts open the hips and turn to the side to use the long muscles of the legs, whereas Capoeira twists the spine and closes the hips in order to use the muscles of the core. They both work great, but the principles are alien to each other in ways.

Then you have rule differences. Hand people the rulebook for American football, and they will on their own develop all the strategies and tactics that make the game complex. Boxing's stance and strategies changed drastically soon after gloves were introduced. And so on.

Just a few core fundamentals and the whole art can be recovered from it. It might not look exactly the same, but what art hasn't changed?

Therefore, it is our responsibility to dig down and isolate these core elements. When it is time to have students, these are the things we should make sure they know. If Armageddon happens, and all you have left in your art is a devoted yellow belt - such as has happened to some arts, KMA i'm looking at you, along with most of the reconstruction efforts - that yellow belt should be able to experiment with people and recreate a pretty decent interpretation of your art.

[DWx]

Interesting perspective Justice. I agree to a certain extent that you can try to recreate a style by just learning the core principles. In fact to be honest, over the years I've found that if your students have a good base in the fundamentals, you can give them any move to do and they do it right straight off. If they've got the principles and body mechanics sorted you can ask them to copy something like a punching action and they usually just fill in the blanks like correct hip rotation, timing, breathing etc.

When looking at the TKD example, you can't talk TKD history without talking about the political climate of the time. They didn't want their martial art to be linked to the Japanese and they wanted some link to their own culture. Enter Taekkyon. Nice 1000yr old Korean style that looks a lot different to Karate. They tried to make what they were doing into Taekkyon, or at least closely related, so maybe your theory of the yellow belt trying to reconstruct a style would be appropriate. Even so far as in naming Taekwon-Do, Gen. Choi was supposed to have pointed out the link and similarity of the name with "Taekkyon".

[JusticeZero]

Right. I suspect that there were some vague memories of Taekkyon floating around, so Choi tried to use a lot of kicks that were close to the little he remembered for nationalistic reasons.. then they found someone who kind've sort've vaguely remembered the actual rules, probably, and again motivated by nationalistic pride encouraged a lot of energy to be poured into rebuilding from that.

[DWx]

Yeah I'd go with that theory. The Gen. himself apparently trained in it when he was younger too.

I'd guess that part of it too was to make it "better" than Karate as well. As far as I know Karate guys don't try to pull all the spinning, 360+ jumping kicks. "Special techniques", as they're called, definitely play a part in Gen. Choi's TKD and are kinda what you see in Taekkyon.

[sensei8]

At the core, imho, a punch is just a punch, etc. Outside of the envelope, things change/evolve/transition/transform/etc from what is found at the core of any martial art technique.

They say that change is inevitable, true, however, is that for everything or just some things? I'd say, in the martial arts, it's some things because at times, practitioners aren't willing to adapt/change/etc self and/or any said technique because they don't want to and/or they don't know how to.

Edited June 5, 2011 by sensei8