I'm wondering if Moo Duk Kwan/Tang Soo Do/Soo Bahk Do practitioners might be willing to give their views on historical relationships between early MDK and Shotokan Karate. I've read that Hwang Kee studied from a Japanese karate book he supposedly found on a subway in Tokyo, but has this ever been substantiated?

MDK TKD was my first martial art and I earned Chodan a long time ago, so I remember that the early forms are modified Shotokan kata (Kicho, Pyog, and Patsai, at least). What other historical links are there?

I studied MDK TSD for 4 years and I found that every single Hyung had an equivalent Shotokan Kata.

The only Hyungs I found that didn't were Dumon and the ChilSung series.

I never believed the 2000 year history of the art, I would say it's Korea's way of denying its Japanese heritage the same as Japan denied its Chinese heritage with regards to Karate instead of Kodete

Good point. I remember seeing some video of high level MDK forms that looked like Chinese MA, too. Since I'm primarily a Shotokan person I was just wondering if anyone had ever established what early Shotokan instructors or schools contributed to MDK.

I thought I had something that mentioned a link, but I'll do some checking. I remember reading something somewhere, but its been some time ago. Most instructors will only know what they've been told by their instructors, so it may be hard to tell. I imagine Hwang Kee learned Karate from the Japanese during the occupation.

This is just conjecture but I would have thought that MDK developed in a similar way to the various styles of TKD. Most likely Hwang Kee was exposed to Shotokan (as were the other Kwan leaders) and developed a style from there. He probably just kept using Karate kata because he didn't feel the need or want to create new ones just for MDK.

This is a brief biography which does mention him learning from Karate books but doesn't specifically mention any Shotokan teachers: http://www.tangsoodoworld.com/reference/reference_history_of_MDK.htm

I think there was also mention that he supposedly learned Taek Kyon from some ancient master in secret, as well, but, I just don't feel comfortable with that idea, either.

I've also read he was a Yang taiji expert. There is at least one MDK blackbelt form that looks like taiji, but I was never advanced enough to learn it.

Did Hwang Kee study in Japan in the 1930s? He'd be about the right age and many Korean men did so. If we knoew which university he was at then we would know his original style and probably even his instructor. The Japanese college clubs kept pretty good records.

Yes, but for some reason, the Koreans didn't tend to keep their records....