TKD Forms; a running comparison

[DWx]

So since Brian posted his video, I have a few of me around this time last year doing the ITF 3rd dan ones. By far not the best performance you will see as we were just running through these but you get the idea. Choi Yong is pretty awful with regards to the side kicks as I'm not very flexible.

Yoo Sin 06/02/14: http://youtu.be/M-8nMZo_i2k

Choi Yong 06/02/14: http://youtu.be/9Vi0Pz0FTXY

Sam Il 06/02/14: http://youtu.be/h6js5zGJFyU

Yoo Sin was my choice for competition so will try to upload something videoed at a tournament. And I totally agree Brian with regards to the kicking segments, I hate that bit! Just about ok with my right leg but my left really sucks.

[DWx]

FWIW, I'd thought I'd share my observations of the role Poomsae has played in Kukk-TKD in the last 30 years. Or at least my experience of it.

My first instructor had no direct connection to GM PARK Hae Man (as my current one does) so that, I'm sure colors my experience a lot. Had I been connected to GM PARK then, I'm sure Poomsae would have been taken more seriously. For us, and many other schools in the early-mid 80's, sparring was everything! Poomsae was less important to say the least. There were no seminars on Poomsae...no standardized way of doing them. The one thing everyone seemed to agree on was Koryo. It was the one Poomsae that students concentrated on more than others. It fact, in my experience, no matter what BB rank one was, it was the Poomsae one performed (or was asked to perform). I remember buying a Poomsae book by GM Pugil Kwon in around 1986 (it was written in 1984) and it was the first time I'd even heard of Keumgang and Tae Bek..let alone seen them performed. I did know anything about higher rank Poomsae (Pyongwon etc.) until much later.

My understanding (I was in an ITF-style school at that time, so I'm not sure), is that Poomsae began to be standardized in the late 90's when Kukkiwon added their "Instructors Course" for foreign (non-Korean) instructors and pushing the importance of the Instructors Course for Korean masters abroad. As a result, the value of Poomsae increased in the eyes of Kukki-TKDoan around the world.

There has been quite an evolution of the importance placed on Kukki-TKD Poomsae in my experience in the last 30 years.

Sorry to take us back a few posts but I find this really interesting. Admittedly my experience in TKD is a lot shorter but it has always seemed to me as we regard patterns as being really really important in ITF. You very rarely get sparring seminars, all seem to be on in depth pattern study. There is also a real pressure for everyone everywhere to be the same, there is very little room for personal touches, especially when it comes to competition patterns.

[DWx]

Btw here's a clip of Hwang Suil alongside Hwoarang in Tekken doing the Sam Il victory bit

[bushido_man96]

Thanks for posting Brian Looks pretty strong.

Thanks!

So I can't speak for the other forms but in Chon Ji I think you are right in the stance width causing the shift off the mark. The width of your front stance is similar to the length of your L-stance so you are gaining half a stance on the two turns to the front and back and not regaining this ground with your L-stance. To get back on the mark you would either have to narrow your front stance or increase the length of your L-stance.

I hope this is okay? (I will take it down if you like) but maybe this will help demonstrate:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6nuE0F8dpfXM0JZdmh3dk80M3M/view?usp=sharing

The red pair of lines and blue pair of lines are the same distance apart on each photo. The red pair is the width I would normally teach a front stance to be (inline with your shoulder sockets), the blue pair is the actual width of your front stance. As you can see the blue pair actually matches the length of your L-stance. Whereas I would typically suggest an L-stance is 1.5 times whatever your stance width is in a front stance. You are effectively crab walking yourself half a stance to your left every time you turn to face the front or back. To make up for this and get back on the mark, you either need to pull the front stance width in to the red lines OR make your L-stance 1.5x the blue length.

Hope that makes sense?

I don't mind at all! That's a cool tool you used there, and that just takes this thread to the next level of awesome! Thanks for showing it here. As I watched the video more, I did see that my front stance was quite wide, which doesn't make much difference going forward and backward, but does when turning. Like I mentioned, I tried to focus on that when I practiced further, and it seemed to make a difference. Another issue may be the way I do back stances (L-stances). I was taught that in back stances, the heels stay in line, and I see in a lot of ITF manuals that they are not lined up, so this could be causing part of the issue, as well.

So since Brian posted his video, I have a few of me around this time last year doing the ITF 3rd dan ones. By far not the best performance you will see as we were just running through these but you get the idea. Choi Yong is pretty awful with regards to the side kicks as I'm not very flexible.

Yoo Sin 06/02/14: http://youtu.be/M-8nMZo_i2k

Choi Yong 06/02/14: http://youtu.be/9Vi0Pz0FTXY

Sam Il 06/02/14: http://youtu.be/h6js5zGJFyU

Yoo Sin was my choice for competition so will try to upload something videoed at a tournament. And I totally agree Brian with regards to the kicking segments, I hate that bit! Just about ok with my right leg but my left really sucks.

Thanks for putting those up! They look really good. The balance on Yoo Sin just killed me. As I practice and review my forms more, I'll try to get some more videos up. We can compare and contrast the differences in our forms, and that should be fun, as well.

Btw here's a clip of Hwang Suil alongside Hwoarang in Tekken doing the Sam Il victory bit

So cool! Like I said, you have just added the next level of awesome to this thread! I did love that game. That guy is something else! So quick with his feet.

[IcemanSK]

Sorry to take us back a few posts but I find this really interesting. Admittedly my experience in TKD is a lot shorter but it has always seemed to me as we regard patterns as being really really important in ITF. You very rarely get sparring seminars, all seem to be on in depth pattern study. There is also a real pressure for everyone everywhere to be the same, there is very little room for personal touches, especially when it comes to competition patterns.

During my time in an ITF school, I found tul to be very important, as you point out. While the instructor I had was not a reputable guy (as I found out some years later) he brought in a high level ITF instructor (now master) for seminars. My instructor couldn't care less about tul, so he brought in this other man. This other man would go over each tul in great detail with us. I always got the sense that ITF folks took patterns very seriously.

[DWx]

So I can't speak for the other forms but in Chon Ji I think you are right in the stance width causing the shift off the mark. The width of your front stance is similar to the length of your L-stance so you are gaining half a stance on the two turns to the front and back and not regaining this ground with your L-stance. To get back on the mark you would either have to narrow your front stance or increase the length of your L-stance.

I hope this is okay? (I will take it down if you like) but maybe this will help demonstrate:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6nuE0F8dpfXM0JZdmh3dk80M3M/view?usp=sharing

The red pair of lines and blue pair of lines are the same distance apart on each photo. The red pair is the width I would normally teach a front stance to be (inline with your shoulder sockets), the blue pair is the actual width of your front stance. As you can see the blue pair actually matches the length of your L-stance. Whereas I would typically suggest an L-stance is 1.5 times whatever your stance width is in a front stance. You are effectively crab walking yourself half a stance to your left every time you turn to face the front or back. To make up for this and get back on the mark, you either need to pull the front stance width in to the red lines OR make your L-stance 1.5x the blue length.

Hope that makes sense?

I don't mind at all! That's a cool tool you used there, and that just takes this thread to the next level of awesome! Thanks for showing it here. As I watched the video more, I did see that my front stance was quite wide, which doesn't make much difference going forward and backward, but does when turning. Like I mentioned, I tried to focus on that when I practiced further, and it seemed to make a difference. Another issue may be the way I do back stances (L-stances). I was taught that in back stances, the heels stay in line, and I see in a lot of ITF manuals that they are not lined up, so this could be causing part of the issue, as well.

MS Paint is a wonderful program

It's the backward turns at 0.29 that is where the big shift occurs:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6nuE0F8dpfXbHlKZVR2VFJlVTg/view?usp=sharing

You should be on the red lines and then land on the yellow lines when you turn. Then when you turn into the L-stance at 0.33, your back left leg is on the yellow line and on your start position. That will lift you across so that you end back up on your mark at 0.50. You can make up the difference with your L-stances if you made them longer but they would have to be long enough to make up for the ground you've lost.

Pro tip: on YouTube you can click the gear icon on the video and you can set the speed to as low as 0.25 so you can watch frame by frame.

FWIW I think your L-stance width is correct by ITF standards. Official ITF standards say the front foot big toe should be inline with the back foot heel. Although for greater stability I would say it can be a little wider, maybe to the point you can put your own fist between your heels but no more.

So since Brian posted his video, I have a few of me around this time last year doing the ITF 3rd dan ones. By far not the best performance you will see as we were just running through these but you get the idea. Choi Yong is pretty awful with regards to the side kicks as I'm not very flexible.

Yoo Sin 06/02/14: http://youtu.be/M-8nMZo_i2k

Choi Yong 06/02/14: http://youtu.be/9Vi0Pz0FTXY

Sam Il 06/02/14: http://youtu.be/h6js5zGJFyU

Yoo Sin was my choice for competition so will try to upload something videoed at a tournament. And I totally agree Brian with regards to the kicking segments, I hate that bit! Just about ok with my right leg but my left really sucks.

Thanks for putting those up! They look really good. The balance on Yoo Sin just killed me. As I practice and review my forms more, I'll try to get some more videos up. We can compare and contrast the differences in our forms, and that should be fun, as well.

This is a slightly better version of Yoo Sin I did in a competition: http://youtu.be/MpmNW_i_Yr8 But as you can see I messed up the kicks! There's also one or two areas that I don't get my stances or turns right, e.g. 0.55 I step in too far on the turn and at 1.18 my L-stance is far too wide. I finish about a stance further forward than where I started.

Btw here's a clip of Hwang Suil alongside Hwoarang in Tekken doing the Sam Il victory bit

So cool! Like I said, you have just added the next level of awesome to this thread! I did love that game. That guy is something else! So quick with his feet.

Hwang Suil did the motion capture for Hwoarang. He's now the Japan team coach and still competes in the veteran division. I've met him a couple of times and was fortunate to train with him a couple of years ago. Really nice guy and I learnt so much on his seminar.

[bushido_man96]

Hwang Suil did the motion capture for Hwoarang. He's now the Japan team coach and still competes in the veteran division. I've met him a couple of times and was fortunate to train with him a couple of years ago. Really nice guy and I learnt so much on his seminar.

This is just a side note, but I've been re-reading A Killing Art, and after all that happened in regards to the relationship between Korea and Japan, it seems a strange juxtaposition for their to be a Japanese TKD team, with a Korean coach. But, that was all years ago.

It's the backward turns at 0.29 that is where the big shift occurs:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6nuE0F8dpfXbHlKZVR2VFJlVTg/view?usp=sharing

You should be on the red lines and then land on the yellow lines when you turn. Then when you turn into the L-stance at 0.33, your back left leg is on the yellow line and on your start position. That will lift you across so that you end back up on your mark at 0.50. You can make up the difference with your L-stances if you made them longer but they would have to be long enough to make up for the ground you've lost.

That is a big help, thank you, Danielle. Like I said, I'm focusing more on the width of my front stances, as that's going to be the easier aspect for me to issue quality control on. If I try to compensate by making my back stances longer, I will have trouble moving out of them, and that will make the forms look worse, and kill my mobility and flow.

Thanks for sharing the competition version of Yoo Sin, as well. I thought it looked good, and I noticed that the arc-hand block/punch sections seemed to be done as a faster combination. Don't sweat the target kick section; that same thing happens to me often. I try to pivot my base leg early to help me keep my balance more as I turn into the kick, instead of swinging my leg and pivoting at the same time. That seems to help me a little bit in retaining my balance. But sometimes, it just feels like my leg "catches," and I end up dipping and botching the techniques.

[bushido_man96]

Bonus TKD coverage this week! I'm making up for being slow last week, so here we go with 4th dan coverage!

4th dan ITF tuls:

Yon Gae:

Ul Ji:

Moon Moo:

Yon Gae: 49 movements, once again along the + diagram. We see a circular motion double ridge hand guarding blocks, not unlike the ATA's black belt circular movements, an X-checking block, a reverse knife hand low block, reverse knife hand W-shaped block, an inner forearm waist block, twin straight forearm checking block, and a low inward knife hand block (ridge hand). Most of the strikes are familiar ones, in different stances, but we see a downward back fist strike, a long fist punch, with all four knuckles extended, and a flying knife hand strike. The form starts out in what appears to me to be a herky-jerky motion, with a technique forwards, then one going backwards (but still to the front), and this continues for the up/down section of the pattern diagram. It doesn't seem to go much more than a stance forward or backward (which would work well for me, keeping it on the line). When the form starts to go side to side, it looks like it gets a bit of a Poe Eun feel to it, until the student turns backwards for a reverse hooking kick. There are also a couple of jump reverse turning kicks in the form, as well, adding a bit of challenge. I do like the short, burstiness of the beginning of the form, where you have moves you can commit good power to before moving to the next move.

Ul Ji: 42 movements, with a floor pattern that looks like -L, kind of, but the left hash is connected to the top of the L. Many similar movements, in different stances. There is a twin side fist horizontal strike, a palm pushing block, inner middle forearm wedging blocks. As for kick, there is a flying high kick. We see some more kicking in combinations in this form, and the "flying high kick" appears to be a jumping front kick that must target high section. We also see target kick into an elbow strike, and a round kick/reverse kick combination (it looks like a reverse or spin side kick as the second kick). We also see the familiar pressing X-block followed immediately by the rising knife hand X-block, but its followed by a high reverse knife hand strike, with the lead hand being a reinforcement on top of the elbow, which may allude to a grab-and-pull into the strike. There is what appears to be an awkward side kick performed with the fists on the hips, coming from an X-stance, which I wonder about. The jump kick is referred to in the Encyclopedia as a "mid-air kick," but appears to me to be what I have always called a jump reverse side kick. A really interesting move is where the inner forearm wedging blocks are executed simultaneously with a front snap kick, which makes sense that the counter should happen fairly quickly upon blocking. There is also a very long step at about .30 in the video where he goes from a sitting stance with the right foot back, facing the front, and the right foot step all the way around, counter-clockwise, to a right front/walking stance; a very long step, like a 270 degree turn done in an unnatural way.

Moon Moo: 61 moves, on the trusty + diagram. Here, we see a very challenging kicking form, and along with that, we see balance challenged. We see several slow execution blocks in a one-leg stance. We see a side pushing kick, a side checking kick, a side thrusting kick (with the ball of the foot doing the striking), a high twisting kick (which I'm out on...), and slowly performed high reverse hooking kicks. There are consecutive kicks herein, with a slow side kick followed by quick side kick. A high reverse turning kick, performed with the leg straight, challenges the student to kick with all that momentum and then stop, before setting the foot down. This will be a challenging form.

GTF 4th dan hyung, Sun Duk:

68 movements, and on a very odd floor pattern. It also starts out in an odd manner, with the ready position being sitting cross-legged with fists on top of knees. Its named for Queen Sun Duk of the Silla Dynasty, and the diagram represents "Lady." It starts with a kneeling side kick/hooking kick combo, then gets up and goes from there. We see the GTF hallmark of lots of kicking techniques, especially jumping kicks, in this form like the past GTF black belt additions. We see combos like inner crescent kick to jump spin inner crescent kick, a high hooking kick followed by a flying hooking kick, etc. There are also standing kicking combinations like a front snap kick followed by a back leg side piercing kick. There is even a high twisting kick followed by a jumping twisting kick. Another tough one is the middle outward vertical checking kick, which then has to stop its motion and go into a consecutive side thrusting kick. We also see a 3 kick combination where there is a low side checking kick, followed consecutively by a high side thrusting kick, and then followed by a high reverse turning kick. The form finishes by going back to the knees with kneeling kicks, and ends in the same starting position. Another challenging GTF form.

WTF/Kukki 4th dan Poomsae, Pyongwon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKEoLlu0SYM

25 movements, along a straight line --. It means "plain" or "vast field of land," thus I thin fitting to covering just a straight line, or plain. It has a very Poe Eun or Naifanchi feel to it, as it goes along its straight line, but the WTF wasn't afraid to go facing to the side along the line to throw in some kicking combinations, so it has its own flair as well as the Poe Eun feel. What I see as interesting is that it starts going one move to the right, and then goes left, with a knife hand block, to an elbow strike going away from the forward facing, then a front kick to reverse side kick combo, before facing forward, and we have two pulling back fist strikes. Then stepping along the line like Poe Eun with double high elbows to the side in cross-leg stance, to a mountain block, to a crane stance and diamond block, then into a hinge block (fists on hips position, still in crane stance), and then the form begins to repeat shortly thereafter. A very straight forward form, with some challenges with balance in the crane stances.

ATA 4th dan Poomsae, Sok Bong:

84 moves. This form moves into doing some work on the floor, too, but in this form, we see a spinning heel kick, followed by a sweeping hook kick, then follows the kneeling round kick. The form continues a bit longer than the others on the ground, coming up to a more erect one-knee position while blocking and striking before rising completely. We see some familiar moves in the U-shaped punch, and an open-hand wedging block. Posing an interesting challenge are the jumping front kicks that go into three different directions, and you only get to land on one leg when going from one kick to the next. We see jumping kicks followed by standing kicks, which we tend to see the other way around in other forms. We see slow blocking a lot with both hands involved, and a palm pressing block that I don't think we've seen in any ATA forms yet. We see a consecutive front/round/hook kick combo followed by a step into a hook/round consecutive kick combo. And then an interesting upward arc hand strike or grab, maybe grabbing the chin(?), and then a hammer fist strike. After repeating some sections, the form finishes with a flurry of circular blocks from one side to the other, and then back to the ready position.

So, there we have it, 4th dan forms. All challenging, all tiring to do, and all presenting lots of challenges for the TKD practitioners.

Edited April 7, 2015 by bushido_man96

[truejim]

So ITF folks have to learn 150+ steps among three forms, GTF folks have to learn 220+ steps among four forms, ATA folks have to learn one form with 84 steps...and Kukkiwon/WTF folks have to learn one form with only 25 steps!

That seems like a markedly different emphasis on learning forms among the various taekwondo styles at the higher dan levels!

[IcemanSK]

I noticed the strong feel of Poe Eun in Pyongwon from the first time I saw it. They are a very similar in style and challenge. The hakdari seogi (crane stance with Keumgang makki followed by a side kick) of Pyongwon is a further challenge of the nearly same technique found in Tae Bek. In Tae Bek, we go from the one-legged hakdari seogi with hands in hinged-shaped block. But in Pyongwon, we have the added challenge of Keumgang makki before doing the hinge-shaped block. The added challenge to one's balance is multiplied with the Keumgang makki of Pyongwon.

There is a paper written for Kukkiwon high Dan test that an author did at Kukkiwon. He went through each yudanja Poomsae and discussed (among other things) a possible significance of that Poomsae for that rank. In it, he notes, "Pyongwon is the shortest poomsae of all the Kukkiwon poomsae, which tells the 4th Dan that for this dan, his focus is not on his own training, the training of his students." The author goes on to say how this Poomsae is like the mirroring an instructor does "going back and forth across the dojang floor, teaching his or her students." As some may know, in order to be licensed to teach Taekwondo in Korea, one needs to have 4th Dan KKW and pass the Instructor's Course KKW teaches. One cannot own or run a dojang in Korea until 4th Dan. This author's thought (which seems reasonable to me) is that, at 4th Dan, learning to run one's own dojang (and teaching students) is the priority.