Richard Chun and Moo Duk Kwan

[taichi4eva]

I went to Kinokuniya last weekend and found a book by Richard Chun entitled "Moo Duk Kwan Taekwondo." Knowing Richard Chun to be a big guy in the Taekwondo, I immediately looked inside at the Table of the Contents- everything you would find in a martial arts book except the hyungs were all different.

 

Moo Duk Kwan always struck me as what Taekwondo (or Kong Soo Do) must have been before the unification of the kwans, but Richard Chun's version was weird- it oulined the Palgwe's which were the older versions of the Taegueks, the Kibons (looked like Shotokan Taikyoku Kata), Chulki (Naihanji), and Pal Seck (Bassai).

 

Are these all the hyungs practiced in this style of Moo Duk Kwan? Does anybody practice it?

 

Thanks

[JaseP]

The Moo Duk Kwan was founded by Hwang Kee (sirname Hwang, given name Kee) in 1946. GM Hwang eventually incorporated the Pyung Ahn hyungs (Pinan or Heian depending on what Japanese or Okinawan art you are familiar with). The reasoning was that more people were familiar with these forms. Hwang never had Japanese or Okinawan instructor (only a Chinese one). Hwang found the forms in a book in the Seoul trainstation library.

 

Around 1960, a unification movement started to try to merge the Kwans (then numbering around 9). At first the art was to be called Tae Soo Do. Hwang Kee and a couple of other Kwan leaders balked at the orginization (didn't like the direction, didn't like giving up control, didn't like spreading the money around). In 1965 or so, Hwang resigned from the unification movement and the Moo Duk Kwan was fractured into 2 camps, those who stayed Tang Soo Do/Soo Bahk Do, and those who went to the Tae Kwon Do side. Richard Chun was amoung the group that went to the Tae Kwon Do side.

 

The Tae Kwon Do Moo Duk Kwan kept their more traditional roots as compared to the other Kwans, and so many still use the Pyung Ahn, Bassai, and Naihanchi form sets. (I should note that the Okinawan form sets are only a part of the Tang Soo Do/Soo Bahk Do form sets, others being Korean).

[RF_Brown]

A couple of URLs that might be of help to you. For a history of Tang Soo Do hyungs read: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Pagoda/9536/pyong_ahn.html

 

The best history of TaeKwonDo on the Internet that I have come across can be found at: http://www.indiana.edu/~iutkd/history/tkdhist.html