Originally posted by Fluffy
View Post
"Tang-Soo-Do" is what a Korean thinks when he reads the Chinese characters (Hanmoon) for "Tang Dynasty-Hand-Way" (English), or, better known as Kara-ta-do to the Japanese (as voted on and approved by Okinawan masters in the 1930's) and most of the world, often translated in English as "China Hand Way".
The very first school or Kwan to use the words Tang Soo Do in Korea was in 1944, that school was the Chung Do Kwan, founder by Won Kuk Lee, a student of Gichin Funakoshi at Chou University in Japan in the 1930's and 1940's. Won Kuk Lee convinced the founders of Moo Duk Kwan and Song Moo Kwan to use the name Tang Soo Do as well.
All the other six Kwan's used the name Kong-Soo-Do, meaning "Empty Hand Way", the first Kwan to use that name being the Chosun Yun Moo Kwan Kong Soo Do Bu (Later changed it's name to Jidokwan).
Through a series of conflicts and meetings, all the Kwan's finally decided to use the name Taekwondo which was created at a meeting in 1954, presided over by then Gen. Choi Hong Hi, one of the founders of the Oh Do Kwan.
However, the second school or Kwan to use the Tang Soo Do name, the Moo Duk Kwan, under Hwang Kee, who later changed his schools name to Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan after he left the movement toward merging the kwans into Taekwondo, is the school and it's spin off's that are today most well known as Tang Soo Do.
So, Tang Soo Do was originally more closely related to Shotokan, however it mutated and became different from both Shotokan and Taekwondo and it remains that way to this day. However, the majority of Moo Duk Kwan members joined the merger into Taekwondo, and the Taekwondo Moo Duk Kwan still exist today as a social club that has Kukkiwon Taekwondo as it's curriculum.
Taekwondo moved more in the direction of the original Okinawan teachers, like Funakoshi, Mabuni and Toyama as far as it's base curriculum is concerned, when Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan muted the style and called it - it's own.
Later, Taekwondo, moving even closer to the Okinawan style for basic movement, and keeping all the sparring methods of Shotokan, Shito-Ryu and Shudokan, added one more additional sparring method that the world now knows as "Olympic Taekwondo Sparring"
However, to identifiy Kukkiwon Taekwondo with only the sparring style seen in the Olympics demonstrates a shallow understanding of Taekwondo and Korean martial art history, as you can see from my commentary, there is much more to modern Taekwondo than the style of sparring used in the Olympic Summer Games.
Best Regards,
Alcohol
Leave a comment: