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Post by oerjan on Jan 24, 2012 13:01:26 GMT
Hi. I really liked the interview with master Black. It was extremly interesting as well as entertaining to read. I am looking forward to part two:-)
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Post by oerjan on Jan 24, 2012 12:59:16 GMT
Hi everyone. I was thinking about this the other day. Most martial arts from China/Japan/Okinawa and Korea does form in their practise. What struck me the other day was that many things seem to repeat themselves in many forms across the different "styles". For instance
many (not all) forms seems to start toward the left
many forms start with a movement that many interpret as a "block"
many forms end up on the (roughly) same spot as it started
many forms contain techniques repeated 3 times in a row
most of the turns in forms done 360 or 270 degrees follow a clockwise direction.
etc.
The thing I was wondering is why does these things appear in so many different forms in so many different "styles"? And I was also wondering if there are more traits that appear that I have not thought of?
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Post by oerjan on Jan 13, 2012 7:36:40 GMT
I have also studied the Korean language and spent one year studying Korean culture, language and Taekwondo in Korea. I too feel that learning the writing system of Korean (Hangul) helps imensly if you are using Korean words and phrases in your training.
I have always studied under a Korean master so he naturally uses some Korean in training. All our techniques are said in Korean, but explanations are done in Norwegian (or English if there are foreign students present). Other than the techniques we have a few phrases like "turn", "salute the flag" etc that we use.
The reason I am mentioning this is that when I first travelled to Korea I did not speak any Korean except "Taekwondo-Korean". But my Taekwondo-Korean was at a decent level since I hear it spoken out loud from my Korean master. This helped me in my university Taekwondo classes all the time. The teachers there did not alway use long explanations or anything mostly they said what we needed to do, and I could follow because we used Korean in our training in Norway as well.
Then the university got a visit from another foreign student. He was a 5th Dan so he outranked most of the Korean students in the class. He could not follow the class at all always looking like a question mark. He did not understand a word that the teacher said (the teacher did not speak any English). It turned out that the foreign student only learned Taekwondo in English without any Korean in it, and he did not understand why anyone practising Taekwondo outside Korea would use any Korean words in their training.
He was baffled that me and a friend (both from Norway) could follow the classes so easily since we were both foreigners. I explained that we used Korean in our training in Norway as well and that had helped us a great deal during our stay. He still did not understand why we did not teach in our native tounge when in Norway and I said that we "teach" in our native tounge (all explanations are in Norwegian) but all the techniques names and a few commands are in Korean.
What I am trying to say is that combining the two languages (your students native tounge and Korean) is good for people who wants to go outside the comfort of your own dojang and practise anywhere else. English is a world language but for most high ranking Korean grandmasters English is not spoken at all in training. They do not speak English. I can travel to Korea to practise and follow the class at a decent level, but I can also go to USA or England and practise because I speak English too (somewhat anyway:-p ).
One of my senior students travelled to Tunisia to practise and she was pleasently suprised that they too used Korean in their training so she could follow the class really well:-) She had been nervous as she did not speak their native language.
That being said as the opening post implies traditionally the students of Taekwondo spoke Korean as their native language and ALL training was done in said language. Today if they practise martial arts from foreign countries they have their own Korean names for them and all training is conducted in Korean.
For instance a Karate student in Norway would learn a little Japanese and call his art Karate not "tom hånd". In Korea they would not practise "karate" they would practise Kongsudo and they would only speak Korean. In Norway a student of Wushu/Chuan Fa or Kung Fu would call his art by said names and learn a little Chinese. In Korea they would call the art Kwon Bup and speak Korean during class.
This gives Korean students an advantage in cross training that other countries does not share. Could you imagine a Norwegian teen learning a little Japanese, Korea and Chinese if he wanted to practise Karate, Taekwondo and Chuan Fa? Would it not be easier for him to practise in just Norwegian? I guess there are two sides of the same coin here, and that it has its pros and cons when it comes to practise with foreign language versus native language. I still personally think that delving a little in Korean for instructors and senior students of Taekwondo is good for the aforementioned reasons.
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