Wednesday 5 October 2022

Geom or Do? How language changes in martial arts



Hi there :-) I have been going full Muyedobotongji rabbit hole these last few months :-P I have posted a lot of stuff on facebook, and one of the things I wrote was that the Sang H. Kim's translation of the Muyedobotongji is a wonderful resource, but it does contain flaws and errors, and the biggest "flaw" for me was that he did not include any Hanja or Hangul for any of the Korean terms. This means that you get quite a few paragraphs containing interesting and vital information that comes out as pure guibberish. The section that annoyed me at that time of writing was in the Yedo chapter where he translates: 

"There are four strategic fighting methods in Chosun; ahnbub, kyukbub, sebup and jabup." 

Now reading this you get four strategic fighting methods and four words that you have no idea what it is supposed to be. Had he included the hanja and or hangul you might be able to use this to research into the matter and come up with something, but since there are only latin alphabet and he does not transcribe into it following a strict transcription system you really can just guess at that he means. Even if you speak Korean this makes the job impossible and it would really be so much better if he or the publisher could just include the terms in the Hanja at least. Hanja is traditional characters of Chinese origin by the way.

Tuesday 13 September 2022

Product review on Training Katana (Iaito) from Ryan Swords





You can click the link below if you want to go directly to YouTube :-) 

https://youtu.be/Y9E5E4dRoOQ


Product review on a training sword from Ryan Swords. Unsharpened Katana (Iaito), Ryan-1316. Short answer: I’m very pleased with it 🙂 You want the long answer? Go check out the video and I’ll give you an 11 minute rant 😂


Thursday 1 September 2022

Solo Sword Training [Yedo24Se]





 Filmed myself so I could get feedback from my teacher :-) It was a lovely evening with very nice weather :-) In my last two posts I’ve written about Yedo 24 Se it’s history and a list on the different postures (we train each posture as a mini form).  It’s still a work in progress and there’s a ton of things that needs improving but I thought you guys and gals might want to see the forms in real life and not just old illustrations :-)  I do each one 4 times slow for technique and then 4 times with “intent”. It’s not all 24 here but rather 15 (or 14 as I managed to skip one) 

Wednesday 24 August 2022

Yedo Ishipsa Se (List, illustrations, hangul)

Open Wing Posture

In my last post on Yedo Ishipsa Se (Yedo 24 postures) I shared the historical background, the sources we know of, the introduction into Korean Military Manuals and an overview of the system itself. What I failed to include was a list over the postures. I want to make clear that in the system I practice we regard each "Se" which is often translated as posture as a mini form consisting of 3-8 moves. For instance in the first posture: Keo Jeong Se (Kettle lifting posture) we don't just asume a pose, we move into a starting pose, do a diagonal cut from that pose, into a horizontal cut before ending with a centerline downward cut. 3 techniques for that first "posture". This applies to each and every "posture" in the  Ishipsa ban Muye Kyeongdang (which is where I get all my weapon training and muyedobotongji stuff from. As always: I remind everyone I am a yellow belt :-P You should probably keep that in  mind :-)

Sunday 14 August 2022

Yedo24se (short sword 24 forms) history and background

 I've written before about my study into weapons and how I relate that to "my" taekwondo. The last two years I have delved deeper down into that rabbit hole and I have gotten much more hands on instruction (as well as a lot of online training) and so I wanted to start sharing this aspect on this blog too. If you think that is inapropriate as this is a taekwondo blog please say so in the comments and if I get a lot of feedback like that I will open a seperate blog on that aspect of my training and study. If I don't hear anything I will just keep posting that stuff here as well as what people consider "taekwondo". After all this is a blog on "my" Taekwondo so in my mind it fits right in here  :-) 

This time I would like to write a little bit about Yedo Ishipsa Se (Yedo = Short sword, Ishipsa =24 and Se = posture loosely translated). This is a system consisting of 24 illustrations that first appears in print in 1621 in Wu Bei Zhi or as the Korean calls it the Mubiji. The book is an incredible big publication, and it is said to be the biggest Chinese military writing of all time. In it the author Mao Yan-yi (or Mo Won-ui  in Korean) includes an art he labels Choson Sebup (Korean Sword Technique). 

Sunday 12 December 2021

Short discussion on the learning of Poomsae

I have thought about this on and off for a very long time now. Actually I started thinking about this at the very beginning of when it dawned on me how Poomsae contained so much more than block kick punch methods of how to deal with combat. I quickly realized that the most logical way of training and teaching Poomsae was with application being taught first or at least along side the form move for move. This was later "confirmed" or at least some Karate researchers agreed with me (Patrick Mcarthy for instance) that Kata was taught after the applications had been mastered, as a way to remember them and as a solo excersise format. I have sometimes thought that if I ever get to "master level" (that would be 4th Dan in my org) I should start my own Dojang or perhaps take much more responsibility in the one I currently train and study in, and one thing I was wondering was if I should revamp the way we teach Poomsae. I have shared the way I view Taegeuk Il Jang quite extensively so my future students could in theory learn at least one "good" application for each move in the Poomsae with partner drills and live testing of some if not all applications very soon after they started training.

Thursday 4 March 2021

[Norwegian lang] Live stream Taekwondo History Part 2: Founding of Kwan & modern development of TKD

https://youtu.be/zHlCRICdwOk



Here in Norwegian language I pick up from last time starting with the founding of the different major Kwan (schools) in the 1940s and 50s and then go on to tak about the development of modern Taekwondo, the Korean Tang Soo Do, Taekwondo, Tae Soo Do and back to Taekwondo  Association, it’s counterpart The Korean Soo Bahk Do Association, the development of Korean forms Hyung, Tul, Poomsae, the development of modern competition sparring and kicking techniques and then I show examples of stuff we train today in our syllabus in traditional Taekwondo Union from older Korean martial arts manuals and Karate manuals. 


I am thinking of doing this again it in English as there has been some interest in this material :-)