This is an attempt to provide an objective view on Taekwon-dohistory. There are other sources for TKD history on the net, someobjective and some not.
Taekwon-do (TKD) is an Martial Art with its origin from Korea. One"problem" with the TKD history is that it is not one art but several simmilar arts using the same name. The name of Taekwon-do, and the styluses (there are several TKDstyluses, just as there are several Karate styluses) as weknow them did first develop after World War II. This makes TKD one of the youngest Martial Arts today. TKD is still, moreor less (dependent of which stylus we consider), underdevelopment.
This chapter is to give a little background on the development of fighting arts in Korea, before the making of TKD. I belive that everyone is effected by their history, and therefore TKD may have some influence from ancient Korean Matrial Arts/Budo arts.
Remember that TKD is not an old/ancient Budo art.
One smal "problem" with the old history is that it is werry much based on legends, and facts and writen sources are not so common. The oldest sources is Samuk Sagi and Samuk Yuksa [fyll in tid ~Silla], then thereis little or no written Korean sources betore the "Majebi Toegi" (~1500)
The historians seems to agree that the old Koreanhand- and foot-fight methods had its origin in China (T'hang Dynasty) and wasimported to Korea through the trading between the countries. No or little of this training are known today. There is "myths" telling about a chinese monk teaching T'hang MA (Kung Fu?) in Korean Bhudist themples in "ancient times", but I have not yet found anything else than the myts in this matter. There is also some info on Tae Kyon, but this is hardly any Martial Art. According to S. Culin [X] this is an Korean game where you use foot techniques to push youropponent out of ballance. Someone claims it to be from ~1500 and some (among them Robert Yung [Y])states that it did not appear before in the 1800's. WTF sources claims that there is mentioning of SuBak (Tae Kyon?) in the Samuk SAgi/Yuksa - I am to check this out.
Historically is the start of the Korean budo-art often placed in theperiod of the three kingdoms Silla, Koguryo and Baek Je (Paekje) for about1400 years ago. (Someone told me that there is recently discovered that there was four kingdoms,the fourth being Kaya, "the lost kingdom". Other sources have told me that this fourth Kingdom only lived for a short period before concured by the Silla - and therefore has no/little knowledge in elder writtings.)Theese three (four) kingdoms was rivaling for hegemony and it's said that they establiched elite military forces. ("Chouisonin" in Koguryo and "Hwnarangdo" inSilla.)
The WTF claims that "muyedibi-tongji" ,one book form around 1500 describing martial arts , describies an MA called Taekwondo. There is only the WTF that claims this - other sourcesdescribes it as SuBak, TaeKyon, T'hang style etc. In my opinnion, I have not read the book, it can not be TKD as TKD first developed after WWII.The HwaRang do - Taekwon do myth.
Silla, the smallest kingdom, was often attachedby Baek Je (from vest) and Koguryo (from north).Because of this it was important for the Silla-dynasty to build astrong military force with strong leaders to protect theindependency and freedom of Silla. The 24. king, Chin Heung, tookthe initiative to form a group elite boys. The group wasnamed Hwa-Rang-do (Hwa = flower, Rang = boy but often translated to the less accurate "yuth" [WP]) and was formed in the year 540 a.c. The myth is saying thet the Hharang's was an elite millitarry force, but the research of W.Pieter a.o. [???] shows little evidence of this. Other sources [HD]shows some relasationsbetween Hwa Rang and MA/War training. There is some talk about Hwarang in the "Samuk Sagi" [X] and "Samuk Yusa" [X] , where some is about the Hwarang individuals as millitarry leaders. The Hwarang was selected from the nest highest class (bone-classes) in the Korean sosiety (the "True Bone" class"), and there was only people from this class thatcould fill "high" possition, among them millitarry leaders, in the sosiety - so ther is reasons to belive that some (or all) of the Hwarangdid get millitarry education - but not to the same extention as the Japaneze samurai class. The Hwa Rang was mailytrained to work in court [WP,HD].The Wha-Rang's war trained in strong mental and physical discipline as well as writting, performance, "gentlemacy",archery, serving the state etc. I have not yet found any sign in the Sagi telling what type , if any, of MAthe Hwa Rang trained. There is a myth that the Hwa Rang followed the five codes of human conduct given bythe Korean Buddhist-munch and teacher Won Kang, but as I understang the translation of the Sagi is that there was twosoliders, that might have been Hwa Rangs, that asked Won Kang for theese codes. Anyway the codes of conduct where:
There are other translations (otheruse of words) of these codes, but the essence is the same.
There is a budo art called Hwa-Rang do today, but it has nothing to do with the ancient Hwa-Rang's to do - except the name. Tae Kyon and Soo Bak is by some people regarded asthe ancestors to Taekwon-do, but this is a hot topic. The Korean fighting arts is said to be dominated byhigh kicks and foot techniques, mainly caused by the country'stopography. Many of the soldiers was foot soldiers, and jumping kicks was used againstsoldiers at horse, but still - I have not verryfied this.The Silla dynasty was dissolved in 935 and the Koryo-dynastyfounded (835 - 1392 AD). The king of the Koryo-dynastyis said to arrange yearly tournaments in the fighting-styles. Thetournaments was held at the Kak Chon temple at Ma Am mountain.The competition was open for all soldiers and the winner got asolid price. Winning the tournament demanded effective trainingover a long time, and the prestige of the tournament warsignificant. The competitors had to master 25 pose/positions,hand and foot techniques, falling-techniques and jumpingtechniques. It's mostly correct to mean that the Korean budo-artsfound its shape and was perfected during the Silla- and Koryodynasties.
During the Koryo dynasty, Soo bak once again become popular asan sporting activity as an martial art.In this period the Mongolshad strong influence on Koryo and in the 13'th century it becomea part of the Mongolian Empire. The 14'th century saw theexpansion of Ming-dynasty (China) and theweakening/contraction of the Mongol empire. In 1392 Yi Songyecame to power in Koryo and started the Yi dynasty.
During the Yi-dynasty (1392 - 1907 AD) the 3. king ofthe dynasty supported the development of the art by employing aexpert to train the army. In the beginning of Yi dynasty Buddhismwas replaced by Confucianism as the State Religion. Confucianismadvocated classical Chinese thinking which played down thephysical side of life and replaced it with classical arts likereading, writing, poetry and music. This, combined with a longperiod of peace, lead to the development of a stronganti-military attitude among the people. As a result of this thebudo training in the army was dissolved. At the end of the Yidynasty there was little left of the budo training, it's said it was almostnon existing. The Korean budo (influenced by Chinese Budo, or vice a verca?) art was only trained at some few locations,mostly in Buddhist temples. During the Yi dynasty, Korea wasunder control by foreigners, particularly China. At the end ofthe 19'th century Korea set up relations with many Westernnations in an effort to offset Japanese influence.
In 1905 Korea become under control by Japan, and from 1910occupied by Japan. In the beginning many Korean started to trainJapanese budo as theese arts war trained in school, but after a while (in 1909) all budo-training was forbidden.The budo-art survived through people who trained it illegally,especially the Tae Kyon system. In this period the Korean peoplealso got impulses form Japan's budo-art's, especially Karate. Theperiod of Japanese occupation was a hard time for Korea, but thisnot a topic in this article.
During this time Tae Kyon was teached by, among others, Hue Lim, Han Il Dong and later Duk Ki Song (Student of Hue Lim). It was under Han Il Dong that Choi Hon He (later to be known as the "fatherof TKD", first president of KTA and founder of ITF) started practising Tae Kyon (sitate Choi: "I had been born frail and weak and was encouraged to learn Taek Kyonat the age of fifteen by my teacher of calligraphy.)
At the same time Hwand Kee (future founder of Tang Soo Do - "Way of the Chineese hand") did study Tae Kyon ans Soo Bak Do. He traveled to China to study Chineese Budo (also known as the T'ang method)
Even if it was forbidden to practise Budo in Korea, it seems to have been legal for Korean to practice Budo in Japan. Several people was sendt to Japan for further education, among them Choi Hong Hi. Theese studentsdid there learn Japanese budo.
During WW2 the Japanese again allowed budo to be practiced, mainly to fulfill military requirements.Japanese budo arts become verry populare in Korea (Judo and Juken-jutsu was introduced in 1941. Karate and Kung Fu [Chineese art] was introduced during 41-43).In 1945 Korea was liberated, andbudo training once more become popular. In a short period oftime, several different budo schools was formed - and several Budo arts resurfaced/surfaced:
The 11. April 1955 there was a meeting between the leaders of these 8 kwans,historians and other prominent people. The goal with the meetingwas to join the Korean budo-art under one banner. (I have a book that claims that there was a government support/iniative for this meeting - other sources is claiming that there was no such support. I hope to get back to this soon.)There is some dispute in my sources of when the name Taekwon-do was proposed:One version is that the first name used for the"unified" art was Tae Soo Do but that this was changed toTaekwon-do in 1957. The second version is that Taekwon-do wasproposed and accepted on the 11. April meeting, and Tae Soo Do was an earlier, but failed, attempt to gather the Korean Budo arts. It is unclear to me who it was that proposed the name: Coi Hong He, Won Kook Lee or some other master. In the official ITF Web (See the bibliography)history it is not claimed that Choi Hong He proposed the name, but some other ITF sources is doing so. Gen. Choi was the head of thegroup who, among other things, desided on the name.
- Tae = foot, kick, break with the foot.
- Kwon = hand, punch, break with the hand.
- Do = art, method, way of living.
The name was accepted. (Some say because the similarity with Tae Kyon, some dissagree. The direct speeking of Tae Kyon is something like "tae gun".) The proposal was later sent to the government who formally recognised Taekwon-Do as the officialname for all Korean budo-art (I do not know the year this happened.)The development of Taekwon-do.
In 1959 the Korean Taekwon-doAssociation (KTA) was formed with support from thegovernment. All of the main kwans joined KTA, except Moo Duk Kwan who formed the Korean Tang Soo Do Assosiation (1953) - later to be renamed to the Korean Soo Bahk Do Assosiation (1960).The first president of KTA was Gen. Choi Hong Hi. Inthe following years "all" Korean budo-arts was "forced" under theleading of KTA. The KTA period (1959-1973) was not a "silent" time. There was dissagreements (political, techniques etc), some masters broke withKTA and formed their "own" style. Some masters left Korea (Some of "natural" causes and some of "political" reasons.) and started teaching abroad - mainly in Asia. From this perion of time I'l only draw the rough lines of TKD-history.In 1966 the International Taekwon-do Federation (ITF)formed with Gen. Choi Hong Hi as president. In 1972 the ITF movesit's headquarters from South-Korea to Canada. In 1973 the WorldTaekwon-do Federation (WTF) formed with Dr. Un Yong Kim aspresident. Today there is several TKD assosiations - some local, some national and a few international.(Like: Tang So Do/So Bahk Do).The newest international TKD organisation is theGlobal Taekwon-do Federation (GTF). It was founded in 1990with Grand Master Park Jung Tae as president.
There may be potholes in this history, things that is missing.I have tried my best to cross-check the information that is usedso that there should be no errors in it. If You have any commentsto this history, if You have discovered any potholes or worsethings that is utterly wrong, I would appreciate if You didcontact me at once. Please mail to oes@pvv.unit.no
Editor: ØyvindSæter - oes@pvv.unit.no
This document is
Version 1.5 - November 1996.
[GTN]