TKD is a style of Karate!
Original Poster: WushuPadawan001
Forum: McDojo Dicussion
Posted On: 11-02-2006, 22:01
Orginal Post: WushuPadawan001: I have a friend who just started taking some martial arts classes at the Houston Karate Association (website follows)
http://www.houstonkarate.com
I had warned my friend about McDojos before, but apparently my advice was not taken seriously as this school teaches, "the style of karate known as American Tae Kwon Do."
I was unaware that TKD is a style of Karate :?
This just screams McDojo to me
:evil:
Post: BLACK PANTA:
TMK TKD was derived from Karate, so it could be concidered a style of Karate.>
Post: WushuPadawan001:
Hmmm, I see where you?re coming from BP.
But TKD and Karate come from Shaolin. So?by the logic that this Karate School is using, TKD and Karate are styles of Shaolin.>
Post: BLACK PANTA:
[quote=WushuPadawan001 Hmmm, I see where you?re coming from BP.
But TKD and Karate come from Shaolin. So?by the logic that this Karate School is using, TKD and Karate are styles of Shaolin.[/quote
*pointing at my nose*>
Post: Hengest:
[quote=WushuPadawan001 Hmmm, I see where you?re coming from BP.
But TKD and Karate come from Shaolin. So?by the logic that this Karate School is using, TKD and Karate are styles of Shaolin.[/quote
They don't come from Shaolin. That's all just myth and propaganda. TKD's roots are tracable back to karate, but karate's roots are more difficult to trace. One concrete fact though is that it has at least been influenced by Fukien White Crane and while Fukien White Crane claims links to Shaolin, it links itself to the Southern Shaolin Temple, which doesn't seem to have ever existed. It was just a myth perpetrated by various Triad-type gangs to give their kung fu styles more credibility.
Shaolin's role in world MA history is nowhere near as large as the Chinese would like you to think.>
Post: WushuPadawan001:
Hmmm, I've read many sources that say otherwise Hengest. We'll have to agreed to disagree on Shaolin's place in history.>
Post: nbotary:
According to Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming, White Crane is the root of Okinawan Karate.>
Post: WushuPadawan001:
I had a chance today to talk to my friend who attends this school. I was told that the reason they call themselves a ?Karate? school, but actually teach TKD, is for marketing purposes. They believe that Karate draws more students than TKD.
On the topic of Shaolin?.well, China was the center of the East Asian world for many centuries. Neighboring lands (even before these areas became officially known as Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, etc.) were extremely influenced by Chinese culture, politics, economy, and religion(s). It is only logical that Chinese martial arts would spread to these lands via missionaries and soldiers.>
Post: Hengest:
[quote=WushuPadawan001 Hmmm, I've read many sources that say otherwise Hengest. We'll have to agreed to disagree on Shaolin's place in history.[/quote
I wrote up a summary of my reasoning on the M&A History thread a while back. As it only makes up a small part of that thread, I'll copy the post here rather than the link to the thread.
Quote: Probably 90%-98% of the "information" appearing in books, magazines and documentaries concerning Shaolin is pure mythology, oral traditions for which there isn't a shred of evidence. The Shaolin temple in Henan did exist and martial arts were practiced there but the rest is legend and little more.
The often posited theory that all kung fu originates from Shaolin is a relatively recent theory, first voiced in 1784 in Zhang Kongzhao's Essentials of Boxing. It was around this time that Shaolin's repututation was starting to grow. Before this time, Shaolin hadn't really figured much in Chinese boxing's history. In Qi Jiguang's New Book of Effective Discipline of 1561, he listed the famous boxing schools of the time. Shaolin wasn't one of them. He did, however, include it in the section of his book on staff play. Qi's contemporary, Cheng Zhongdou, wrote a work entitled Explanation of the School of Shaolin Staff Technique. In this he mentioned boxing being practiced at the temple but said that it was not of a particularly high standard and that the monks were working on it in an effort to raise its reputation to the same level as that of its staff skills. Neither does it seem that the monks learnt much in the way of other weapon skills. A young monk was apparently overjoyed when Qi's colleague Yu Dayou taught him sword technique; he hadn't learnt the weapon before.
That Bodhidharma was the originator of Shaolin boxing is also myth. While there are many early stories that Bodhidharma visited the temple, that he taught them exercises which the monks developed into boxing didn't figure into the mythology until it was published in a story entitled The Travels of Lao Ts'an, which was first published in Illustrated Fiction Magazine between 1904-1907. This story was expanded in the book Secrets of Shaolin Boxing in 1915 and it is this title that is largely responsible for the rubbish that is circulated as "kung fu history" today.
It must also be stressed that there was only ever one temple, the one in Henan. There is no historical evidence for a temple anywhere else. The story that there were two or more temples stems from two sources. One was a popular series of novels from the Ching dynasty called Sword-Man. This series posited that there were several Shaolin branches. The second source is the mythologies created by various secret societies in an effort to legitimise their schools of kung fu. These stories usually revolved around a second temple being situated in Fujian province and much of the styles of kung fu still practiced today claim their Shaolin "roots" from this temple, for which there is no actual evidence whatsoever. A few years ago Chinese archaeologists said they had found the remains of the mythical Southern Shaolin temple; however, the "evidence" presented to connect it with Shaolin was laughable and the site of the temple was quickly covered up when a "reconstruction" of the original Southern Shaolin temple was built slap bang on top of it. Governments will do anything for tourist cash it seems.
So what styles can actually really and truly claim Shaolin lineage? Probably none of them. Many schools claim lineage due to the above-mentioned secret societies' myths, others claim it due to the way the term "Shaolin" is sometimes used in China. The country's Central Martial Arts Institute originally classified the various styles into two categories: Wudang, which encompassed taijiquan, bagua and xing yi, i.e. the "internal" schools, and Shaolin, which encompassed everything else. The Institute later realised the misunderstandings that this system created and dropped it. It seems they did so too late though as, to this day, many use the term Shaolin to describe any "external" school of kung fu, leading to the mistaken impression that such schools are of Shaolin origin.
I personally think it's OK to use the above classifications in Chinese martial arts but only if it is understood that the Shaolin label is just that: a label. There is little or no historical evidence to link any kung fu school with the temple and if people are going to use the term, they should be aware of that.
It would serve you well Padawan to remember that the number of sources counts for nothing. Quality of sources is everything. Real MA history is rarely, if ever, as told in the dojo/dojang/kwoon. It would pay you to get out there and research such subjects for yourself instead of giving to much creedance to Black Belt magazine.
[quote=nbotary According to Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming, White Crane is the root of Okinawan Karate.[/quote
That may be so, but it doesn't make karate a descendent of Shaolin.>
Post: WushuPadawan001:
lol
You are truly wise Hengest, too that there is no doubt. However you assume too much.>
Post: BLACK PANTA:
Heng again with this, you really want to make me cry don't you?>
Post: Hengest:
[quote=BLACK PANTA Heng again with this, you really want to make me cry don't you?[/quote
I couldn't do that to you mate. Not again. :D
In all seriousness though, does it really matter? You have a good style, with a long history (that's probably worth investigating in and of itself). Just because it's probably not connected with Shaolin doesn't make it rubbish, right?
[quote=WushuPadawan001 However you assume too much.[/quote
Maybe. Maybe not. I'm happy to listen to any counterpoints you may have.>
Post: shurite44:
Well back in the day everyone called Taekwondo Karate. Even Jhoon Rhee. The term Taekwondo was not very well known in the 60's and early 70's, most called it karate and when asked what style it was we would say Taekwondo.
What these people are doing is not a sign of a Mcdojo, it is fairly common.>
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|