Juche Idea

Would it be fair to say - do you think - that before the advent of the world wide web, very few people in TKD (or worldwide) knew much about what Juche actually meant, as opposed to what they learnt via the pattern definition?

What do you think?

Stuart

Ps. WWW boom was around early/mid 1990's I think - please correct if wrong! Just so people have a time frame.

 

What does it mean?

 

No doubt about it. However I would caution that the Juche Pattern definition is somewhat different from the NK philosophy, even though it is clear that it comes from there & was done to gain the support from NK & as a gesture to their leader. For instance if the name of that new Tul which was #15 in a sequence of 24, replacing KoDang (which is also part of the story) was say:
Determine Your Destiny
Or
Manage One's Own Path In Life
Or approriate Korean terminology reflecting same, would anyone have a problem with it?
Gen. Choi would not name a pattern after Kim Il Sung, knowing the inherent problems with that. So he took their national ideology label & tailored a sanitized definition that was fairly appropriate in ways to Eastern MA training. He got away with it till students started to go to NK for the 1st time in 1989. Prior to that, few understood & less questioned it.

There is no doubt that the introduction & access to the Internet caused widespread attention to this & most likely could not have been foreseen in the early 1980s.

IMPORTANT: It is vitally important that we also take into due consideration the context of the times that this was happening in. At the time Gen. Chun Doo Hwan was the latest military dictator. He was just as brutal as his predecessor Gen. Park, but had no goodwill built up, as it was Gen. Park would led the economic rise resulting in today's miracle economy in SK. Back then SK was just taking off, pulling away from NK who was actually ahead in the race economically in the 1960s. Also while NK was never a free society, it still had the financial support of the U.S.S.R. & had not experienced the great famines yet! While it was not a nice play to live, it had not yet deteriorated to the sad shape it is today, ironically due in great part to the Juche philosophy! This took place in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union, the flooding that caused widespread starvation & the death of Kim Il Sung, succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Il.
So the differences were not as great between the 2 Koreas back then, as it is today! Additionally, since NK was such a closed society, we didn't get to see what was happening inside NK. However we did see it in SK, right in our own living rooms on TV. We saw the riots in SK for freedom, the brutality towards citizens & the KwangJu Massacre! This was the man (Gen. Chun Doo Hwan) that GM Choi Jung Hwa, as a young man entered into preliminary plotting to kill. Many around the world would have gladly wanted to do that, as he was a murderous butcher. In fact, as the 88 Summer Olympics was coming to Seoul, the pressure & the protests became so much, that he slipped out of office, as the eyes of the world were coming with the Olympics. This event was being used to soften SK's image to the world. So his hence man Gen. Ro Tae Woo took over. In the 1990s once civilian democratically elected presidents took over, these 2 men were sentenced to death by SK Courts, only to be pardoned by a future Nobel Prize winner, in hopes of starting the country on the path to healing & a better future.

 

Thanks for your reply TKDStudent, I want to reply to it, but will refrain from doing so for the time being whilst I await to see if others feel the same.

thanks,

Stuart

 

Very good question StuartA and it is fair to say, however this subject has never came up in our dojang, we call it Juche (Vienna HQ) and a friend of mine who is practising at another TKD school (his headquarters is Canada) still call it Ko-Dang, I only found out about this when we got together and started talking about it.

I don't know if any Dojang would discuss this due to the complexity, I think that is why so many students would not know. However it is without a doubt one of the best patterns of them all, the only one that beats it (for me) is moon mo.

 

Thanks for your reply and views. Small correction for you however:

there is no 'still' about it, despite what ITF-C said... Juche WAS NEVER called ko-Dang.. Ko-Dang is a different pattern entirely! The simply renamed Juche and called it Ko-Dang.. see here for further info:
http://www.raynerslanetkd.com/Press/ARTICLES_juchekodang2.html (scroll down a bit).

cheers,

Stuart

 

It will be the former!

Perhaps.. but did anyone do that? More to the point, did it 'raise/interest' anyone enough to do that?

Stuart

 

so are you with the Chang Ung group & is your friend with the Choi Jung Hwa group?

 

This is how I would have imagined it happening:
Korean Master is forced to leave the ITF by the KCIA & Gen. Choi's introduction of TKD to NK. Korean media reports that Gen. Choi designs a new TKD Tul called Juche. Korean Masters use this info to explain to their students why they left the ITF. Likewise WTF, Kukki & independent TKDers use this as a way to badmouthed Gen. Choi, discredit it. This was also done by the SK Govt & its arm the KCIA.
So Gen. Choi responds & the official ITF reply is that TKD has evolved, grown & has incorporated more, new & difficult techniques that are not represented in the 24 patterns. So while we must maintain the 24 pattern number, we must find a home in the patterns for these new, exciting techniques. Therefore, since these techniques are difficult to perform, we will have them come in at the 2nd Dan BB level, as that seems to be a peak as far as talent goes. Therefore a 2nd Dan Tul must be replaced. Hence KoDang, patriot Cho Man Sik is the junior most patriot, he is replaced.
(This was pretty much the company line)
People did question it, even ITF members. However most of them simply did not know enough about the Juche ideology & google with its almost instant info was not around back then. Therefore there really was not any significant follow up questioning. In depth interviewing with serious & effective follow up REQUIRES in depth knowledge of the area & subjects, so one can cut through the fluff & get to the heart of the matter!

 

Yes TKDstudent that is correct, it's all very interesting.

 

You link on that page to Master Dalton's thesis at http://www.iutf-tkd.com/thesis -Mr.Dalton.html. This now gives a 404.

This seems to be the correct URL now - http://www.cullompton-taekwondo.co.uk/patterns/juche_versus_kodang.htm - but I can't be sure as I don't know what content was on the first link.

Cheers,


Andy

 

Cheers Andy, I will have to update that.

Out of interest, had you heard of Juche and/or Juche Idea in the mid 90's?

Stuart

 

I know, but you`ve heard about it now, read the controversay about it etc. (online), but had you heard of Juche and/or Juche Idea in the mid 90's at all?

Was the first time you ever came across it online (ie. on a forum)?

Stuart

 

Anyone else.. how about all you ITF'ers?

Stuart