One of the main foundations in Tang Soo Do is [the original] Soo Bakh Ki/Do. I'm not sure of his rank in the art but the Japanese goverment new of his training in it and placed him under surveillance. Thats why he left for China. He combine it with his CMA training and his Japanese MA knowlege.
Our WTF is identical to that listed above. We use the TSD Kicho forms 1-3. Yellow belt begins with Palgwe 1 then on to 8. This is standard WTF (Except some WTF use Taeguek or both) In my ITF class we do Chon-ji / Dan-Gun .... Cant remember what the group is called -
Jeempc, the Ki Cho Hyung set was created by the late Grandmaster Hwang Kee in 1947, 2 years after the opening of the Moo Duk Kwan. Your instructor was trained in Ji Do Kwan, which was one of the other original 5 kwans that opened shortly after Korea's liberation from Japan. Aside from the Ki Cho Hyung, GM Hwang Kee also created the Chil Sung and Yuk Ro sets of Hyung as well as Hwa Sun Hyung. Everything else in Tang Soo Do (Pyung Ahn, Bassai, Jin To, Kong Sang Koon, etc) was taken from Okinawan karate. To expand on this point, GM Hwang Kee was trained in a northern system of kung fu by Master Yang Kuk Jin. However I must disagree with one of Andy Cap's points - Hwang Kee was one of the few original kwan leaders that DID NOT have formal karate training. He took the Okinawan forms in Tang Soo Do out of an Okinawan Karate book he found at a library. The closest thing to karate training that GM Hwang Kee had was through his friend Won Kuk Lee, another major kwan leader, who was actually the person who told Hwang Kee to use the term "Tang Soo Do" for his art. Before that time, Tang Soo Do was actually called "Hwa Soo Do" - the Korean public (very assimilated into the Japanese culture at the time) did not recognize the name and instead preferred the "Kong Soo Do" (Korean for "karate") that was offered in other schools. Other kwan leaders had Karate training from the universities they had attended, but again, GM Hwang Kee had no such formal training. The other name for Tang Soo Do - "Soo Bahk Do" - is the name that GM Hwang Kee changed his art to. "Hwa Rang Do" is a completely unrelated system founded by Joong Bang Lee.
The forms such as "Pyung Ahn" can be traced all the way back to Anko Itosu in the early 1900s, who was a practitioner of Okinawan Karate (Shuri-Te I think). Most Japanese Karate are derivatives of Okinawan Karate, and since most Korean arts stem from Japanese Karate, they would all share the same Okinawan forms (however most differ in execution of the techniques, but general sequences of movements are more or less identical).
TANG-SOO-DO Translated means "Way of the Chinese hand" in honour of the Chinese influences in Korean Arts as opposed to giving credence to Japanese influences although there are many, brought to Korea during occupation derived from the martial arts learnt during Japaanese annexation of Okinawan islands. KARATE means "Empty hand" but the ideogram was written as TANG "China" to fool or by aggreement from the Japanese ruling authorities into retaining its Chinese origins. Tang Soo Do is only an empty handed MA if you wish it to be so. You say TOMAYTOW I say TOMARTOW, "Lets call the whole thing off?"
Does anyone know how many ki cho forms there are?I learned 3 at my first school before it closed and was wondering if theres more than 3.
Never heard of them. Do you know there names? After the Keecho hyungs we move to the 5 Pyung Ahn hyungs then the Naihanchi forms.
You named the first three, so it would not take much imagination We follow the same setup as yours with Pyung Ahn set of 5 before moving off into Passai, Nihanchi, (with Chil Sung Il Ro thrown in for a change of pace )
Might be the 2 beginner Taikyoku (sp?) forms from Karate which resemble the KiChos - it'd be easy to just lump them together.
The fourth and fifth kichos are called kicho sa and oh bu. Ive only come across a few schools that practice them. I have no idea where they came from or what thier history is.Heres a webpage with links to videos of them. http://tsdu.sanctum-x.net/ Just select hyung page and click whatever one you want to see. My schools hyung are like yours, 3 kichos, 5 pyung ahns, bassai, nahanchi cho dan, sip soo then the other two naihanchis.
I did some searches and there was a discussion on these forms on Budoseek, some of the participants in the discussion included Master MacHenry (the one with the forms web site) and Len Losik. Apparently Master Dan Nolan had some Ki Cho 4 and 5, and CHuck Norris added some Ki Chos to his set of 3, but I do not think they were created by Hwang Kee. http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=3296&page=1&pp=20
Most of what you say is true and not to sound too picky but more to give weight to the truth, KH did not found TSD, as other instructors were running schools [kwans] prior to and at the same time under the umbrella title of TSD. KH founded MDK just as Mr. Chun. was running Ji Do Kwan TSD and Mr. Yung Byung In was running Chang Moo Kwan TSD and there were quite a few others. To differentiate further KH embraced Soo Bahk Do into his style of TSD. The word "SOO" means knife hand, and a Sai holds well in knife hand as the thumb tucks in around the prong, thats for those who have never experimented with weapons using the forms, if it works we cant help it it just does, no problem, we find it pays to think outside the box to realise how we can fit in the box.
