Grand Master Park Jung Tae Seminar, Ireland 1987

The Republic of Ireland Taekwon-Do Association (RITA-ITF) recently did the ITF Taekwon-Do world an exquisite favour by uploading onto YouTube a series videos of a technical seminar presented by Grandmaster Park Jung Tae, who was in his time both Secretary General and Technical Director of ITF Taekwon-Do (and later president of GTF).

What I find fascinating about this seminar is that what I'm teaching today in 2012 is not that much different from what he taught in 1987. And I'm specifically referring to the kinaesthetics: e.g. the use of hip twist and sine wave motion (body raising or dropping) in power generation; the employing of a small loop-motion in order to adhere to the “once the movement is in motion it should not stop until it reaches its target”-principle (I like how he said: “No punch comes out from the hip!”); stances and stepping; real focus on “snappiness” in balgyeong techniques, such as knife hand strikes; a clear sense of intermediate positions; and the importance of relaxation. Keep in mind that my personal influences have been quite eclectic: I had trained under instructors from South Africa, England, Australia, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Argentina; technically, I consider my personal techniques to be most closely in line with the Chang Ung ITF group.

Grandmaster Park's seminar goes through the colour belt patterns, starting with Dan-Gun Teul and ending with Choong-Moo Teul. While watching the videos, focus on Grandmaster Park's movements and teaching, rather than that of the participants as some of them are still adjusting their techniques and sometimes perform it clearly wrong.

Dan-Gun 

Do-San 

Won-Hyo

Yul-Gok


Joong-Gun


Toi-Gye

Hwa-Rang

Choong-Moo

The Blue House

Me in front of the "Blue House"

Today I visited the Blue House—the official residency of the Head of State of the Republic of Korea. The Korean name for the Blue House is Cheongwadae 청와대, which literally translates to blue tiled pavilion, referring to the conspicuous aqua blue colour of the tiles of the Reception House (영빈관). While only three buildings, the Reception House and its two adjacent buildings, have blue tiles, the whole compound and a complex of official buildings are all collectively referred to as the Blue House.

The Reception Hall at the Blue House, with its two adjacent
buildings: "Choongmoo" and "Sejong".

ITF Taekwon-Do practitioners may find it interesting to know that the two buildings adjacent to the Reception House are named “Choong-Moo” and “Sejong”. There are two ITF patterns with the same names, referring to two illustrious historic Korean figures.

A statue of Admiral Yi Sun-Shin,
at Gwangwhamun Plaza, Seoul.

Choong-Moo, of course, refers to Admiral Yi Sun-Shin, the naval commander that protected Korea from attempted Japanese invasions during the Imjin War (1592-1598). Admiral Yi Sun-Shin's strategic naval defence was so ingenious that he even gained the respect of his enemies. The title of “Choong-Moo” was bestowed upon Admiral Yi Sun-Shin posthumously. The title has been given to only nine people—all known as “great generals” or Choongmoogong (충무공 / 忠武公). The hanja characters roughly translate as loyal-martial-male.

A statue of King Sejong the Great,
in Gwanghwamun Plaza, Seoul.

“Sejong” refers to King Sejong the Great (세종대왕 / 世宗大王). There are only two “Great Kings” in Korean history, King Sejong the Great and King Gwang-Gae To the Great. Both have ITF patterns named after them. Probably King Sejong's greatest contribution to Korea is the creation of Hangeul, the Korean phonetic alphabet. At the time of his reign in the early to middle 1400s most of East Asia, including Korea, used Chinese characters, which is actually a very difficult writing-reading system to acquire. It is said that one has to master around 4000 characters before you can read a Chinese newspaper. For this reason the literacy rate in Korea was terribly low as most peasants did not have the time and luxury to devote to the study of Chinese characters. King Sejong's introduction of Hangeul changed all that and brought literacy to the masses. Hangeul is an extremely easy alphabet. There is a Korean saying that a wise man can learn Hangeul in an afternoon, a fool can learn it in a week. King Sejong also contributed greatly to Korea's advancement in science, technology, literature and the arts.

Another martial art related thing at the Blue House is probably the awful incident that occurred in 1968. Thirty-one North Korean assassins infiltrated the Blue House, purposed to murder then President Park Chung-Hee. The commandos were highly skilled combatants, trained in various skills, including martial arts. During the ensuing conflict with Blue House security 28 of the 31 commandos were killed, one escaped and one was captured. South Korean casualties counted to 26 deaths and 66 wounded—mainly police and military, but also some civilians.

Kim Shin Jo, the North Korean commando that was
captured during the "Blue House Raid" of 1968.

The captured assassin, Kim Shin-Jo, is particularly intriguing from a martial art point of view. After his capture he was often forced to fight South Korean soldiers one-on-one. Much was learned about the hand-to-hand combat ability of North Korea's elite soldiers at the time. I plan to write something about Kim Shin-Jo and how his fighting against South Korean soldiers caused a reformation to the hand-to-hand combat trained by South Korea's special forces. It also gives us a strange glimpse into the possible changes that came into ITF Taekwon-Do when it was taken to North Korea.

Kim Shin-Jo, South Korean citizen and Christian pastor.

"I tried to kill the president. I was the enemy," Kim said. "But the South Korean people showed me sympathy and forgiveness. I was touched and moved." -- CNN Article

Some interesting facts about Kim Shin-Jo: he is still alive. He is around 70 years old and lives in South Korea as a South Korean citizen. He has converted to Christianity and is actually a pastor of a protestant church in Seoul. While the martial art connection interests me, I'm equally intrigued by the power of the Gospel: what an amazing power that can disarm a hardened killer at an intrinsic level, by changing his life, his way of thinking—turning hatred into mercy!

North Korea ITF Demonstration Team 2003

I found these videos on YouTube of the demonstration by the North Korea ITF Taekwon-Do Demonstration Team during the ITF World Championships in Thessalonika, Greece, in 2003. I've actually seen this demo before, one of the South African players that attended the championships that year is a photographer and he took his HD film camera with him. It was a wonderfully inspiring demonstration and set a standard for demonstrations worldwide. Since this 2003 demonstration I have seen many other demonstration teams incorporate similar routines.

In the first video the team members are introduced, they then all do the pattern Kwang-Gae together, followed by a nice Model Sparring demonstration. The purpose of Model Sparring is to show-off Taekwon-Do techniques, often involving "slow motion" movements, which helps the audience to better appreciate the technique.



The second video clip depicts a Self-Defence demonstration by one of the female demonstration members. It is followed by a Special Technique Breaking demonstration. Special Technique Breaking focusses on the agility of the practitioner and often involves jumping techniques. Third in this video clip is a demonstration of the pattern Ul-Ji. Another dexterous Special Technique Breaking demonstration follows.



The third video begins with a Self-Defence demonstration, with one "hero" against three "villains." This demonstration became the basic format for the new Self-Defence Demonstration Category included into the World Championships. Thereafter a female demonstrator shows off her Special Technique Breaking skills. A demonstrator then performs the pattern Choong-Moo and afterwards illustrates how this pattern applies to four attackers. Next a male team member performs some Special Technique Breaking followed by a Power Technique Break, in which he breaks two bricks placed vertically on top op each other, using a knife-hand strike.



The fourth video begins with two female practitioners defending against attackers. In part of the routine they use their handbags as part of the self-defence, mostly to distract the attacker by throwing the back into his face. Also, apart from the general use of strikes and kicks, a variety of joint-locks and breaks are employed. Since joint-locks and breaks are an often neglected part of Taekwon-Do, I especially enjoyed seeing them employed here. An impressive Power Breaking routine follows. Next up is a Special Technique Breaking demonstration of two twin foot kicks. A twin foot kick is a kick in which you kick the target with both feet at the same time. First in the video, the kicker's vertical jump ability without a run-up is shown. He breaks a board above a person's head using a jumping twin foot kick. For the second demonstration his horizontal jumping ability is shown as he jumps over the shoulders of three pairs of people to break a board with a twin foot kick on the other side. This video clip ends with an action packed Self-Defence demonstration.



The final video clips starts with a demonstration of a Taekwon-Do guy's conditioned body. He is hit with poles over different parts of his musculature. This is followed by a Power Breaking routine in which bricks and tiles are shattered using different hand techniques. The demonstration ends with a group performance of the pattern Sam-Il.