"The Foot Fist Way."

That is literally what the phrase "Tae Kwon-Do" translates to in English language.

Tae = Foot. Kwon = Paw. Exercise = Way

Tae Kwon-Do is the official martial art of Korea, and information technology is an extremely immature martial fine art, past comparison to others, similar Karate. In fact there are a couple of major differences between Tae Kwon-Do and Karate, which I will get into later. First, though, permit's review the history of Tae Kwon-Do.

The History of Tae Kwon-Do

There are many different ways to look at where and when martial arts began. Some will say that they started in India. Others will say that martial arts began in China, then worked their manner down through Nippon, to Okinawa, to Korea, then out to the rest of the world.

I firmly believe that these various forms of hand and human foot fighting developed in a number of different countries simultaneously, relative to that country'southward history. For instance, say y'all have a country that is iv,000 years old. At some point during their first 1,000 years, they adult a form of martial arts. A state that started two,000 years later might have developed their own style in the beginning 500 years of their existence or then.

The origins of Tae Kwon-Do can technically be traced back thousands of years to cavern drawings and carvings where it looks similar they're doing certain martial arts moves.

Some believe that Tae Kwon-Do grew from Taekkyeon , a foot fighting game that dates back to the late 1700's. But Tae Kwon-Do, as information technology is known today, was founded on April eleven, 1955 past the great General Hong Hullo Choi.

General Hong Howdy Choi

The history of Tae Kwon-Practise is really the history of General Choi .

Before he became General Choi, Hong Hi Choi was a young human in Korea during a time when the country was under occupation by the Japanese. He desired an instruction, which meant that he would exist forced to receive that education (and, some would say, indoctrination) in Nippon.

The story goes that on the day he was supposed to leave for Japan, Choi's mother gave him coin for his railroad train fare and some coin to get settled once he arrived. On the fashion to the train station, though, he stopped to do some gambling.

Long story short, Choi lost every cent of the money his female parent gave him, including his train fare. He could no longer afford to go to Japan, but to become dorsum home in disgrace would be disrespectful to his family unit. So, still sitting at the table, Choi grabbed a canteen of ink, threw it as hard as he could at the man he lost to, grabbed the money he had lost, and took off for Japan.

While he was there, Choi began hearing rumors that the homo he lost to was looking for him back in Korea and wanted to kill him. So, he began to study the Japanese martial art of Karate – Shotokan to be verbal – very diligently, knowing he would probable have to fight this man when he returned to Korea.

The get-go fourth dimension Choi returned abode, he managed to evade the homo who was looking for him. The 2nd fourth dimension, though, Choi returned much more proficient in Karate. He put on a demonstration of sorts which scared many of the people in his town. Needless to say, the man stopped looking for him after that.

As the years passed Choi became determined to develop a martial art that was superior to all others. At present a Lieutenant in the Korean army, he began to develop what would become Tae Kwon-Practise.

Choi was a great Lieutenant and somewhat of a skilled political leader, and so he very quickly avant-garde to the rank of Two-Star Full general. With his new rank, he convinced the Korean government to give him his own sectionalization, the 29th infantry, which was stationed on Jeju isle, just off the coast of Korea. It was there that Tae Kwon-Do matured.

General Choi's ultimate goal was to effigy out how to get the man torso to deliver the near power in the nearly efficient way, while developing the mind, torso, and culture. To do this, Choi gathered top physicists, rocket scientists, athletes, trainers, psychologists, and others to help him develop his new martial art. Essentially, Choi took the best practices from every martial art and combined them with science, in guild to create the perfect martial art grade.

At Jeju island, General Choi used the soldiers at his disposal to begin grooming Tae Kwon-Do. And since he was their General, they had to obey. He ready up his showtime dojang on the military base and called it the Oh Do Kwan, meaning "the school of my fashion." There were several "kwans" (martial arts schools) throughout Korea, but the Oh Practise Kwan was the first on a military base, and the Oh Do Kwan would be the starting time to teach Tae Kwon-Exercise.

On April 11, 1955, General Choi convinced the Korean authorities to adopt Tae Kwon-Do as Korea'southward national martial art.

Pioneers of Tae Kwon-Do

For anyone else, getting Tae Kwon-Practice to exist recognized this way would accept been an incommunicable task. In order to convince the Korean authorities, General Choi had to visit all of the surrounding kwans and convince them to stop teaching what they were teaching, and prefer his new martial fine art.

To put it in perspective, it would be like me going around to all of the other Tae Kwon-Do dojangs in Western New York and convincing the other masters to teach only the mode that I teach. It would never happen.

Nam Tae Hi

Full general Choi didn't have to do it lone. By General Choi's side was Nam Tae Hi, his foreman and taskmaster. What General Choi wanted to reach, Nam Tae Hello got it done. Together, they developed the greatest martial artists in the earth out of the soldiers in the 29th infantry partitioning.

At the time, Tae Kwon-Exercise was simply taught to the Korean armed services. And, to be frank, it was intended to be deadly. I accept many friends who served in Vietnam. One friend was tasked with driving a jeep from the top of the hill downwardly to the village to pick up the mail, then drive back up and evangelize it to soldiers. Often, a handful of the Republic of Korea (ROK) soldiers who were there would enquire him to drive them down the hill and drop them off half mode. By the fourth dimension he picked up the mail and started back up the loma, he would run into those same ROK soldiers, only this fourth dimension, they would be carrying the helmets, boots, and weapons of enemy soldiers. These guys were ruthless.

Chiliad Chief Jong-Soo Park

Yard Master Park is my instructor, my mentor, and someone I have spoken nearly with great reverence many times, including in several posts on this weblog. Thousand Master Park was also involved at the inception of Tae Kwon-Do. In fact, General Choi e'er held that G Primary Park was the best student he e'er had.

M Master Park was born in Korea in 1941. At 14, he began taking Tae Kwon-Do. Later, he was an teacher at the law preparation center in Chun Bok, in Korea. He as well trained the very famous Tiger Partitioning of the Korean Army. He is the realest of the real deals.

In 1964, Chiliad Master Park became the Korean national chiliad champion in Tae Kwon-Exercise. In 1965, at the request of the Korean government, he began taking trips all over the world, known as the "Goodwill Mission for Tae Kwon-Exercise." The objective was to introduce Tae Kwon-Do to the balance of the world. Equally a effect, militaries and police forces worldwide rapidly began adopting Tae Kwon-Do.

Grand Master Park was doing one of his demonstrations, showing off Tae Kwon-Do, when iii students from a local Karate school came and began heckling him about how much better Karate was than Tae Kwon-Do. Naturally, One thousand Master Park was unphased, and invited the men to come down to the mat to fight. They asked, "Which ane of united states?" To which he replied, "All three of you." The men quickly backed down.

Soon later on, Grand Master Park opened a dojang near theirs and presently, theirs was out of business.

M Master Park was afraid of no one. He traveled the world and fought people from all different walks of life (UFC, Law Academies, Armed forces Academies, other martial artists etc.), and never lost a single fight. He is still with u.s., merely he is getting upwardly in years and I take started the process of documenting his life and storied career.

Grand Master Robert Heisner

I would be remiss if I didn't include Grand Master Heisner amongst the pioneers of Tae Kwon-Exercise, especially in this area. He is a local instructor and some other one of my mentors. He met Grand Master Park in Toronto and it blew his listen.

Grand Master Heisner began his martial arts career studying Karate, and did so under some of the toughest Karate instructors out there. He got his blackness belt in Japan , and was given the dubious nickname "round-center white guy," (a sign of those times, which have changed) so you know that he was put through the ringer over there.

When he met Grand Chief Park, Master Heisner was shocked past his seeming invincibility, and past Tae Kwon-Do as a martial fine art. It wasn't long earlier he switched from Karate to Tae Kwon Do. And General Choi and Grand Principal Park were and so impressed with Grand Primary Heisner that they asked him to open the get-go Tae Kwon-Do school in Western New York.

The Development of Tae Kwon-Do Around the World

Equally previously stated, Tae Kwon-Do'due south initial applications were for the military and police force. It has since evolved into more of a defensive art, every bit have about martial arts.

I liken the evolution of Tae Kwon-Do to that of the Ultimate Fighting Title (UFC.) In its beginning, the UFC was brutal and sloppy, to say the least. But over fourth dimension, information technology has become more refined and focused on the martial arts ability. The same applies to Tae Kwon-Do itself, but without much, if whatever, "sloppiness."

In the early 1970's, the World Tae Kwon-Do Federation was formed (WTF, later shortened to just WT, for obvious reasons), and started their own style of Tae Kwon-Practise. The WT received a lot of coin from the Korean government considering they were aiming to become involved with college athletics and the WT began to grow much faster than the ITF.

The ITF didn't accept the same kind of coin behind it. The United states money was going to S Korea, and South Korea was pushing the WT because they wanted an olympic sport.

They did get their style into the Olympics but, in my opinion, as a pure martial art, the WT style is inferior to the ITF style. The WT style wanted to place more emphasis on kicks, and therefore was not scoring points for punches. This unfortunately led Tae Kwon-Do to exist known equally "the kicking art." In actuality, Tae Kwon-Practise is the boot, punching, grappling, joint-locking, consummate martial art.

My offset caste blackness chugalug is with the WT and the Kukkiwon, which is the WT's governing body. So I know what I am talking about when I say the WT version is more of a sport than information technology is a martial art when compared to the ITF version. The WT footwork and kicking was astonishing, simply the hand work was vastly inferior. I too found WT tournaments to be very specific zilch similar the open up tournaments where many more than techniques were needed to win, which is another red flag for the WT version.

Fortunately, although the WT mode remains somewhat popular, the ITF is gaining in popularity once again considering of its more holistic, military machine approach.

Some other evolution I accept noticed is with the type of person that comes to the school. In the erstwhile days, almost of the people who walked into a martial arts studio were already in pretty good shape. They really just wanted to learn how to fight better.

If we started people today the style we started them 25-xxx years ago, they would probably quit and get home broken. We would accept people sparring within their first two or three classes. If you were overweight and had bad knees back so, you merely wouldn't have made it.

Now, you accept people who get into martial arts considering they're out of shape, because they're overweight, because they lack confidence, etc. This change has really forced us to amend our path to blackness chugalug.

The Difference(s) Between Tae Kwon-Practice and Karate

I began my martial arts career in Karate, studying Isshin-Ryu and I actually loved it. In terms of which martial art is "ameliorate," you could make arguments for both Tae Kwon-Do and Karate.

I'1000 a proponent of maxim expert martial arts is good martial arts, and bad martial arts is bad martial arts. In other words, I am non so in favor of Tae Kwon-Practice that I wouldn't concede that even a bad Tae Kwon-Practise artist would defeat a good karate artist. It simply isn't true.

In my opinion, the main difference between Tae Kwon-Do and Karate is that Karate is a much more rigid art grade, while Tae Kwon-Practice is much more fluid, specially when information technology comes to motion.

When Thousand Master Park was traveling around the world fighting people from other countries, they didn't know how to hit him. He was moving in a manner they had never seen earlier!

In the early days of Tae Kwon-Do tournaments, they would have what they called "difficult styles" and "soft styles". Soft styles were things similar Kung-Fu, while Karate was considered a "hard style." Because of Tae Kwon-Do's fluidity, it was considered a "soft mode" early on. Only they before long saw how difficult we could hit, and inverse Tae Kwon-Exercise to a "difficult style" before also long.

I remember during my time studying Isshin-Ryu, y'all would start to hear rumblings of these "Tae Kwon-Do" guys who were dominating in tournaments. Before long, my Isshin-Ryu teacher began incorporating Tae Kwon-Practice kicks into our preparation. That was really my start introduction to Tae Kwon-Practise.

Karate people have a very dissimilar work ethic. In karate, there is a tendency to take one thing and work it to decease. For instance, when they're learning an inner or outer forearm block, they will actually exercise thousands of them because they don't accept a multifariousness of techniques.

In Tae Kwon-Do, there are many techniques, and Tae Kwon-Do students are e'er looking for more creative means to do something.

Tae Kwon-Do is ane of the only martial arts that has a bible or educational activity transmission that was written, edited, and published past the founder himself. Most of the books on other martial arts were written past people who knew the founder, or learned from the founder, or studied the founder, but not past the founder themselves.

General Choi was really quite a prolific writer. The item in his writing is incredible. Every term is so specific, information technology's sometimes painful. Also, while General Choi wanted the whole world to study Tae Kwon Exercise, he did not desire information technology to take any Japanese heritage, because of the fact that the Japanese at the time were trying to eradicate Korean culture.

That is why Tae Kwon-Do has its own vocabulary. For example, most martial arts will refer to it as a roundhouse kicking. In Tae Kwon Practice, though, we say "turning boot." They say "claw boot," we say "reverse turning kick," and then on.

Having studied both Karate and Tae Kwon-Practice, I can say that the way Tae Kwon-Do uses the knees and joints produces way more power than Karate does. Tae Kwon-Practise too uses the legs more efficiently than any other martial art out in that location.

It should come every bit no surprise where my preferences lie, though. If I idea Karate was the ameliorate fine art form, I would take opened a Karate studio instead.

Master Gorino's Tae Kwon-Do offers a trial program for individuals and families in Buffalo, NY and the surrounding areas that allows you lot to get a feel for the different classes, meet our instructors, and experience our dojang. It'south a great way to run across if Tae Kwon-Practice is right for you lot. To acquire more than or to sign up, annals online or call (716) 836-Boot (5425) and a fellow member of our team volition follow upward with you lot on next steps. We look forward to helping you accomplish your goals. Pil-Sung!