Alex Gillis Takes on a “Killing Art.”

POSTED BY BENJUDKINS ⋅ OCTOBER 10, 2012 ⋅ 14 COMMENTS

FILED UNDER  A KILLING ART, ALEX GILLIS, CHOI HONG HI, CLASSROOM, ITF, KOREA, MARTIAL ARTS HISTORY, MARTIAL STUDIES, OLYMPICS, TAE KWON DO, TEACHING

Alex Gillis.  A Killing Art: The Untold History of Tae Kwon Do.  Ontario: ECW Press. 2011 (First published in 2008).  246 pages.  $16.95 USD.

As I mentioned here I am assembling a reading list for an undergraduate course on the Asian martial arts.  My preference would be to teach it in a political science department and use the martial arts to explore topics like identity, nationalism, imperialism and globalization.  However, at the moment I am actually in talks with an anthropology department who would probably prefer more emphasis on culture, society and Asian studies.

One way or another, it is time to build my reading list.  I am planning on looking at case studies in China, Japan, Korea and the US.  Hopefully students will find a broad comparative landscape to be helpful.  Most of my expertise centers around the Chinese arts.   I know enough about Japan to scrape together a plausible reading list, but Korea?

Korea is a problem.  Why?  Imagine standing at the front of a class at any large state university.  Most of the people in your class are going to be there because they are either martial artists themselves or are interested in the entertainment sub-culture that they have given rise to.  You want the students to be able to identify with the readings and the discussion on a personal level because that will lead them to be more engaged.  If you go around the room which martial art do you think that most of your students will have been exposed to in the past?

Tae Kwon Do.  The answer is always Tae Kwon Do.  Soccer moms with hyperactive eight year olds enroll their children in Tae Kwon Do classes, not Silat seminars or Wing Chun schools.  What this means for you as a teacher is that you are likely to have a lot of undergraduates whose main exposure to the martial arts will have been a couple of years of Tae Kwon Do training in middle school.

Revealing the Hidden History of Tae Kwon Do

A Killing Art, by Alex Gillis, is sure to appeal to these students.  Actually, the book is fantastic.  It is a must read for anyone who is interested in the modern history of the Asian martial arts.  The writing is clean and it flows easily, reflecting the author’s background in journalism.  The book presents a well-researched study of the history of Tae Kwon Do.  It begins with the style’s origins among a group of Korean youth who studied Japanese Karate before WWII and concludes with the present day controversies surrounding the sport’s continued inclusion in the Olympics.

Gillis’ background as an investigative reporter is much in evidence throughout this study.  The number of interviews that he managed to conduct was truly prodigious, and many of the topics that he had to convince individuals to “go on the record” about (corruption, kidnapping, torture) were, quite frankly, horrifying.  I know from my own experience how hard it is to get interviews of any kind from individuals who consider themselves to be the “Grandmasters” of their respective communities.  The research that went into this book is just superb.

Alex Gillis, investigative journalist, author and martial artist.

The history of Tae Kwon Do is fascinating because it illustrates so many of the key themes and theoretical dilemmas that we discuss in the field of martial studies.  Its creation showcases the importance of “identity” in a modern setting, and the critical role that the martial arts have played in cementing and legitimizing identity in East Asia.  Gillis demonstrates in detail how General Choi Hong Hi basically borrowed and modified Japanese Karate in the 1950s, consciously promoting lies about the origin and history of his art, in an effort to legitimize and strengthen Korean nationalism after years of Japanese domination.

The role of the state in regulating and promoting this sort of discourse is also explored.  Both the South and North Korean governments sought to seize control of Tae Kwon Do and use it to further their own political aims.  In some cases it was seen as a tool of international public diplomacy, in others it became an ideology that could indoctrinate citizens.  Finally, in the hands of ruthless dictators it became a powerful weapon of discipline that could be turned against the disloyal or merely marginal.

The Japanese and Chinese governments have both had numerous interactions with the martial arts organizations and traditions of their own states over the years, and many of the same basic patterns can be seen there.  However, in both of these cases the government’s attention was diluted across a number of traditional arts and was shorter lived.  I have not come across anything quite like the Korean government’s singular obsession with Tae Kwon Do.  Nor has this level of official guidance and “oversight” always been good for the sport.

In many ways the story that Alex Gillis tells is a profoundly sad one.  The architects of traditional Tae Kwon Do were unable to hold onto the art that they organized (I hesitate to say “created”) and were forced to watch as a despotic dictatorship used their movement to oppress dissidents (both in Korea and the west) while at the same time transforming different aspects of the style into a toothless competitive sport, controlled through systematic corruption and cheating.

Nor does his book showcase too many individuals who could be characterized as actually living up to the lofty ideals of the art.  General Choi Hong Hi is the closest thing that the narrative has to a protagonist.  While it is clear that he loved his art and sacrificed immensely for it, it is also undeniable that he was a paranoid, corrupt, and often inept leader who entered into a possibly traitorous relationship with the North Korean government.  When figures like Choi are the “friends” of Tae Kwon Do, it is not clear that the art needs many enemies.

General Choi Hong Hi, creator and long time leader of the International Tae Kwon Do Federation (ITF).

A Killing Art in the Broader Context of Martial Studies

My first exposure to the martial arts happened in a small ITF Tae Kwon Do school in upstate NY.  I didn’t stick with the style and my interests moved on to first the Japanese, and then the Chinese arts, where I seem to have found my home.  Nevertheless, I have very fond memories of those initial years of practice and study.  As a middle school student I never knew or cared about the controversies that surrounded that art.  What I did get was a solid foundation in the martial arts that would serve me well as I engaged in my own journey of exploration.

Now, having read Gillis’ account, I am left with a set of profoundly ambivalent feelings.  To be totally honest, I suspect that if I still practiced the Tae Kwon Do I would quit.  At the same time I am really awed by the many good instructors who were exposed to the sorts of abuses and corruption that Gillis outlines, yet believed deeply enough in their art to find a way to continue to practice and pass it on.

I think that this is where the profound narrative power of A Killing Art comes from.  The author understands as much of the history and true nature of Tae Kwon Do as anyone alive.  He is intimately familiar with the shortcomings and past failures of his chosen style, but he stands by it anyway.

While he set out to write a historical account, I think that this book has evolved into something more.  I see it as an open letter to the Tae Kwon Do community (and in particular its leadership) reminding them of where they actually came from and extolling them to do better.  To live up to their promises of reform, to no longer betray the trust of all of the students who have studied and competed in its ranks over the years.

Undergraduate students will appreciate the unflinching honesty of this account and the direct nature of the writing.  Parts of the book read like a spy thriller, other sections like a corruption investigation.  As a reporter Gillis doesn’t impose any sort of theoretical apparatus on his account, nor does he seek to situate his study within the larger literature on the martial arts.  I think that this decision is basically a good one.  It allows his book to be introduced or framed in a number of different ways depending on what sorts of classroom discussion you wish to have.  It will also serve as a great database for research papers.

I strongly recommend A Killing Art for anyone interested in learning more about history of the Korean martial arts.  The book is well written and extremely well researched.  Even though Gillis is not writing for an academic audience he has done the field of martial studies a great favor.  We desperately need more accounts like this.  Hopefully other authors will sit up and take notice.

Be sure to check out our interview with Alex Gillis where he discusses the process of writing A Killing Art and its reception by the martial arts community.

KEIKO FUKUDA,

KEIKO FUKUDA, JUDO'S HIGHEST RANKED WOMAN, DIES AT 99

Just got this sad news passed along to me... Keiko Fukuda, the first woman ever awarded the rank of 10th Dan in judo, and the last surviving student of Jigoro Kano -- the founder of judo -- passed away over the weekend in San Francisco. She was 99. Here's the announcement of her passing from USA Judo:

Keiko Fukuda, the first woman awarded the rank of 10th dan in judo, passed away yesterday in San Francisco. She was 99.

"This is a dream come true," Fukuda said in the summer of 2011, shortly after she was awarded judo's highest rank by USA Judo, the national governing body for the Olympic sport in the United States.

Fukuda's first reaction was "total surprise," according to her caretaker, Shelley Fernandez, interviewed at the time. Then came a sense of great pride, "especially knowing that this promotion would help women's judo," Fukuda told Fernandez.

The last surviving student of the founder of judo, Jigoro Kano, Fukuda had separated from tradition as a young woman, choosing to train in judo under Kano rather than marry.

Fukuda eventually followed Kano's wish that she and other students teach judo around the world. She came to the United States to do just that in 1966. She became a leader in women's rights by example and voice, forcing away the ceiling that had prevented her from ascending in rank sooner.

Fukuda is the subject of a recent documentary, Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful. Watch the trailer here. In life and in death, she was badass. Rest in peace, Fukuda Sensei.

Nam Tae Hi

Nam Tae Hi

Born in Seoul, South Korea in March 1929, Great Grandmaster Nam Tae Hi met General Choi on Cheju Island in 1953 and later joined the 29th Infantry Division of the South Korean military forces. Great Grandmaster Nam Tae Hi, then a captain in rank, was a senior member of the demonstration team which gave the seminal performance in 1954 before South Korean President Seung Man Rhee which led to the presidential decree that the martial art (then not yet known as Taekwon-Do) be a mandatory part of training for the military. Great Grandmaster Nam Tae Hi then co-founded with General Choi Hong HI the Oh Do Kwan, the training gym for the military where he had the role of Chief Instructor. At the Chung Do Kwan (training gym for civilians), GGM Nam Tae Hi taught Jhoon Rhee, recognized in the United States as the "Father of Taekwon-Do," when Jhoon Rhee was a first degree black belt. Great Grandmaster Nam Tae Hi served as one of the earliest ambassadors of Taewkon-do when in March 1959 he traveled to Vietnam and Taiwan as member of the first Korean demonstration team to travel outside of Korea. In December 1962, GGM Nam Tae Hi was assigned as Chief Instructor for the Vietnamese Army. In Vietnam, GGM Nam Tae Hi is known as the "Father of Taekwon-Do." He developed the patterns known as Hwa-Rang, Choong-Moo, and UI-Ji. GGM Nam Tae Hi served as vice-president of the International Taekwon-Do Federation and president of the Asian Taekwon-Do Federation. Great Grandmaster Nam Tae Hi moved to Chicago in 1972, opened a dojang in 1973, and taught Taekwon-Do for twenty years. He now calls Los Angeles home where he lives with his wife.

Grand Master Nam Tae Hi began his martial arts training in 1946. Every day after school he would go to the Dojang to train, not returning home until almost midnight. He did this 5 days a week. He trained in Tang Soo Do under Won Kuk lee at the Chung Do Kwan. His fellow students included Sun Duc Son, and Uhm Woon Kyu. After about two and one half years Nam Tae Hi reached the level of first degree Black Belt. Two of his junior students included the late Grandmaster Han Cha Kyo, and Grand Master Jhoon Rhee. In 1954 there was a military demonstration before the President of South Korea, Syng Man Rhee. This demonstration included Artillery, other weaponry and martial arts. Nam Tae Hi, now a second degree Black Belt, broke 13 roofing tiles using a downward punch. President Rhee was so impressed by this demonstration that he asked to see more after the planned program was over. Nam Tae Hi and Han Cha Kyo did not have any thing else arranged to do so they assembled materials and did a variety of different breaks. President Rhee even checked Nam Tae Hi’s hands to see if he was injured from performing the breaks. After the demonstration President Rhee ordered all military personnel to start training in this martial art. General Choi drafted instructors from a number of different Kwans to teach the soldiers. Nam Tae Hi was the person who peformed the patterns as General Choi created them. The General would suggest a move or two and after Nam Tae Hi performed them, the general would either accept the moves or offer changes. Nam Tae Hi himself contributed the patterns Hwa-Rang, Choong-Moo and Ul-Ji. He was often referred to as the General's right hand man. Without Nam Tae Hi's incredible performance at the demonstration for President Rhee, Taekwon-Do may not have had the opportunity to spread around the world as we have seen it do.

3 Methods for Learning Martial Arts Techniques More Efficiently

Nov. 27, 2012 By: Lori O'Connell source http://pacificwavejiujitsu.com/blog/3-methods-for-learning-martial-arts-techniques-more-efficiently/

“Practice makes perfect”, or so we were led to believe when we were growing up. “If you do something 10,000 times, you’ll be a master,” is another similar saying. But this isn’t the whole story. That’s why my Sensei always said, “Practice does NOT make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. Practice makes permanent.” In other words, if you practice a thing 10,000 times wrongly you’ll have only mastered doing that thing wrong, sealing the incorrect method into your muscle memory.
This is why it’s important to train your body to do a physical skill like a martial arts technique correctly as quickly as possible so that all your practice serves to reinforce that method, rather than reinforcing a method that is incorrect or inefficient, even if it feels more natural to you. There are methods of correcting technique to get yourself on track more quickly an efficiently, three of which I will outline in this article.
When You Make a Mistake, Over-Compensate
If you make a mistake, the worst thing you can do immediately after is to repeat exactly the same mistake. Doing this reinforces the incorrect method. most people will aim to do correct the mistake by aiming for the perfect method, but more times than not, it leads to making the same mistake but to a lesser extreme. This is better than exact repetition of the error, but it will tend to take more repetitions of aiming for perfection to make the necessary incremental adjustments to achieve it. This is because our bodies tend to want to default to the methods that feel natural to our bodies even if we know they are wrong in our minds.
To correct for this more efficiently, you’re better off over-compensating incorrectly to the opposite extreme. If you’re keeping your guard too low when you spar, bring them up to a position that’s too high on your next attempt. If your aim of a punch to solar plexus is landing too far to the right, aim to land too far to the left. Over-compensating to the opposite extreme will train your body to work outside what feels natural,  helping it to correct more quickly and efficiently to the median of accurate placement.
To Learn Faster, Go Slower
When training at higher speeds, as we tend to want to do in the martial arts, it’s harder for you to detect your own errors. Your brain doesn’t have time to perceive the mistakes, whether it’s what’s you see or the way it feels in your body. When you practice a technique slowly, you’ll more easily notice incorrect hand position when doing a wrist lock or foot work when doing a takedown. This is one of the reasons why I encourage students to practice new or problematic techniques slowly without power, so they can be more aware of any errors and self-correct as necessary. Sometimes we’ll even use super-slow motion training for even higher levels if awareness. This can be great for times when you’re really struggling with a technique. Here is a blog post I wrote related to the topic of reducing speed when doing martial arts training.
Focus on a Strong Start and Finish
Sometimes slow motion training is impractical, like when you’re working on throws, jumping kicks, flying arm bars, etc. In these situations, you can instead focus on having a strong beginning position and ending position.
For a shoulder throw, you enter the throw with your feet shoulder-width apart, hips well below those of your training partner with your arms breaking their balance from their shoulder straight forward. Once your partner’s heels are lifted you can then follow through with the rest of the movement of the throw. A strong finishing position should be on balance with feet firmly in place with the body coming upright as your training partner hits the ground right in front of you. If their breakfall is on form, their legs should be pointing away from you. If your ending position is a little off the mark, correct it after the fact to train your body to be where you want it to be. By training a strong start and finish for any technique, the steps in between are more likely to correct themselves on the move in order to connect the mental dots you have established in your mind and body.
Combining Learning Methods
Sometimes I’ll run a class specifically focusing on one of the above approaches to learning depending on what my students are working on. But you don’t need an instructor to specifically direct you to use these methods in your training. I encourage my students to use these methods based on their own training needs. If they can learn to be their own teacher to some degree, thanks to sound training methods, they won’t always need to wait for an instructor’s attention to get the corrections they need. Of course, these methods won’t solve every problem and you still need an instructor’s expertise and objective eye to make subtle improvements and catch subtle errors, as you become better at what you do.
If you’d like to read more about these concepts, check out chapter 7 of Dan Millman’s Body Mind Mastery: Creating Success in Sport and Life.
Do you or your instructor have other ways of helping learn skills more efficiently? Please feel free to share them in the comments.

Master Alexandris Taekwon-do ITF 8 dan, Ground Kicks

 


There are a selection of kicks that can be used from the ground. . Many of the kicking techniques can be added to rolls and breakfalls... for the situation of going down and having to defend yourself when you don't have the opportunity to get back to your feet for whatever reason. Master Alexandris Taekwon-do ITF 8 dan, shows few of them

from http://www.kidokwan.org/articles/why/why-do-we-kiap-%EA%B8%B0%ED%95%A9%E6%B0%A3%E5%90%88/

Why do we Kiap?

Why do we kiap? Kiaps are nothing new to Korean or Japanese martial arts. In Japanese it is called Kiai (??). The reasons behind Kiaps varies from organization, styles and even schools. There are many ways or sounds of the Kiap/Kiai. They range from a ‘grunt to a

Grand Master Duk Sung Son

loud yell or other sounds and some even yell “kiai” etc. Grandmaster Son, Duk-sung of the World Taekwondo Association/ChungDo Kwan was known for shouting “utz” and promoted it in his publications.
Of course, the Korean concept comes directly from the Japanese influences as Japan had a huge influence in the development of modern Korean martial as from Taekwon-Do (???/??? ) and Hapkido (???/???) and is used exstevicely in Kumdo/Kendo (?? ??) too . A Kiap/Kiai is essentially a “war cry” and every society and military has different versions of it. We have seen it in all sorts of movies from Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart” and “We were Soldiers” to movies like the “Last Samurai” and “TaeKukk Ki.”

Korean Karate Cover, Grandmaster Son

It is a pretty known fact that with proper timing the actual act of a Kiap at the time of the execution of the techniques, it helps generate power. Partly because of the physics involved.

Yojimbo Movie

The two terms “kiap” and “kiai” are the same as “Hapki” (hapkido) and “Aiki” (Aikido) but transposed. The terms basically mean “coordination spirit/united spirit”. Some styles and organizations promote it more as a meta-physical aspect of martial arts, but others more as a practical application at the time of the execution of techniques. Try any technique on a target. The first one take a breath and hold it and execute your technique (doesn’t really matter what technique you use) and then use the exact same technique but this time do a kiap/kiai at the time of the technique you will clearly feel and see the difference.
(As a side note:  The I.T.F. have never any kiap used in them.   General Choi never wanted then incorporated, it was only I.T.F. instructors, from the older Kwans that put them in.  E.G. GM Jhoon Rhee, GM Cho, Hee-il etc.  Only in the last couple of years has the I.T.F. under Choi, Jung-hwa put them in the tuls/patterns.)

Ethics of Muaythai Warrior

Ethics of Muaythai Warrior

 

1. Make oneself useful to the public.
2. Be polite to everybody wherever possible.
3. Do not show violent behavior.
4. Be faithful to oneself and others.
5. Show perseverance.
6. Be willing to sacrifice oneself for the good of your country.
7. Be strong willed and resolute in your mind
“As strong as steel, as hard as diamond”

8. Hold high morality. (Be a gentleman/woman)
9. Be respectful of your own and your camp name. Never to bring these
into ill repute.
10. Exercise and train hard regularly.
11. Do not take advantage of your opponent by infringement of rules.
12. Do not take any kind of illegal or harmful drugs or substances.

‘Always respect and abide by the law of the land’
Chinawut sirisompan ( Grand Master Woody)

Chairman of Kru Muaythai Association