Sunday, June 28, 2015

The Wisdom School of taekwondo - - JIDOKWAN

Yun Byung-in and Chun Song-sup

Supreme Grandmaster Chun Song-sup  as a youth traveled a great deal and studied Judo and Karate-do. He attended college in Japan and studied at Takushoku University studying KarateDo (Kongsudo, in Korean) Shotokan under it's founder Gichin Funakoshi's son Gigo Funakoshi.  In 1946 Supreme Grandmaster Chun Song-sup began teaching Kongsoodo in a large gym in Seoul, Korea called Choson YunMoo Kwan Judo DoJang.   The President of the YunMoo Kwan gym at that time was Mister Lee Kyung-suk.

Teaching at the same gym was another instructor, Yun Byung-in.   Master Yun had trained in Japan with Master Toyama Kanken.   Master Yun had also trained in Manchuria learning KwonBup (Chuan Fa or Kenpo).   Master Yun stayed at the YunMooKwan for only a short time, until September of 1947 when he established himself at the YMCA in Seoul.

The two masters Chun and Yun were often called brothers because they trained so much together.  There was definitely a lot of sharing that went on between these two great martial artists and they often traveled to Manchuria to train with different people and at different schools. 

Master Yun eventually left the Choson Yun Moo Kwan and went to the YMCA where he taught YMCA KwonBup Boo which would later become Changmookwan.


Dr. Yun Kwae-byung who began his training as a child in Osaka under Mabuni Kenwa, founder of ShitoRyu.  He later attended college in Tokyo where he received his PhD and opened his own dojo under Toyama Kanken known as Kan Bukan. This dojo was open to students of any race that wanted to train hard. The legendary Mas Oyama studied at the Kan Bukan. Yun Kwae-byung and Yun Byung-in because of their respective Kwonbup and ShitoRyu experience were both promoted to Shihan (sabam) level in Japan by Toyama Kanken. The only two Korean founding master to receive shihan rank in Japan.

In 1948 Shihan Yun Kwae-byung returned to Korea and soon began teaching Yunmookwan Kongsoodo-bu for Chun Song-sup who's schools were expanding in every direction.  Chun Song-sup continued to teach himself at the Yunmookwan for another five years until the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950.  

At that time Seoul, Korea's capitol, was overrun by the North Koreans and both of these great martial artist Grandmasters Chun Song-sup and Yun Byung-in  disappeared. Master Yun was taken to North Korea where he lived out his days working in a mine. He still has family in South Korea. It is feared that Master Chun did not fare as well.

 After the war when the Yunmookwan reopened  it no longer taught Kongsoodo but instead became the central dojang of the Korean Yudo (judo) Association.

Though the doors of the Yunmookwan were closed during the war, classes were still being taught elsewhere and training continued for Master Chun Song-sup's students.   Grandmaster Chun Song-sup brother Chun Il-sup  and some of his senior students including Kim Hyuk-nae opened a dojung in Kunsan, Korea in the vicinity of where the front line were established during the war, and another element of students trained in Pusan.  

NOTE: My instructor Chun Kae-bae (pictured below with his instructor) was a student of Chun Il-sup and was mentored by Kim Hyuk-nae. "The boys from Kunsan were all about sparing, sometimes 2-3 hours a day, nonstop."





Chun Kae-bae and Chun Il-sup



Kim Hyuk-nae with Ernie Lieb



“Ignorance is the cause of suffering.  Eliminate Ignorance and you eliminate suffering or attain freedom.”  "The way to eliminate suffering was The Way of Wisdom”                                                                                                      ~~ Guatama Buddha

                  THE SCHOOL OF WISDOM   . . .  

. . .   is the translation of Ji (wisdom) do (the way or path as in Taoism) kwan (association).  


Dalma: the symbol of the monk Bodhidaruma, the internationally Jidokwan emblem.

 
In 1950 Yunmookwan Kongsoodo Bu is in turmoil, their leader missing and presumed dead. The seniors of the school decided that with there was only one man to take over leadership, the only Shihan in Korea, Grandmasters Yun Kwae-byung  who had trained with Toyama Kanken  and had reached  a 4th degree Shihan level in Karate-do ShudoKan, Kanken’s school.  At the insistence of the seniors Yun accepted the Kwanjung [leader of the kwan (association or school)] position. Out of respect to Chun, Yun changed the name to Jidokwan, which was the Korean translation of Yun's first style, ShitoRyu.

Note:  At that time in karate the highest rank, the rank of the founder of a system was 5th dan.  They did not have 9 degrees of black belt as we do now.

When the Korean War ended and the New South Korean Government  controlled Seoul the group of students established by Master Chun Song-sup and now under the leadership of Yun Kwae-byung surfaced again in Seoul under the name of Taekuk ChaRyuk Kwan.   Besides Master Yun Kwae-byung and Lee Chong-woo other senior instructors were Lee Kyo-yun,  Kim Hyuk-nae,  and Chun Il-sup.   These instructors were teaching Kongsoodo Jidowan. 

NOTE: Taekuk Charyuk kwan was the name of the school, not the name of the style. For example if a club was opened in the City Hall, it might be called the City Hall Taekwondo Club, but the style would still be Jidokwan.

Master Yun, Kwae Byung's martial arts lineage is traced backwards to Master Toyama Kanken, 1888-1966.  Master Kanken taught not only Yun, Byung In,  but also Taekwondo Moodukkwan Grandmaster and “The Godfather of Taekwondo in America, Grandmaster Ki Whang Kim (Kim Ki-whang), late of Washington, D.C.  

Most of the Korean's that were in Japan for education learned either Shoto kan, Gichin Funakoshi's art, or Toyama Kanken's Shudo Kan, with the exception of Yun-Kwae Byung who studied ShitoRyu Karatedo and Yun Byung-in who had studied KwonBup, Chinese boxing in Manchuria during the 40 years that Japan occupied Korea and during the time of the Second World War.

NOTE: Masters Funakoshi Gichin, Mabuni Kenwa and Toyama Kanken were from the Ryukyu Islands or Okinawa, they were NOT Japanese.   Master Funakoshi took a troop of Okinawan Master's on a tour of Japan to demonstrate and teach Tote Jitsu their indigenous system based upon Shaolin, Shorei  and White Crane Chinese Boxing.    Kenwa Mabuni, Toyama Kanken and Choki Mitobu were part of this tour.   These masters decided to stay in Japan to teach their arts to the Japanese and eventually Funakoshi changed the name to Karate-do. There was much prejudice against the Koreans by the Japanese, but these masters were NOT JAPANESE, the Okinawans, like the Koreans were a people subjugated by the Japanese.


 BACK TO THE FUTURE

In the 1950’s Jidokwan and the many other Kwan’s tried several times to unify, never really accomplishing this feat.   First there was the DaeHan (Korean) Kongsoodo (Karate) Association. Which included the Great Grandmasters  Ro Byong-jik of Sungmookwan, Yoon Kwae-byung of Jidokwan, Son Duk-sung of Chongdokwan, Lee Nam-suk of Changmookwan,  Lee Chong Woo of Jidokwan, Hyun Jong Myun, Jo Young Joo, and Kim In Hwa.   Soon after the founding of the Korean Kongsoodo Association, Supreme Grandmaster Whang Kee of Moodukkwan dropped out because he was not on the testing committee.  Soon after that Sun Duk-sung the president of Chongdokwan also dropped out for the same reason. 

Whang Kee proceeded to found the Korean Tangsoodo Association.  The Korean Kongsoodo Association began to crumble.   The Korean Tangsoodo Association made an attempt to get government approval but by pulling some political strings this was blocked by Jidokwan’s Yun Kwae-byung  and Sungmookwan’s Ro Byong-jik.

Under the Presidency of Park Chung-hee the entire country of Korea began to thrive and there was a major effort do to the atrocities of the Japanese during the occupation to distance the new art of Taekwondo from the Japanese. With government support and resources and putting Dr. Kim Un-yong in charge of taekwondo, he created the World Taekwondo Federation to act as a leadership body for the sport and Lee Chong-woo was put in charge of the Kukkiwon and creating a distinctly Korean art. There was major effort to change the uniforms, the poomsae/forms and everything else about the art. Because the legs are longer and stronger, a major effort was put into developing a kicking art much like the historical Korean art of Taekyun.

Jidokwan Today 


  Under Lee Chong-woo’s lead, "officially," Jido Kwan in Korea was absorbed by the Kukkiwon. The new generation of Korean martial artists who worked their way through the Kukkiwon system had instructors from many of the different martial arts including those of Jido Kwan.   Dr. Kim Un-yong officially dissolved the kwans, some of them like Songmookwan (shotokan) and Jidokwan (shitoryu) had references to Japanese systems. No Kwans are "offically" allowed to exist in Korea at this time except as fraternal organizations, and all ranking and testing is done through the Kukkiwon.

Until a few  years ago Lee Chung-woo was president of Taekwondo Jidokwan.   The current president is Mu Han-kim.   To use the name Taekwondo in Korea today you must be part of the Kukkiwon and the art is officially called Kukki Taekwondo.    Supreme Grandmaster Hwang Kee of Moodukkwan still calls his organization Subakdo and for a long time he and Dr. Yun Kwae-byung  co-ran it.  Dr. Yun calls his school Karate-Do Jidokwan.   They are NOT part of the Kukkiwon. 
   
Jidokwan as it exists in the United States today consists of two groups.  The traditional art which is taught by Korean Masters who came to this country still teaching it as it was taught in the kwans, with Japanese influence and their students, the first generation American Taekwondo masters, including myself.  Also by young Masters who trained in Korea under the Kukkiwon system, but in an effort to have an identity claim their chief instructor in Korea was a product originally of Jidokwan.

    Those instructors trained in the Kukki Taekwondo in Korea teach only the poomsae/forms authorized by the Kukkiwon: taeguk 1-8, koryo, kumgang, taebaek, pyongwon, shipjin, jitae, chonkwon, hansoo, ilyo and they concentrate mostly on full--contact, sport sparring with body armor.
   
The Jidokwan instructors in traditional Jidokwan teach what their individual instructors offered them including the use of hands, sweeping, throwing and selfdefense.   Since Grandmaster Lee Chong-woo in his tenure as president of Jidokwan was also the head of Kukkiwon his focus was on Kukki Taekwondo much to the neglect of Jidokwan.  In countries outside of Korea, there is no unified system of Jidokwan.
   

Hit it really hard . . . if it doesn't break . . . hit it again harder.



Brick breaking at a Charity Event














There has always been some misconception about the purpose of breaking things in the martial arts, and now they use these composite boards that easily break into three pieces. So what's that all about?

Originally the "striking arts" of Korea, Japan and China were developed to enable people to defend themselves in life and death fights. There was no sport! 

Training at that time was divided into five areas: warm-up and flexibility development, strength training, impact training, poomse (hyung, forms, kata, quan) and hoshinsul or application of the movements in the poomse. There was very little sparring. Then the Japanese messed this up by deciding that the real striking arts were barbaric, archaic and they didn't like the way they were taught. The striking arts should become modern sports, like judo and kendo, more Japanese.  The Japanese created point sparring and converted kata from self defense patterns to artistic folk dance. Gone were the emphasis on strength and impact and the applications of the movements of the forms.

The ancient masters  didn't know the formula F=MA, or that power equals your body mass times the speed that you hit. But the original masters knew that power came from speed and speed came from strong, flexible muscles. The masters of old used traditional weight lifting equipment, bars and dumbbells and also crafted specific strengthening devices. This training was integral to the original martial artist as seen in this ancient text which describes strength and impact training methods.

PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE 

The master of old understood that in order for the body to get stronger, it must continuously be challenged. The first three drawings to the left depict strength development for the arms and shoulders with dumbbell like devices.

Drawings 4 and 5 show the development of gripping strength using the principle of progressive resistance. First the student lifted empty pots, then filled them with rocks to make them heavier. Later continuing the same process with bigger pots.

Drawing five shows a military press with a fabricated barbell and drawings 7 and 8 are showing wrist strengthening again with progressive resistance.

NOTE: Strong gripping strength is important for self defense and grappling and not so much for sport sparring which is why strength training was not taught because grabbing is not part of the sport.

Another important aspect of classical martial arts, mudo was impact training. How to take and give a strike. The ninth drawing to the right of the middle row is the use of a talyunbong, a pole wrapped with hemp rope that was kicked, punched and shadow boxed with.

There is also another type of talyunbong (pictured to the right) that is 4x4 cut and tapered to 2 inches at the top that is buried and struck. Because of the give in this type of talyunbong, it could be struck much harder without injury. 

Drawings 10, 11 and 12 show the use of striking bags again with the emphasis of continuing to increase size to increase the load your body using progressive resistance  to developing strength and causing you to hit much harder.

The last drawing is of a man striking and grabbing sand or iron shot. This training was used to toughen the skin, the grip and for developing and iron palm like strike.

So what about breaking things?  


Kyukpa: the art of breaking evolved naturally from the curiosity of people training physically to see how hard they could strike. The traditional swordsmen practiced cutting bamboo, to make sure that their slices were at the correct speed and angle to destroy their targets. The empty handed artists did the same thing and using the same principle of progressive resistance began first breaking one pine board, then multiple boards and later bricks, river rocks and even multiple cement slabs as Grandmaster Stepan, pictured to the right does.




Breaking or rather human psychology is an interesting phenomena. As an instructor I would call up a 180 pound adult to hit a one foot square piece of wood and they would hit it repeatedly until they became frustrated and unable to break it. Then I'd call up a younger student that weighed half as much that would break "the same piece of wood" with almost no effort with one blow. And as a teacher you'd ask yourself, what is really going on here?

Really, the art of kyukpa is the art of overcoming fear, the fear of getting hurt and teaching the student to muster the mental strength to smash their hand, foot or head into the piece of wood or cement hard enough to break it, or break them. Breaking is about developing indomitable spirit. The spirit of being  undefeat-able. The true essence of kyukpa is not to show off your ability, it is to foster the spirit of undefeat-able and by the principle of progressive resistance to challenge that artist to become a better and stronger human being both mentally and physically.

In the spirit of wisdom


Childan Sam Naples

Thursday, June 25, 2015

FIND A WAY

"First is victory over self . . . next is  victory over lesser men."












FIND A WAY TO WIN! 
 
This photo was taken at Supreme Grandmaster Chun's first taekwondo school in Youngstown. It was called MASTER CHUN KARATE (the name taekwondo was unknown in the USA, we practiced Korean Karate) and located at  3328 Market Street in Youngstown, Ohio.  This pic was taken the Monday after winning my first grand championship. I'm pictured here with my instructor, Supreme Grandmaster Chun Kae-bae, Grandmaster Charles Stepan and young Steven Willis, an amazing martial artist. 
 
This tournament took place 6 months AFTER I was injured and I could no longer kick. This was quite devastating considering that kicking with my front leg was my specialty. In fact my front leg kicking had been dubbed by Grandmaster Stepan, taste-the-toe, because you didn't see it, you just got smacked." 

About half of the students went to Canton for Grandmaster Kim Soon-ho's tournament, but I didn't go. I stayed behind to teach class. It was funny/strange because I told the other student's: "I'm not sure if I'll go later, but if I do I'll win."  I was never more certain of anything in my life. 
 
So I was cleaning up the school after class and Mr. Stepan (grandmaster Stepan) shows up and asks: "so do you want to go to Canton?"   I though for a moment, and than said, "Okay, lets do this!"

So I fought my way thru the eliminations pretty handily and then it was time for the grand championship fight. It was me against Tom Fetterly a student of Grandmaster Kim Il-kwan of Cincinnatti who was an amazing kicker. And me trying to FIND A WAY to fight without using my kicks. So when the fight is over I've won 2 to 1. BUT WAIT! There is a powwow at the front table and they come up with, "This is such a prestigious championship, it should go two rounds."  Master Stepan comes up to me and says: "they're doing it to you, they want a taekwondo kicker to win, nothing personal." In the second round I won 3-1.   Despite their best efforts, I WAS THE GRAND CHAMPION.
 
At the celebration dinner that night one of the Korean masters sitting at our table said, "he (Tom Fetterly) was a much better fighter than you." I responded: "Yes, but if I hit him on the head with a rock, he's still dead!" The master looked at me stunned. In Jidokwan we have a concept, NO CHOICE. Which means FIND A WAY, life is not a rehearsal!

The martial arts school is called dojung (dojo in Japanese) and should be a spiritual place. Sometimes called, "the death field", because day-after-day, in every class the student makes mistakes and "dies little deaths" over and over again. This as opposed to a the battle field where you may only die once. 

"First is victory over self, next is victory over lesser men," . . . . GoRinNoSho.  
 
In the studio each day we are learning to find a way to control the body, to find a way to make our emotions work for us, to find a way to defeat our opponent and ultimately to still the mind, called victory over self.  

The SPIRIT OF MUDO is the THE SPIRIT OF NOT BEING DEFEATED . . . of FINDING A WAY.  This does not mean we never lose, it means we are indomitable . . . UN-defeatable . . . because there is no quit . . . there is only find a way, or die trying.

The martial arts were not developed so that only elite jocks could defend themselves. They were developed so the weak and handicapped could protect themselves against stronger, better armed opponents. THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON IS in life there will be obstacles, find a way to survive, find a way to win, FIND A WAY

In the spirit of wisdom 

Childan Sam Naples