What? Are there someone actually trying to say that karate and taekwondo is not the same? But, but ... In America ...
Story:
A promotional brochure for a new Taekwondo park has sparked patriotic ire since the child models in the North Jeolla Province publication are wearing what appear to be karate suits.
The first glimmer of controversy appears to be a posting on the website of the North Jeolla provincial government titled, "Brochure for the Taekwondo park, a shame."
There, a devotee of the Korean martial art pointed out, "The models wear karate suits, their belts are tied improperly, and what is worse, there is no green belt in Taekwondo. This brochure is a waste of money. How could you administer the Taekwondo park without being able to distinguish the Taekwondo suit from the karate suit. Will you promote the spirit and culture of Korea in a brochure with kimono-clad models?"
Source
2 comments:
I just came home after studying Taekwondo in Korea for one year.. I actually visited the place where the park is going to be buildt. It is very typical for this generation of taekwondoin to flame everything "karate" in Taekwondo. Todays generation does not know or recognize the fact that we got our belt system, our origional uniforms, our origional patterns and techniques from Karate. (actually the belt system,comes from judo origionally.. The origional unifroms were the japanese Gi and the first pattern sets practised in Taekwondo came from karate and a few kung fu styles.) Even today when Taekwondo has evolved we still have strong ties to Karate through our "basic techniques", our new patterns, and the whole way a class is done (this does not neccesarely apply to a competition dojang as they are sometimes radically different). So still with all these ties to Karate there are people flaming these uniforms and the belts at the picture? Only in Korea there are loads of different belt system from dojang to dojang.. I saw just about all the colors you can imagine around peoples bodies.. I also saw a lot of Koreans that did not know how to tie their belts and having to re tie them in front of the class.. Sometimes as high ranking as 4th dan. In Norway many are members of TTU (Traditional Taekwondo Union). Some of us use the more traditional dobok that were used before the modern sporting dobok came to be. The modern dobok being the V- neck or pullover they are saying is the "real" taekwondo uniform.. Are they saying that everyting before 1980 was Karate and not Taekwondo (many people wore the more traditional style dobok until the 80s)? I see the doboks and the belts on the picture of the article as being closer to the origional doboks than todays sporting doboks are.
I hope we all can see that we have ties to Karate and accept it.. It is not so bad.. Why cant we all just get along?:-p
Great reply, and valuable points all the way; thank you so much for your time and effort!
I wish more people would realize just how strongly TKD was based on karate.
Post a Comment