Introduction
Tang Soo Do is a popular Korean martial art that has practitioners all around the world. The art has incorporated elements of Chinese, Okinawan and Japanese martial arts in a synthesis that has produced a great art to practice.
Yet, along its syncretic lineage, Tang Soo Do has lost some things. Important elements that were part of the Japanese, Okinawan, and Chinese roots were left out of the synthesis. In a first of its kind book, I have traced the history of Tang Soo Do through my lineage and back into Okinawa in an attempt to not only discover the missing pieces, but also to suggest a curriculum for teaching them as part of the art.
I have drawn upon my own training in various styles of karate and other martial arts, my travels and research in regards to this topic, and my experience as an educational professional with graduate degrees in curriculum and pedagogy to perform this analysis. The end result is an exciting recasting of many old themes into modern forms that have the potential to take the art of Tang Soo Do into a new direction.
The Missing Pieces
Tang Soo Do is like a building constructed from the materials of necessity. We have pieces of arts spackled here and there in order to fill in the cracks and hold the whole thing together. Yet, there are some common elements that most Tangsoodoin share. These elements are Kicho (basics), Hyung (forms), Ill Soo Shik (One steps), Ho Sin Shul (self defense), and Deh Ryun (sparring).
These curricular elements are shared entities throughout many other Korean Martial Arts and they owe their roots to Japanese Shotokan. Kihon (basics), Kata (forms), and Kumite (sparring) form the backbone of the immediate root art for Tang Soo Do. My book goes into detail on Tang Soo Do’s syncretic lineage and gives the reader a clear vision as to how the art was transmitted from Okinawa, to Japan, to Korean, to the United States, and finally to me. Suffice to say, that analysis falls outside of the scope of this article. Instead, we will address the various results curricular subtractions, misunderstandings, and obfuscations have brought about.
The missing pieces involve all of these traditional curricular elements and cannot be addressed by attempting to deal with each individually. This is because of the haphazard way in which the art came together. There is a manifold discontinuity in this edifice that needs to be addressed. The lack of a coherent thread that pulls all of this together to achieve ultimate instructional goals has lead to the general disarray in the Tangsoodoin's understanding of what it is they are actually practicing, why they practice it, and how they practice.
My corrective suggestion for dealing with this problem is that we focus on our hyungs when building our curriculum.
Traditionally, these constructs were designed in order to transfer an art that could be used to preserve one's life in dangerous situations. As this is a central goal for many people's practice of Tang Soo Do, probing the root arts for clues as to how this was done and innovating new solutions to meet the needs of our current environment is paramount.
The following is meant to form a philosophic basis for the formation of a hyung-based curriculum. These principles will inform how we practice the traditional curricular elements that most tangsoodoin are familiar with. The end result of all this will convert the ramshackle edifice that we currently deal with into one that is focused upon clear goals and provides a clear vehicle for a student's progression towards those goals.
Understanding By Design
Understanding by Design is an educational model similar to the business model known as Zero-Basing. In both, all elements of a system are evaluated against a set of objectives, or, as in the case of education, enduring understandings. These objectives become the driving force behind the construction of structures designed to deliver a product, whether that be something material or academic.
In the case of Tang Soo Do, the objectives of the art have changed many times through its lineage. Often these objectives simply were misunderstood, but at other times they were deliberately obfuscated and changed in order to create an art very different from the parent art.
Before we can move forward with the construction of our curriculum, we need to learn view our objectives. It was stated before that the moves in our hyung are not the singular sequences we typically see practiced as kicho in most dojangs. The real "moves" are strikes, locks, throws and takedowns, nerve strikes, and ground fighting techniques.
With that being said, how does one view the moves in the hyung in order to "see" their real nature?
The answer to this question starts with Itosu Sensei, the man who is largely responsible for the popularization of Kara-te worldwide. If you look at modern Kara-te, the kihon, kata, and kumite pattern is ubiquitously shared amongst many styles. They basically follow the model that Itosu Sensei created for Imperial Japan's Ministry of Education. The line drills of basic techniques, sanitized kata, and a limited form of sparring were all created to be practiced safely by children in school.
Personally, I think that one of the reasons that Modern Karate is so attractive to parents and kids is because this is what Itosu's intended to create. As a trainer of teachers, I think that he had an intuitive understanding of development so that he could really go about designing something that would be appropriate for children. Kara-te was intentionally watered down and made safe and this is what was passed on to most of us originally.
Part Two will cover the education principles of curriculum analysis and will apply them to Tang Soo Do and martial arts in general.
A full description of the curricular elements, teaching methodologies and a suggestion for rank requirements can be found in my book, The Lost Art of Tang Soo Do. It is available here…
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