Instead of focusing on two forms, and picking a theme, I wanted to introduce a new feature of my blog. The "Under the Microscope" features will take one form and look at it a bit deeper. I think Toi-Gye is a great place to start for this. We're also going to slightly explore practicality in forms because there is a lack of it in Toi-Gye.
Toi-Gye is an interesting form for a few general reasons. At 37 movements, it is the second longest form of the first nine. It is also in my opinion one of the hardest of the first forms to learn, and certainly is tough to master. It features repetition, but the difficulty of the techniques in sequence, the variety of technique and the lack of good practicality in the technique make it formidable. The lack of practicality trips students up because it is hard to execute a technique correctly if you can't visualize what you are supposed to be doing. All of these factors nullify the repetition and make it a difficult form.
The opening sequence starts off very practical, inner forearm block into low section spear finger (or palm strike - depending on your point of view - regardless a strike to the groin). This is followed up by a pulling outer forearm block and down block thrown simultaneously. Now, taking these techniques at face value it seems very unlikely that you would choose such a movement in the real world. From the low groin strike it would make much more sense to just step away from an attack. You are in a good position to step back with either leg really. Again, I'm leaving certain viable interpretations of that move out, and only looking at the face value of a simultaneous outer and down block.
After the repeat of this sequence we see a practical Xblock low followed by the sort of practical twin high punch. Front kick and punch reverse punch follow - all practical, and probably the easiest sequence in the entire form.
What comes next is by far and away, the most peculiar moves in all of the traditional Chang-Hon forms. From the reverse punch we move to what can be best described as "stand like a Korean general in a photograph". We scoop from the reverse punch to standing sideways on our primary line with our fists on our hips as if we were angry at someone. There are ways to interpret this move as an actual TKD move and there are similar looking techniques in Gojushio Sho of Shotokan and in Tang-Soo-Do's Jin-Do. In both of these cases though, after assuming the position, there is a 45 degree turn of the hips to indicate a kind of shoulder block. That's not the case in Toi-Gye where the move feels like a pose rather than anything practical.
I can think of a practical interpretation of the move in Toi-Gye quite easily. The problem with interpretation at this point is that a lot of people (in my opinion) disregard Occam's razor in doing so. Take a standard front kick thrown in a form - you could interpret it as "just a front kick" or you could interpret it as an escape from an ankle grab from the guy you just knocked down on the previous move. While the later explanation is technically viable, it's not in my opinion a very probably interpretation. Just because you can think outside the box and come up with an alternate view of what "could" be happening, doesn't make that a practical interpretation in my opinion. Thinking outside of the box is fun, but instructors should not put their need to seem "smart" in the way of logic and common sense.
From this point of the form, we launch into the 2-3-1 sequence of W shaped blocks. This is a monument to impracticality. Why you would Wblock so much, in so many ways and finish it with a low reverse guarding block is befuddling.
Arc-hand grab into knee strike speaks for itself, as does the turn to knife hand guarding block, the front kick, spearfinger and the repeat of that sequence. The down block backfist combination is not the most practical move, but doesn't seem like it is as outlandish as a W shape block to pull off in a practical scenario.
The final piece of impracticality though comes in the "big move" of the form. A jumping, low section X block in an X stance. Coming up - I could not wait to learn this form, for this move alone. It is unfortunately, completely impractical. Why would you need to jump over something and then perform a low section block in a stance designed to lower your upper body? Although I can come up with several reasons why this might be necessary, none of them speak with any kind of real logic. To a certain extent I believe that certain sequences, or certain movements are more for art, and do not require a logical explanation. Also as we'll see later in this post, the impractical can teach us something valuable, while having us perform something seemingly impractical.
The form finishes with downward knife hand blocks followed by circular blocks - this repeats and the form ends with a punch. This ending sequence is a wonderful lesson of how to transition from front to back stance properly and quickly. It is a shining beacon of practicality in an otherwise impractical form. That being said - does practicality matter?
Ultimately, I don't believe it does. Although many of the sequences of movements in Toi-Gye are impractical, there is something valuable happening.
The movements of Toi-Gye teach valuable skills while not being 100% practical techniques. Toi-Gye is a form of "complicated double movements" - meaning you are moving both hands very independent of each other. Simultaneous outer and down block, X block into double punch, "stand like a general", W block, down block back fist, low section X block in an X stance, twin knife hand block low, circular block...these are all techniques that require the use of both hands and most of these techniques require a more complicated "flight path" than standard reaction force (equal and opposite) movement.
You are practicing all of this in one form. So while it is easy to dismiss Toi-Gye as being impractical and thus "worthless" to do so would be to ignore the super valuable fundamental skills being taught - albeit in a round about "wax on, wax off" kind of way.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Macro-Patterns Part 3
Our next two forms are Yul-Gok and Joong-Gun. These two forms are the introduction to the intermediate level of TKD and they present their own unique set of challenges.
Yul-Gok is a very interesting form. At a glance, you might consider Yul-Gok high on the difficulty scale. Weighing in at 38 moves, it is the longest of first nine. Those 38 moves are very deceptive though as all but two movements repeat, so, in a way the form really has 20 movements in it. If you remove the two moves that don't repeat and divide by two you get 18, add the two moves back and you land at 20. Sandwiched between Won-Hyo (28) and Joong-Gun (32), that 20 doesn't seem so bad to me.
I think Yul-Gok is a "psychologically" difficult form because it is so long. I think it requires a decent amount of stamina at first, but since you are repeating everything, muscle memory will kick in earlier than it might in a form of similar length that doesn't have as much repetition. There's not a whole lot of new technique introduced, although the jumping back fist into X stance is a bit flashy and causes many a high green belt to be excited to learn it. From a technical stand point there's not much difference between a twin forearm and twin knife hand block, and double forearm block is in my eyes the only real tricky technique.
I don't want to make it sound like I dislike the form, nothing could be further from the truth. Yul-Gok saved me a ton of embarrassment. I once got sea sick as a teenager on a fishing trip consisting of "manly men" who had a bit too much to drink. I was sick, and every time I tried to come on deck (which you should do) they made fun of my condition. I knew I couldn't puke, lest I give them something to never let me live down, so in my head I did Yul-Gok (my highest form at the time) over and over for the duration of the 6 hour fishing trip. I didn't puke, and I'll never ever forget that form.
Joong-Gun on the other hand is where the real intermediate level begins. To this point, I feel the forms are pretty straight forward. Although you can make a case for Joong-gun being very repetitive, I believe the quality of technique to be greater in Joong-gun. Joong-Gun introduces a new stance, front leg kicking, several new techniques, and the coup de grace, a back leg side kick from a back stance that lands in a front stance. Joong-Gun is easy to learn, in my opinion, as is Yul-Gok, but where Yul-Gok is (using the phrase loosely) easy to master, Joong-Gun is very much so not.
As the introductory forms to the intermediate level, Yul-Gok and Joong-Gun are formidable. In my schools, the intermediate area sees the typical testing period double. If a student was testing every three months they will now test every six (assuming all testing prereqs are met). It's a gateway time to an area I like to call the blue belt plateau. I'll get into that more in my next post, but suffice it to say the jump to intermediate is a bit of a "meat grinder" for the uninitiated. I only have anecdotal evidence, but if there are two places a person is going to drop out of training, one is definitely during the blue belt plateau. I wonder how much of that has to do with what I perceive is a steep jump in difficulty in Yul-Gok and Joong-Gun. From Won-Hyo to Yul-Gok there is a 10 move increase where the biggest increase before this is 4 movements. It almost feels like the architects wanted a clear distinguishing line between beginner and intermediate. In this case, I think they succeeded. What do you think?
Yul-Gok is a very interesting form. At a glance, you might consider Yul-Gok high on the difficulty scale. Weighing in at 38 moves, it is the longest of first nine. Those 38 moves are very deceptive though as all but two movements repeat, so, in a way the form really has 20 movements in it. If you remove the two moves that don't repeat and divide by two you get 18, add the two moves back and you land at 20. Sandwiched between Won-Hyo (28) and Joong-Gun (32), that 20 doesn't seem so bad to me.
I think Yul-Gok is a "psychologically" difficult form because it is so long. I think it requires a decent amount of stamina at first, but since you are repeating everything, muscle memory will kick in earlier than it might in a form of similar length that doesn't have as much repetition. There's not a whole lot of new technique introduced, although the jumping back fist into X stance is a bit flashy and causes many a high green belt to be excited to learn it. From a technical stand point there's not much difference between a twin forearm and twin knife hand block, and double forearm block is in my eyes the only real tricky technique.
I don't want to make it sound like I dislike the form, nothing could be further from the truth. Yul-Gok saved me a ton of embarrassment. I once got sea sick as a teenager on a fishing trip consisting of "manly men" who had a bit too much to drink. I was sick, and every time I tried to come on deck (which you should do) they made fun of my condition. I knew I couldn't puke, lest I give them something to never let me live down, so in my head I did Yul-Gok (my highest form at the time) over and over for the duration of the 6 hour fishing trip. I didn't puke, and I'll never ever forget that form.
Joong-Gun on the other hand is where the real intermediate level begins. To this point, I feel the forms are pretty straight forward. Although you can make a case for Joong-gun being very repetitive, I believe the quality of technique to be greater in Joong-gun. Joong-Gun introduces a new stance, front leg kicking, several new techniques, and the coup de grace, a back leg side kick from a back stance that lands in a front stance. Joong-Gun is easy to learn, in my opinion, as is Yul-Gok, but where Yul-Gok is (using the phrase loosely) easy to master, Joong-Gun is very much so not.
As the introductory forms to the intermediate level, Yul-Gok and Joong-Gun are formidable. In my schools, the intermediate area sees the typical testing period double. If a student was testing every three months they will now test every six (assuming all testing prereqs are met). It's a gateway time to an area I like to call the blue belt plateau. I'll get into that more in my next post, but suffice it to say the jump to intermediate is a bit of a "meat grinder" for the uninitiated. I only have anecdotal evidence, but if there are two places a person is going to drop out of training, one is definitely during the blue belt plateau. I wonder how much of that has to do with what I perceive is a steep jump in difficulty in Yul-Gok and Joong-Gun. From Won-Hyo to Yul-Gok there is a 10 move increase where the biggest increase before this is 4 movements. It almost feels like the architects wanted a clear distinguishing line between beginner and intermediate. In this case, I think they succeeded. What do you think?
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Intermission - A look at difficulty in forms.
Before moving on to the next forms I wanted to talk a little about difficulty. Several comments hit on themes I wanted to talk about in a summary I planned to write after I completed the look at the first 9 forms (white to black belt). I am realizing though, that the various themes I wanted to discuss at the end could be quite lengthy so I will address some of these points ahead of where I will delve into them.
Difficulty in the Chang-hon forms is complicated but somewhat systematic. I find that when dealing with forms a good starting point is the difference between physical and mental difficulty. On the physical scale, we look at how hard the form is on the physical body. Though the number of movements is in play here, the demands of the movements in the given form are much more important. Yul-gok has considerably more movements in it than Chong-moo, but I think it would be hard to find someone who says that Yul-gok is the harder form. The systemic repetition of Yul-gok, and only a few new techniques for the practitioner pales in comparison to the things asked of the practitioner in Choong-moo.
The other side of the scale is mental difficulty and this side of the scale is affected in my opinion by two main things. First is the number of unique moves and second is the types of turns a student is going to make. Unique moves is pretty easy to quantify, namely how much of the form repeats? If nearly the whole form repeats as it does in Yul-gok then the form tends to be easier to learn. Forms where there is no sequential repetition are often the harder forms to learn.
It is not just sequential repetition though, the types of turns you make also determine how mentally challenging a form is. Forms that have a lot of turning in place are often times harder for students to learn than forms that have direction changing turns. A good example of this is found by contrasting Ge-baek to Kwang-gae. These two forms are similar in total movment and similar in placement (in my system anyway). Students tend to pick up Kwang-gae much faster than Ge-Baek mainly I believe because the turns in place in Ge-baek are just much more mentally demanding than anything in Kwang-gae.
Of course, there is more to difficulty. Perspective is going to dictate a lot of what feels difficult for the learner and by this I mean that the combination of a physically and mentally demanding form can make certain forms at certain times seem harder than they are. I always like to say that Choong-Jang was hard until I learned Yoo-sin, and Yoo-sin was hard until I learned Moon-moo.
Next time I'll continue the Macro series with Yul-gok and Joong-gun, and begin to look at the blue belt plateau. Thanks for reading!
Difficulty in the Chang-hon forms is complicated but somewhat systematic. I find that when dealing with forms a good starting point is the difference between physical and mental difficulty. On the physical scale, we look at how hard the form is on the physical body. Though the number of movements is in play here, the demands of the movements in the given form are much more important. Yul-gok has considerably more movements in it than Chong-moo, but I think it would be hard to find someone who says that Yul-gok is the harder form. The systemic repetition of Yul-gok, and only a few new techniques for the practitioner pales in comparison to the things asked of the practitioner in Choong-moo.
The other side of the scale is mental difficulty and this side of the scale is affected in my opinion by two main things. First is the number of unique moves and second is the types of turns a student is going to make. Unique moves is pretty easy to quantify, namely how much of the form repeats? If nearly the whole form repeats as it does in Yul-gok then the form tends to be easier to learn. Forms where there is no sequential repetition are often the harder forms to learn.
It is not just sequential repetition though, the types of turns you make also determine how mentally challenging a form is. Forms that have a lot of turning in place are often times harder for students to learn than forms that have direction changing turns. A good example of this is found by contrasting Ge-baek to Kwang-gae. These two forms are similar in total movment and similar in placement (in my system anyway). Students tend to pick up Kwang-gae much faster than Ge-Baek mainly I believe because the turns in place in Ge-baek are just much more mentally demanding than anything in Kwang-gae.
Of course, there is more to difficulty. Perspective is going to dictate a lot of what feels difficult for the learner and by this I mean that the combination of a physically and mentally demanding form can make certain forms at certain times seem harder than they are. I always like to say that Choong-Jang was hard until I learned Yoo-sin, and Yoo-sin was hard until I learned Moon-moo.
Next time I'll continue the Macro series with Yul-gok and Joong-gun, and begin to look at the blue belt plateau. Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Macro Patterns (Part 2)
In Part 2 of the Macro Patterns series I want to dive into the first kicking forms of taekwon-do. This post may run a bit long, and if so I apologize; there are just so many juicy things to discuss!
To-san was one of those early benchmark forms I remember not being able to wait to learn. It featured the first kicks and deviated, albeit slightly from the standard "I" shape. I think that deviation is interesting. Taking a step back and looking at the first 9 forms as a whole -- there are more I shaped forms than not, by the count of 6-3. Setting aside the technique that make up the forms, I find it odd that the non I shaped forms are kind of "sprinkled in". I question this logic. Students tend to pick up moving in a straight line in forms (and in fighting) easier than moving on an angle. I'm not sure why the design of these forms was such that they built angular movement in so sporadically.
While I find the actual techniques in the form ramp up in a very logical way, the overall layout is inconsistent and can be confusing. As an instructor, I've seen people, here and there, struggle when they suddenly have to step on an angle. Angular movement on a whole can be one of the harder things a student is asked to do in a form, particularly early in their career. It seems shortsighted to apply angular movement in an almost haphazard way, the way the architects of these forms applied it.
The thing is, I don't think you could just reorder the original 9 and fix this issue. The techniques would not build from transition and difficulty correctly if you did.
Won-Hyo sees us return to the I shape pattern of movement and includes the first side kick. Does anything say TKD more than a well thrown sidekick? It is the signature kick of the art as a whole and I'm still wrapping my mind around it's placement in the 4th form.
As I hinted in my last post I find it odd that the foot fist way doesn't start kicking until the 3rd form in. A friend replied with the time honored "you have to learn how to walk before you run". I think that is certainly true, however, knowing TKD's roots lie more in Japanese karate arts than anywhere else, I might venture a guess and say that in the beginning TKD started with more of a Japanese, punch first mentality.
Contrary to how the ITF progression advances, the WTF pick up kicking in either their first or second form. While learning kicking in the first versus the third form may not seem like that big of a difference, remember that the "on paper" space between learning chonji and tosan is close to a year's worth of training. So for a year, the WTF are kicking in their forms and adjusting to it before some ITF schools are.
This sort of makes sense when you take into account how far the offshoot of the original idea of TKD -- namely the WTF, strays from the use of hand techniques in their system. WTF Olympic sparring looks nothing like Japanese karate, or like ITF sparring -- it is a wholly unique fighting system.
The original ITF seems more like a prototype art. While Choi's goal might have been to have a unique and distinct art from the contemporary Japanese arts of his day, the WTF accomplished that goal (in my opinion) better than Choi did. If the signature technique of the Japanese arts is the piercing reverse punch, the stark contrast would be the WTF round house kick. All this being said, I don't think it diminishes what ITF TKD is, after all, you have to learn how to walk before you run.
So does it really matter when a student starts kicking in their forms? I don't honestly know. Logic tells me that the sooner you start doing something, the better you'll be at it in the long run. I am curious what you think though, so please feel free to leave a comment. I'll try to keep the next topic a little lighter on content.
To-san was one of those early benchmark forms I remember not being able to wait to learn. It featured the first kicks and deviated, albeit slightly from the standard "I" shape. I think that deviation is interesting. Taking a step back and looking at the first 9 forms as a whole -- there are more I shaped forms than not, by the count of 6-3. Setting aside the technique that make up the forms, I find it odd that the non I shaped forms are kind of "sprinkled in". I question this logic. Students tend to pick up moving in a straight line in forms (and in fighting) easier than moving on an angle. I'm not sure why the design of these forms was such that they built angular movement in so sporadically.
While I find the actual techniques in the form ramp up in a very logical way, the overall layout is inconsistent and can be confusing. As an instructor, I've seen people, here and there, struggle when they suddenly have to step on an angle. Angular movement on a whole can be one of the harder things a student is asked to do in a form, particularly early in their career. It seems shortsighted to apply angular movement in an almost haphazard way, the way the architects of these forms applied it.
The thing is, I don't think you could just reorder the original 9 and fix this issue. The techniques would not build from transition and difficulty correctly if you did.
Won-Hyo sees us return to the I shape pattern of movement and includes the first side kick. Does anything say TKD more than a well thrown sidekick? It is the signature kick of the art as a whole and I'm still wrapping my mind around it's placement in the 4th form.
As I hinted in my last post I find it odd that the foot fist way doesn't start kicking until the 3rd form in. A friend replied with the time honored "you have to learn how to walk before you run". I think that is certainly true, however, knowing TKD's roots lie more in Japanese karate arts than anywhere else, I might venture a guess and say that in the beginning TKD started with more of a Japanese, punch first mentality.
Contrary to how the ITF progression advances, the WTF pick up kicking in either their first or second form. While learning kicking in the first versus the third form may not seem like that big of a difference, remember that the "on paper" space between learning chonji and tosan is close to a year's worth of training. So for a year, the WTF are kicking in their forms and adjusting to it before some ITF schools are.
This sort of makes sense when you take into account how far the offshoot of the original idea of TKD -- namely the WTF, strays from the use of hand techniques in their system. WTF Olympic sparring looks nothing like Japanese karate, or like ITF sparring -- it is a wholly unique fighting system.
The original ITF seems more like a prototype art. While Choi's goal might have been to have a unique and distinct art from the contemporary Japanese arts of his day, the WTF accomplished that goal (in my opinion) better than Choi did. If the signature technique of the Japanese arts is the piercing reverse punch, the stark contrast would be the WTF round house kick. All this being said, I don't think it diminishes what ITF TKD is, after all, you have to learn how to walk before you run.
So does it really matter when a student starts kicking in their forms? I don't honestly know. Logic tells me that the sooner you start doing something, the better you'll be at it in the long run. I am curious what you think though, so please feel free to leave a comment. I'll try to keep the next topic a little lighter on content.
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