I have explored the first nine forms of the Chang-Hon system in the "Macro" series, and it is time to close the book on them. In this post my hope is to tie up my thoughts on the first nine forms as a whole. I'll discuss, in general, the make up of technique in the first nine, and their order. I'll also write about how the forms relate to teaching a solid foundation of the art for a first degree black belt about to embark on the next leg of their journey.
The first nine forms are a haphazard collection of need to know skills. Individually they stand strong. If you take any one form, and look at it in a vacuum so to speak, you'll see that there are very good and very necessary lessons being taught in each. I say the forms are haphazard though because the forms are too similar in some parts of the progression, and too dissimilar in other places. It creates a kind of "jumble" of knowledge on the way to black belt.
Take Tan-Gun and To-San. The ending sequence of moves in both forms work on similar concepts with similar techniques. I don't think I have ever seen a yellow belt at one point or another, not confuse the endings of these forms and I've seen far too many students confuse the endings during a test. I wouldn't tinker with the internals of a form. That would almost be sacrilege from my point of view, however if I were running my own program, I might change the order of the form stream, since there is already a precedence of other schools doing this.
In my opinion, Won-Hyo, would follow Tan-Gun better, as the twin forearm block is introduced in Tan-Gun and then is thrown in a three move combination in Won-Hyo. Furthermore, the angling in To-San seems out of place and would be a better predecessor to Yul-Gok in my mind. These minor changes in order would keep themes consistent in belt rank, and the substitutions do not force a student to learn something that is more difficult earlier. Ultimately you could make a case that Won-Hyo is harder than To-San on the content of technique, but I believe To-San to be the harder form to execute with high rank quality proficiency.
In this setup, Yul-Gok is still your gateway to the advanced level. I think this is important because I think Yul-Gok combines much of what you do in the earlier forms and acts as a bit of a final exam for all that came before it.
I can't make a case for changing the final four forms. Rather, I can't make a case I feel strongly for. I think there still is a haphazardness to the last four forms, but I don't think that it can be easily fixed by moving the forms around. They are four unique forms, and while once learned they give you a "toolbox" to work from, there is no progression like there is with the lower forms. That is a theme that carries on in the black belt forms for the most part, but the lack of "progression" makes these forms more difficult than they necessarily need to be (in my opinion). At the end of it all though, I believe that by being proficient in the first nine forms, a student is ready to tackle what comes in the black belt forms.
If the end result though is favorable you might wonder why I think it is so important to worry about the form to form transitions. Simply stated, it's easy for someone with two decades experience in the art to take what they learned in their first years for granted especially when you are still training, and still pursuing knowledge. I make it a point to remind lower ranking students that there are always lessons to be learned in the low forms. A good black belt is made by constantly improving on the foundation they received their rank on. These posts I hope shed some insight into how to think of the forms past the mentality of "oh, that's a green belt form".
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