If there was a form that captured the essence of what Taekwon-Do really is, that form would be Moon-Moo. Although I do not yet know Tong-Il, I have seen it enough to award Moon-Moo the title. I will qualify this statement by saying that my school still does Ko-Dang, and never formally adopted Juche. Once upon a time, when Youtube was new and I was a more rebellious black belt I taught myself Juche. Although I have not continued to practice and have subsequently forgotten Juche, I remember it well and stand by my assertion that Moon-Moo is the quintessential TKD form. I'm not trying to diminish Juche, I simply don't have a strong background with it because in my TKD universe - it really doesn't exist.
Moon-Moo is the third longest form coming in only behind So-San and Yoo-Sin at 61 moves. It is named after King Moon-Moo, the 30th king of the Silla dynasty.
It would be easy to look at Moon-Moo as the quintessential TKD form from the kicking requirements alone however there's a lot more going on in Moon-Moo than tension side kicks and tension spinning kicks. Moon-Moo is a powerful form. There are no soft moves in the form. Every technique you execute is like a stormwave crashing relentlessly on the beach that is your imaginary opponents. Taekwondo is an art that finds its gracefulness in the beauty of raw power; Moon-Moo embodies that grace.
I'm not going to break down the form move by move - there are a lot of moves but thankfully this form has three "acts" that I can look at. Act 1 sees the practitioner do the most demanding moves. Here you have tension side kicks, tension spinning hook kicks (some schools do the side kicks moving backwards from the one legged stance tense as well - we do not). The entire first act of the form is a monument to the need for perfect body control, and with perfect body control comes enormous power.
Act two starts with the downward palm block, front leg front kick into side hammer fist strike, quick scoop/slide, knife hand down block into step in side kick spinning hook kick. The change from act 1's graceful power to act 2's pure power is a stark contrast, which only makes both acts stand out as the varying contrasts play off of each other. When a tense move proceeds a very fast move - the fast move often looks even faster and stronger. In Moon-Moo this is demonstrated in the contrast between the tension kicks in the beginning and the hard fast kicks in the middle.
The final act builds with more kicks in a short time than any other Chang-Hon form and ends with a jumping crescendo. Act 3 begins with twisting kicks and forearm blocks. Following these techniques come a low waving kick, into a checking side kick high side kick. This is repeated, and then after turning reverse punch comes the coup de grace: two jumping downward punches, landing in X stances and finishing with a jump back kick from an X stance. The form ends after this jump kick with a stepping back rising reverse arc hand block with a straight punch.
There is nothing soft, and there is nothing ambiguous in the 61 movements of Moon-Moo. The form is a perfect demonstration of the power TKD should give its practitioner and of the power that is inherent in the art itself. My only complaint about this form is that it features so late in order of forms. I'd have killed to know this form in my 20s instead of learning it in my mid 30s. I wonder if the architecture of Juche was in regard to the challenges Moon-Moo coming so late in the curriculum. Maybe some of you have the answer to that?
No comments:
Post a Comment