change and infallibility

I had the recently had the privilege of training with Grandmaster Paul Cutler. During one of the breaks we were discussing the various changes that have crept into the tul, some of which are exaggerations - often propagated as the result of tournament judges favouring stylistic flourishes, others have been introduced by the technical committees of the various ITF groups. GM Cutler commented that we should not alter Taekwon-Do from General Choi's original teachings. This was an-off-the-cuff remark and I have no idea how invested the Grandmaster is in this point of view, but it is certainly not an uncommon idea in the world of ITF Taekwon-Do.

I run the risk of stating the painfully obvious when I say that nobody is infallible;¹ not the pope, not Bruce Lee and not General Choi.

Many martial arts, including the arts that Taekwon-Do is built upon, have been refined for generations, in some cases development has spanned centuries. There is no reason why Taekwon-Do cannot also benefit from continued development, especially when you consider that Choi was a revisionist; he made huge sweeping changes to the his art. Addressing the implications of these changes is another job in itself.

Choi was a great martial engineer, his mechanics are worked out to an incredible degree. But there is at least one significant error in his application of physics.² At some point that will need to be fixed.

In addition, Choi's structural/mechanical accomplishments have come at a price; the tactical aspect of Taekwon-Do is sorely lacking. This is almost certainly inherited in part from Shotokan katate, Taekwon-Do's 'mother art' and greatest influence. Additionally, the absence of a thorough tactical framework may be a symptom of a more abstract approach to striking, something I hope to explore in a future post.

There is a growing movement of  karate instructors working hard to re-interpret the kata and rediscover the practical tactical applications that they represent. Taekwon-Do also needs to develop this aspect of the art, in harmony with Choi's structural work. Already  there are  many instructors out there pushing this work forward.

There is plenty left to be done in developing this martial art.
Seen in a certain light, from a certain angle,  Choi's greatest contributions to his art are a starting point, a martial arts construction kit. Building a truly comprehensive art may well including revising some of the work that has gone before, but then Taekwon-Do is built on revisions, as is all human knowledge.

Footnotes:

1. Possibly Milla Jovovich is infallible.

2. There are several instances where sine wave is used in stances where weight drop will not contribute to power generation, and a few cases where it will actually remove power from a strike. As far as I can tell these errors are due to a conflation between mass and weight.