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The word tradition comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to bequeath" or “to pass down” a knowledge or belief. By definition, traditions are passed down orally, or bay means of non-written media, i.e., as dances or Martial
Arts Forms (an ancient major way of teaching).
Traditional Knowledge is non-scientific and (most of the times) not based on logical analysis and/or structured objective experimentation. Traditions are highly tinted by culture, social structure and rules, and personal subjectivity. Culture defines
the framework of development, considering, i.e., religious beliefs, myths and taboos. Social structure include, i.e., values, moral constraints and hierarchy (very important in Confucian societies). Personal subjectivity (and cunningness) was also a very important variable in pre-scientific times, as individuals developed their work in a simple empirical manner.
In the Martial Arts, we can consider that a given knowledge is traditional if it is old (pre-modern) and passed down orally, from generation to generation.
Only a few Martial Arts schools deserve being called Traditional. In Korea, only Taekyon, Ssirum and Hapkiyusul, an unchanged branch of the Japanese Daito Ryu Ju Jujitsu are Traditional Martial Arts.
Taekwon-Do and Hapkido are not traditional. They are mixed modern Martial Arts, integrated from techniques and methods form traditional Martial Arts, with the addition of new scientific and empirical developments. Empirical developments are those based on human experience (that's why they are called Martial "Arts"), as harmony of integration and strategy.
There exist several well known martial arts schools self-entitled as "traditional" just to justify their independent existence, due to financial and/or power struggle reasons. They use historical distortions about their real origin, to hide that they are just modern devices.
To be a traditional or ancient Martial Art does ensure that they are better that the newer ones. Those older Arts are "modern" if compared to the Arts from which they were developed… However, many of them present themselves as carriers of some kind of "martial essence or spirit" (whatever that means) lost by modern Martial Arts. This allegation is based in the very same financial and/or power struggle reasons as the "newly" founded "traditional" martial arts.
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What means Orthodoxy
in the Martial Arts?
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The word orthodoxy is quite used by Martial Arts Masters to enforce their authority as carriers of “tradition”. This particular word derives form the Greek ortho meaning 'right" or "correct", and doxa meaning "teaching" or "worship". The term was created by the Greek Christians to refer to the "correct" doctrine in their religion, as determined by the religious "authority". Orthodoxy matters to Religious Faith, not Martial Arts Styles.
In the Martial Arts, the "orthodox way" of doing things is just a arbitrary imposition for the convenience of those in charge.
Orthodoxy is opposed to heterodoxy, meaning “other teaching ” or “different teaching”, which (following "orthodox tradition") drives to heresy. And we all know what happened to heretics in times of abhorrent and ignorant intolerance.
Oriental people of all times were tolerant, and encourage variation and creation, just with a few exceptions (as some Confucian influenced late Dynasties in Korea, for example).
Nonetheless, in the XX century, as a cultural (bad) influence coming form the West, the terms Orthodoxy and Tradition were combined in a very bizarre way by several Oriental Martial Arts Schools, to enforce their political and financial objectives. |
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What those schools mean by “traditional” is just a bizarre misinterpretation of the concept of “orthodoxy” applied to non-religious matters,which is ridiculously unjustifed (see the side article).
In times where science and technology are the main (or unique) tools of development, it is impossible to seriously consider doing technical modifications just by empirical means. When it comes to technical improvements, we need highly trained scientists and quite a bit of research and development, following very rigorous procedures.
The only accepted non-scientific development is when it is not the technique what is changed, but the strategy and harmony of integration of the Art (again, this is why they are called Martial "Arts"). We see this in the well-known Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It is not a traditional Martial Art or a modern Art with new techniques developed through scientific procedures. Nonetheless, it adds an alternative strategy to the integration of the techniques from two traditional Arts (Japanese Judo/Ju-Jitsu and Western Wrestling), outclassing them in many aspects when it comes to ground fighting.
ITF Taekwon-Do is a modern Art with techniques developed through scientific procedures. General Choi followed a long-term strategy of comparative analysis and applied research to develop, refine and improve ITF Taekwon-Do. And he did this until the very end of his days.
And that is what is exiting about ITF Taekwon-Do: it follows a non-orthodox strategy of technical improvement, relying heavily on science. There are no styles in Taekwon-Do. Styles are just personal ways of fitting individual characteristics (body size and proportions, agility, etc.) into a technical structure (Taekwon-Do for example).
Today, to be an outstanding Martial Arts Teacher and innovator, you have to be very well educated (and with an astonishing intuition and lots of experience). This is a general trend throughout the modern Martial Arts World. Technical improvements are developed in advanced research laboratories, using powerful computers to perform kinematical analysis, modeling and optimizing movement dynamics in 3D graphics environments, with intense use of applied mathematics and statistics, and highly specialized measurement tools.
No matter if technical improvements are aimed at sports oriented sparring or at fighting without rules. The underlying applied method is the very same. Today, any serious Martial Arts development has to be done through scientific means.
Caring for traditions
Along hundreds of years, our ancestors slowly developed the basis of what we are today. They didn’t have the scientific method and the tools to do a rational and economic work. They invested a huge amount of empiric work along decades or centuries, to do things that (today) we may be able do in a few months. That is why Traditional Martial knowledge is precious per-se and has to be preserved untouched at all cost.
Sports-oriented and commercial approaches to martial training are abandoning the most elaborated and important portions of the original Fighting Arts. Ancient Fighting Arts were developed by empirical tests in the battlefield and in no-rules (really) fighting scenarios, impossible to replicate today. The cumulative experience from those times is of utmost importance. The loss of that knowledge would be disastrous for the future of the Martial Arts.
To preserve that legacy, we have to work in the very same manner we do anthropological and ethnobotanical research on the traditional indigenous use of the Amazon forest species (medicines, industry raw materials, etc). We have to apply scientific procedures to research and organize traditional martial techniques and training methods. We have to preserve the past to go into the future.
If many of us do the same (each one of us in his own area of expertise in a collaborative fashion), we will have a stronger ITF. Taekwon-Do has to maintain itself as a Modern Martial Art deeply rooted in the past.
Our TechGate section is our way to contribute to this preservation effort.
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