Taekyon (택견 in Hangul) is a typical Northern Asian Martial Art, with
similar circular body dynamics and flowing fighting
strategy.In essence, all Northern "Soft" Asian Martial Arts share the concept
of whirling hand techniques, opposing "soft to
hard and hard to soft". All of them use pushing
and pulling techniques, to control and unbalance the opponent
at his center of gravity, combined with throws and
locks, using Kupso pressure and strikes. Hand techniques are similar to Chen
and Wu Styles of Tai Chi Chuan (we talk about the fighting art,
not the "wellness" exercise we see today).
Rare photography from 1910, showing children practicing Taekyon.
In addition to that, Taekyon has a sine waving body motion
and high kicking techniques, quite original to Korea
and some few areas in the Manchuria, in China.
The sine wave motion uses extensive knee springing
and light rising in the tip of the toes, assisted by a back and forth movement and hip bouncing, to add momentum to the action. This motion concept has similarities with the body bouncing movement used in the Chinese Arts of Pa Kua Chang and Tan Tui.
An animation (from Taekyon Net) showing children practicing a Taekyon sine wave simple application.
Technically, there exist a distinguishably Korean uniqueness in this harmonic blend of the Taekyon sine wave, body motion and kicking dynamics. The extensive use of whirling kicks (with very few snapping kicks), pushing kicks, sweeps and throws, maximizes the use of power generated by the rising and bouncing motion of the body. The whole concept is well aimed at using body weight (mass) and motion fluidity and smooth connection as the main source of power.
Among modern Korean Martial Arts, this Korean style of sine wave motion and flow was inherited only by ITF Taekwon-Do. In the ITF, the sine wave was adapted by General Choi, integrating it with the straight, target-focusing techniques inherited from Karate. The final product is a blend of adapted Karate techniques and the soft whirling defenses and kicking techniques inherited form Taekyon. Because of this, we can say that ITF Taekwon-Do is the most “Koreanized” of all modern Korean Martial Arts.
A page form a modern Taekyon Manual explaining the sine wave motion.
In Taekyon, hand techniques are always relaxed and flowing, with no target focusing, and always assisted by a leveled breathing and Ki flow and extension. Taekyon has no clinched fists in the hip, punching or action-reaction supporting motion as in Karate and Taekwon-Do. The extensive use of fingering, holding and throwing actions is always performed in non-stop sequences, where one technique smoothly flows into the next one, as in the internal Chinese styles. There is no "one punch, one kill" as in Karate and Southern Chinese Martial Arts styles.
There exists old Taekyon Bontae (forms) with slow motion techniques and extensive Ki Gong breathing, intermingled with fast flowing techniques, resembling Chen style Tai Chi Chuan, with which there is not relation whatsoever. This is just a good example of evolutionary convergence.
Even the rhythmic controlled Kihap flow is adequate to the smoothness of Taekyon. The repetitive "eikh-eikh-eikh" in each step, with an "eikhoo" at the end of a flow, is quite appropriate to maintain the Ki flow climax along a sequence.
ITF Taekwon-Do has a unique way of vocalization after the Valsava maneuvers (to hold your breath by closing the glottis to increase power exertion) associated with each technique. The concept behind this controlled Kihap is a clear derivative adaptation of the Taekyon Kihap. This controlled Kihap adapted by General Choi is unique to the ITF; no other modern Korean Martial Art conserves this particularity of the Traditional Korean Martial Arts.
In Taekyon, breathing style vary form "collar bone" breathing (breathing with the upper part of the lungs, pulling the diaphragm up), which is adequate for jumping and high kicking, to "belly" breathing (breathing with the lower part of the lungs, pushing down the diaphragm), which is necessary to lower your center of gravity and to apply weight into a downward technique, as defenses and pushes.
These technical variations are found also in Northern Chinese hard styles, and Chen and Wu style Tai Chi Chuan (all coming form Northern Chinese Provinces, with cultural and ecological similarities with Korea). However, Karate and Southern Chinese Arts did not evolve in this direction.
Ki Gongin Taekyon is mostly practiced in standing positions, with arm whirling and extension movements, accompanied by breathing and visualization exercises. Today, some Hapkido Schools do practice adapted versions of this Ki Gong style.
Han Kuk Mu Sul evolution
Demonstration of a Taekyon leg throw.
After the World War II, Korean Karate and Ju Jitsu experts integrated Taekyon kicking techniques and a few of its fighting strategies into new syncretic "Koreanized” Martial Arts, latter grouped into Taekwon-Do and Hapkido.
At that time, General Choi Hong Hi was one of the few Korean Martial Arts experts with a rich and elaborated approach to this syncretic Koreanization effort. Compared to him, most of the Korean Karate experts of the time were almost illiterate and with no real understanding of the Korean Culture, history and traditions, after so many years of Japanese acculturation. They were Koreans with poor formal Korean education.
General Choi was a culturate man, with a quite sophisticated education and a wide understanding of the nuances of the Korean Culture. He had the competence to rescue, not only the kicking "hard" techniques of Taekyon (easy to grasp for punching and kicking simple Karateka), but also the delicacies of the sine wave motion and the concept of “the slow blended into the fluid and the fast”. He also rescued the Taekyon diaphragmatic breathing control, be it to enhance body lifting (for jumping and kicking), or lowering the center of gravity, by downward pushing the diaphragm (to enhance the "rooting" of the stance).
Along the years, since the Karate-like Taekwon-Do of the 60's and the early 70's, ITF Taekwon-Do evolved and matured enormously, until the technical stage we see today. On the contrary, WTF Taekwondo was stripped down and simplified into a “just kicking" sport, augmenting even more the Japanese-inherited stiffness (the bad part of it) making WTF hand techniques almost useless.
Going one step further in a different direction, with the revival of the Korean Cultural in the recent decade, started a logical departure from the Nationalistic standardization of mass-driven Martial Arts (the cliché of taekwondo as a national sport) into more elaborated concepts of Martial Arts development.
Beautiful artistic photography (from the Korea Taekyon Association), showing two experts demonstrating a jumping technique..
Recently, some Taekyon, Kum Do (Korean fencing) and Hapkido Masters begun to explore the relation between the flowing and soft fighting concept of the Korean Traditional Martial Arts, and the motion and energy economy concepts of Taoist Inner Arts, like Tai Chi Chuan. The idea is to give more importance to "Ki extension and projection" without loosing fighting efficiency.
This is quite an interesting experience of the eclectic and unprejudiced cultural syncretism of the well educated Korean people [there exist quite a bit of them going into Taekyon today, escaping form the simplistic mass-production WTF taekwondo].
As with ITF Taekwon-Do and a few Hapkido Schools, we may expect another beautiful Martial product from this research exercise.
As a conclusion, we may very well say that Taekyon is back to stay, and is still a permanent source to new ideas. Taekyon is the cradle of inspiration to all modern Korean Martial Arts.
