prevalence of kicking? I don’t recall alot of kicking… but I was six, so who knows. some of the hyung are strikingly similar to karate kata (kicho hyung and taikyoku shodan, for example), and I think they even use some of the same ones - like naihanchi, I believe.
As for the “too japanese” issue, I’ve got an MA magazine - I think an issue of black belt - from the early 90’s that talks about the division of powers and various political issues in the tkd and tsd communities. That’s where my info on that came from.
I have noticed that Koreans tend to claim that they invented a lot of things, or claim that what they invented is a lot older than it really is. I take most claims of that nature with a grain of salt.
Tang Soo Do is a modern Korean martial art created by master Hwang Kee in the 50s. The Tang Soo Do Hyung (forms) were originally exactly the same as Shotokan Karate Kata. Hwang Kee later created several forms of his own, but the primary forms are still identical to Shotokan. Hwang Kee actually once mentioned that he had learned the original forms from books on Japanese and Okinawan Karate he found at a railway station he worked at while living in China.
Hey guys…here are a couple of links regardining ninjutsu history…they are lists of articles and you can select the title of the article at the top…I’m sorry I can’t really give you any more info coz I don’t feel like reading them…(I really couldn’t care any less about ninjutsu than I do right now)…