In the current issue of the Kungfu/Qigong magazine, there is an article describing the kind of schedule at Dengfeng- kung fu, boxing, and taekwondo. Since students there take TKD for only 2 years, I was wondering to what extent was there taekwondo- what forms did they study, what belt do they achieve, do they engage in kyorugi or not, etc.
I’m hoping Gene knows the answer to this…
Thanks.
tkd
We’ve been discussing Shaolin TKD on another thread. As to the actual content of their curriculum, I have no idea. I can only tell you that the TKD students either feed into international competition or careers in law enforcement. The former would imply that they study Olympic style TKD, the latter might imply traditional. But I really don’t know. Next time I go back, I’ll try to find out, but this might be really tricky for me since I don’t know very much about TKD at all and the translation from Korean to Mandarin is probably too much for me to get back to English. I just worked on a video getting Korean to Japanese to English and it was a mess. Someone who knows more about TKD should answer this. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
I’ve been taking Taekwondo going on 6 years now. It’s Olymipic style. I think that TKD has been given a bad rap from a lot of people. Even though I have to admit it’s now more of a sport than a combat art, I still think it has some value. The kicks, though not indigeneous to Korea and are probably descended from Northern style kung fu, have been perfected and structuralized in the art. How else would Shaolin monks be trying it out? It has to have some worth for practicioners of a god knows how old art to be trying something that’s only fifty years old. New things aren’t necessarily bad.
I’m pretty sure the monks are practicing Olympic style because the traditional style is pretty much dead, mainly because of its association with Communist North Korea (which not even the Mainland likes) and its resemblances to that Japanese art that kung fu people think is too hard (i mean, karate).
It took me two years to get to a second degree, so this leads me to believe that novices from Dengfeng probably get that far or maybe ****her (I’m pretty young, and there’s restrictions on how old you have to be before you get to a certain belt. Since I’m not old enough, I’ve been hanging around in purgatory for a long time).
Here’s what I’m surmising what the TKD program is like:
-Basic kicks
-Targets
-Drills
-Poomse (forms): Taeguek (color belt forms, 8 in number)
-Maybe some sparring, but I’m not sure, since they got sanda.
I’m really interested in how much the Shaolin monks are getting out of TKD. I thinks it’s a good combo.
Is anybody with me…? Am I alone in my point of view…?
TKD
TKD is looked down upon in CMA, but then, pretty much anything non-CMA is looked down upon. Typical in any MA I imagine.
As for Shaolin monks doing TKD, that’s a bit of a misnomer. A few might dabble in other styles, but I wouldn’t say that the monks are moving to practice TKD. It’s the private schools nearby Shaolin. And the reason that most people practice TKD in China is because there’s international competition and the Chinese are all over that.
TKD
TKD is looked down upon in CMA, but then, pretty much anything non-CMA is looked down upon. Typical in any MA I imagine.
As for Shaolin monks doing TKD, that’s a bit of a misnomer. A few might dabble in other styles, but I wouldn’t say that the monks are moving to practice TKD. It’s the private schools nearby Shaolin. And the reason that most people practice TKD in China is because there’s international competition and the Chinese are all over that. Just look how far they’ve come in the Olympics in a short time - China in the Olympics