We have all been beginners in Taekwon-do dojangs and have taught that “Pattern should begin and end at exactly same spot”! That’s how Gen. Choi wrote in the Encyclopedia!!! And then many others have copied from it…
We’ve always performed the patterns to end where we started. Even the instructors have given us instructions on how to get us “just like that.” As instructors, we have led the practitioners. After all, in a competition or technical exam this is part of the assessment of performer’s accuracy.
Personally, I noticed that “end at exactly same spot” doesn’t always work. We exclude the forms where there is a jump and there you can easily compensate the difference.
For patterns like Do-San we have practiced Hecho maki at 30° instead of 45°, and in Joong-Gun we have explained how on the way back the Niunja sogi is “short” and the Nachuo sogi is “just a little longer” than the Gunnun sogi…
I’ve always taken these things as “exceptions proving the rule”… Until I watched a few videos from https://www.youtube.com/@leojunkwan and then I have yellow alert.
In the videos, the author simulates the movement of the pattern with identical positions along the entire diagram and the end spot is in a different place from the beginning…
Of course, my first reaction was to go to the dojang and check it out in person. Chong-Ji and Dan-Gun confirmed it! I have red alert!!!
Chong-Ji Dan-Gun
Well… All this has been before our eyes, since the publication of the Encyclopedia in 1985 – how we did not notice it?
Simple: the diagrams are in sequential pictures and the proportions of the positions look normal… but when superimposed on top of each other (with overlapping of the steps) there is a discrepancy in the coordinate systems (obviously in Do-San) and things come to their place!
Do-San
I have always had doubts about the “scientific approach” used in the creation of Taekwon-Do Encyclopedia. Things have always seemed to me, so the explanation was created later and “fitted” with theory and practice.
Gunnun sogi in the Encyclopedia
Watching the video for Choong-Jang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WuJjutPyGA where was used footage from the “cult” North Korean training film, where the last two Gunnun sogi are “childish/square” – all my doubts disappeared.
Now I am convinced and can reveal the secret of the General’s Choi “scientific approach”:
Gen. Choi has created the Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do according to the methodology of the famous Russian scientists Assoc. Prof. Natakmenko and Prof. Naglasiov!
The General “shocked” applied their work in the Encyclopedia – from theory of power, trough sine wave and so on to … the Patterns. All this is so elegantly compiled that it successfully withstood the 40-year test of time. The secret has been revealed and it is in the “translation” of the names of prominent Russian scientists – Assoc. Prof. „Fix it up“ and Prof. „Adjusted“ !!!
All of us – Taekwon-Do instructors and practitioners – have suffered from this experiment. For years we have been subject to dogmas and have even “unconsciously” adjusted our performances to them.
Now is the time to shake off dogmas and apply our most powerful weapon – common sense. This is practically possible, but not for everyone!
Organizations with a strong “cult” focus on gen. Choi will hardly be able to react adequately – on the contrary they will “bring water from 9 wells” and explain how “black is white”. I refer to North Korean ITF-NK and ITF-V athletes, they will certainly be joined by the traditional ITF-C and their clone ITF-K.
I can tell you what I will do in our organization – I will stop teaching that “Pattern should begin and end at exactly same spot” and I will require instructors and practitioners of a training or exam to finish in a different place. This will show the real precision of the performance, not the result of the methodology of Prof. Adjusted.
Taekwon!
