Today, conspiracy theories are in vogue and widely available to everyone, according to their taste. From the “moon affair”, through the “ancient aliens” and so on to the “flat earth”. But what is the relationship between the martial art and all these conspiracies???
The answer is puzzlingly simple: The existence of substantial discrepancies between the “official version” and reality, which should receive an adequate explanation…
Gen. Choi Hong Hi died on June 15, 2002, but Taekwon-Do continues to exist and widely practiced.
One by one, the discrepancies emerge.…
- Did you know that trajectory of SineWawe is… 3D!
The Sine wave in Taekwon-Do is a fundamental technique for performing the techniques. An extensive article on the topic is available here.
The essence of the wave is the performance of a technique simultaneously with a vertical downward movement of the body. According to Gen. Choi, the wave makes it possible to increase the power of the Taekwon-Do technique by converting the potential energy (accumulated during the elevation of the body during preparation) into kinetic energy (through the downward movement of the body at the end).
There are two specific points here:
- First, we are talking about vertical movement and it is depicted with the corresponding curve “resembling a sinusoid”. In practice, things are much more interesting and with a thorough study of the movement you can see how the curve is in space (it meanders to the left and to the right). Its vertical component is normally within 10-15 cm. (according to the height of the performer), which at the initial moment of decline leads to a negative effect – loss of potential energy. The greater the squat (which should be just “relaxing”), the greater the loss and therefore the less effective the execution of the technique! This type of vertical movement is practically incompatible with upward-pointing techniques (e.g. Chukio maki).
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Secondly, the real effect of performing the sine wave in Taekwon-Do to increase power is… Void! According to various experiments, about 3-5%, which is commensurate with the measurement error. Just for comparison, there are studies that give a 7-10% increase in strength when performing the technique with a Kihap/Kiai!
Question to everyone: What now?
6. Different positions are measured differently. (See related article)
The length/width of each position in Taekwon-Do is measured with a different beginning and end (one from finger to toe, another from toe to toe, etc.) – something that contradicts the systematic approach in science. Obviously, this part of Taekwon-Do is not properly structured, which contradicts the “scientificity” so propagated at the heart of the style.
In other scientific disciplines, a similar way of measuring with a different beginning and end is used, but it is denoted by a different term. For example, in electronics, when working with an oscilloscope for measuring pulses – according to the start and end points, they have a different designation/name.
Obviously, the terminology describing the length/width of positions and how they are measured needs to be expanded.
Question to the instructors: Will we respect the science or will we continue with the dogmas?
7. Gunnun Sogi is twice the width of the shoulders!
Lately, this topic has become relevant again, after the analyses of the movement from the patterns with identical positions throughout the diagram, where the discrepancy with the rule becomes obvious: “Pattern should begin and end at exactly same spot“! Then the question was raised that in practice the proportions of the positions do not correspond to the Encyclopedia (something that is practically shown in the Encyclopedia itself).
With practical measurements (at a geometrically correct position), a coefficient of 2 is obtained (which is quite different from a coefficient of 1.5 in the Encyclopedia).
This result (the length is 2 times the width of the shoulders or 44 cm in width and 89 cm in length) is also confirmed by analyzing photos from the Encyclopedia.
Here the “catch” is in the body type…
According to statistics from a real database, with an average height of 174.9 cm. and shoulder width 44 cm. A ratio of 2:1 is perfectly valid for about 15% of practitioners, but as you can see, such a ratio will be observed in about 50% of practitioners. In practice, this coefficient is a more realistic starting point than the 1.5:1 given in the Encyclopedia!
Question to everyone: Is the length of your gunun sogi is 1.5 times the width of your shoulders?
Coming soon:
- Is the trajectory of the punch straight?
- Where are over 3000 techniques hidden in Taekwon-Do?
- Taekwon-Do kicks come from…
