I was told many years ago, while studying it, that Tae Kwon Do was a corean art, or so was said by my teachers, formers students of Park Young Gil (I saw him once in a demo, amaizing what an old little trained guy can do ).
Is a surprise that Jet lee is a shaolin style, I'll have to look him closer, shaolin has always made me courious
It's related with some delicate factors, particularly with things like national esteem, pride, and that sort of stuff, Naso.
You have to understand that during the years Tae Kwon Do emerged, Korea was a young country, barely some 10~20 years since it first sprang up in 1948.
The political chaos was unbearable, and military dictators surfaced.
Now, if there's one common thing about military dictators, they're all fierce advocates of patriotism and nationalistic pride. The birth of Tae Kwon Do was closely related to the political world - while taking no direct part in political issues, Tae Kwon Do sort of became a useful instrument as a propaganda material to both Koreans and foreigners.
Along side the nurses and miners, common laborers Korea sent abroad to make money, were the Tae Kwon Do masters. They were the foremost of people in advertising the country and it's history to the Western world.
And in that sort of atmosphere, slowly, but firmly, the origins of Tae Kwon Do became a hush-hush material - controversial in its nature, and those who bring it up often facing criticism that accused them as "unpatriotic". It's the dark side of the martial arts world, I guess.
But make no mistake about it - modern Tae Kwon Do is in everyway a Korean art now, setting its distance from its origins of Karate. It's just that it's not an ancient art as some claim - just like modern Karate, is hardly 'ancient Japanese' - Ryukyu was never considered a part of Japan in the old days. (Claiming Ryukyu was always associated with "Japan", is like saying Hawaii was always a US territory.)
The records are pretty clear and well documented - it's just that nobody wants to dig them up. And as the years passed, the facts and truth were slowly forgotten to the masses.
...
Jet Li started out from the Shao-lin style. He is especially reknowned for his excellence in the "Monk style(Lao-han quan)" of the Shao-lin art. However, he also studied in various forms of martial arts, and also a very important member of the inner heritage of the Ching-zhu Taichi.
fortunately there are only a couple of people in the world of LAW caliber out there. And they will never enter a fight because they are way too disiplined and superior human beings.
I have seen a whole lot of fights in my day.... NEVER seen a real fight where anything like martial arts were used. Seen a couple of guys who claimed to be martial artists but they were fighting about like the other guy towards the (their) end..
hitting forarms together hurts... so does hitting fists together or hitting the top of someones head or having your nose smashed flat or hitting someone with a broken hand or getting your ribs broken by a steel toed boot or... having a couple of teeth broken. heck... even something as mild as being thrown into a table hurts. In fact...
it seems to me that, win or lose... every fight I ever been in hurt.
Also a very good point, lazs!
And in many ways, very controversial. In a sense, the Chinese form of martial arts we see in the movies, are an "idealized" form of combat. Both parties follow the same rules, and the same 'consensus' concerning the fight.
It's sort of hard to explain, but in Chinese martial arts there exists what the Westerners may call a 'ritualistic aspect', which can be rephrased as 'rules of engagement'. The Chinese people were very centered in the concept of honour, something the Westerners might find familiar with the ancient Roman concept regarding honour.
Battles between students of two different schools, were directly related with the honour of the school. If one school's student was victorious and the word spread out, it would be considered as an imediate disgrace to the school the loser was in - thus, other members of the school had a duty to challenge the victorious school again and reclaim their honour.
Such endless circle of fights and more fights, had turned out a state of perpetual vendettas - something like the vendettas between Mafia families.
In the end, the schools of Chinese arts have sort of reached a 'consensus' of a win-win scenario:
1) Don't start a fight at all
2) If a fight must take place, never involve higher ranking students in it. Always finish the fight with "proper manners" - a sort of a vague state, where two contestants would meet in a very limited contact, and determine who has the upperhand(often in many cases, never even trading a single punch!)
3) Keep the results of the fight a secret. Never go public.
In the end, what was brought down upon the Chinese martial arts world, was a state artificial calm. Actual combats ceased to exist - and considering that experience in fighting cannot be gained by training alone, that sort of lead to the downfall of Chinese martial arts when the fighting world went public in martial arts tournaments such as the modern UFC, K-1, Pride, etc etc. It was actually a foreseen result - visionaries like Bruce Lee already very sharply pointed out this problem persisting in Chinese martial art schools. The 'grand masters' of a certain school(with no disrespect to them), barely have any experience in actual combat at all. You can't go around hit people and injure them anymore in the modern world!
And in the absence of the Chinese art locked away in their own world, emerged the new styles of modern-day fighting, represented by Graicie jujitsu, Muay Thai, Judo and Karate. Probably those four forms of art are the most prestigious in the modern day world of full-contact combat.
All of those four martial arts have something in common - they are extremely brutal and efficient, leaving out and doing away with anything unnecessary, and thoroughly researched and proven in actual combat trials.
The versatility of the Muay Thai fighters of Thailand, is now legendary. Probably the only other school that can match it in both fame and result, is Karate, which was also rigorously modernized by masters like Oyama Matsudatsu of the Kokushin Ryu. Master Oyama, was probably the first of the new generation of fighters who had dared to go on a world tour, fighting against other styles of martial arts in public. Through those actual combat trials, he has optimized Karate into its bare essentials - no fancy kicks or punches, no bizzare stances. Firm guard, firm balance, and series of powerful kicks and punches in an effective linear pattern.
And, in the other side of the world, the fighters of the Graicie family began proving to the world, that no method of combat is effective when the combatant is lying on his back on the ground.
Interestingly, probably the most effective form of martial arts which have been standardized and made into an official sport, when it comes to actual combat, is probably Judo. I've witnessed Olympic Judo medalists of Japan, who are essentially amateuers who just turned pro, climbing into the ring very undertrained in percussion techniques, but still often gaining the victory from trained fighters who have experienced all kinds of combat in various tournaments. Judo, is everybit as powerful as in real life, as the sport.
Currently, there's a lot of ruckus in Asia between the Chinese and the other martial artists, particularly of Japan. Chinese masters of ancient arts claim that the rules that limit combat techniques in the ring of professional tournaments, is the main reason why many students of the Chinese martial art schools had so very little success.
For instance, they mention that the most effective method of countering a body tackle so often seen in pro-fights, is an attack to the eyes, groin, inner ears and the neck. Targetting these areas are strictly prohibited even in "no-holds barred" tournaments. In some ways, it makes sense.
However, let me finish this story by what happened here in Korea recently. A renowned martial arts grandmaster, who is over the age of 40, announced that he would participate in the Spirit tournament - a martial arts tournament recently organized in Korea. Immediately all eyes of the martial arts world of Korea was seized upon him. He urged that the Spirit tournament officially issue him a release from his responsibilities for in any case the opponent might be killed.
Was this a chance to prove that the ancient forms of martial arts, applied exactly in its manner even in modern day fight tournaments, can be everybit as deadly as they really claim to be?
Guesses and estimates were flying out like wild. Practicioners of martial arts faced mixed feelings of both anticipation and worry - despite many of those students now already know that times have changed, still inside their hearts remained a strong feeling for ancient Chinese art and their form of idealized combat winning the day.
People came to a conclusion that it was either the grandmaster won every bout with a single punch and win the tournament, or become disgraced and humbled before the eyes of reality.
...
So what happened?
I'm sorry to say, the grandmaster didn't even pass the preliminary rounds. In 2 minutes, he was thrown to the ground, locked in a rear naked neck choke, and had to tap out
Alas, that's reality..!
