Martial Arts

Martial art is one of the biggest sports in South Korea and Taekwondo, Taekkyon as well as Hapkido were all established in South Korea.

 태권도 (Taekwondo) have apparently been traised as far back as the 1st centuary BC, and it only became widely known during the Second WW. Soon it became part of the combat military training and has been incorporated in the miliary training rules since 1961. Taekwondo was the world's largest sport in 1989, and has been one the games in the Olympics since 2000. There are traditional taekwondo as well as sport taekwondo and the training includes combat techniques, self-defense, sport, exercise, mediation and philosophy.

 World Taekwondo Federation and International Taekwon-Do Federation are the two most popular organizations in the world.

택견(Taekkyeon) originates from an art from called Subak which apparently was divided and split into two parts back in the time of the early Joseon Dynasty. Song Duk Ki was one of the last Old practioners that teached Taejkkyeon the old way, when he died in 1987 he was 94 years old and he was national treasure status the same year.

The style or training includes kicks , hand and leg techniques. Apparently it is supposed to have around 10 different techniques.

합기도 (Hapkido) is not as closely related to Aikido as many apparently seems to believe. They are two very different martial arts sports. Choi Yong Sool he was born in 1899 and died in 1986 and he only is responsible for creating the modern Hapkido style, he had five gifted students, Seo Boek Seob being his first student, Ji Han Jae, Kim Moo Hong, Myung Jae Nam and Myung Kwan - Sik. Where the last one linked Hapkido with Aikido...

Today Hyun Kwan Seek is supposedly one of the few 9th degree Hapkido Black belts in the US. He is apparently responsible for traning over 12.000 students as well as 9000 policemen in the art of Hapkido so far.

Hapkido mixes soft techniques from jujutsu and aikido with hard techniques stemming from taekwondo.The Korean Hapkido Association was established in 1965 on request from the Korean president Park Jeong Hee.

© Taste of Kimchi, Elle

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