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Tau
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Taekwon Do 2-step

 

Does anyone know the origins of the set two-step sparring drills in Taekwon Do? I mean these:

 

I can see how one-step and three-step are derived from ippon kumite and sanbon kumite respectively?

Are the two-step drills TKD's attempts at the Wado drills or other similar? Or somewhere else?

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

I don’t know the origins of these, but I can rule one thing out:

Tau wrote:
Are the two-step drills TKD's attempts at the Wado drills or other similar?

There’s no drills like this in Wado. The two main sets of partner drills are the Kihion Gumite (1 – 10) and the Ohyo Gumite (1 – 8). There are others, but it would be fair to say these are the most widely practised sets.

The Ohyo Gumite are the creation of Tatso Suzuki. They are widely practised in European Wado (because Suzuki settled in the UK), but not so much in other parts of the world. The obvious exception being groups who were affiliated with Tatso Suzuki. They are largely made up of sparring techniques popular at the time of their creation and include punches, kicks, throws, sweeps, elbows, knee, etc.

The Kihon Gumite were created by Hironori Otsuka. To my eyes, they are essentially a blending of methods from Otsuka’s study of Shindo Yoshin Ryu Jujutsu and the methods of Choki Motobu (one of Otsuka’s karate teachers; the other two being Gichin Funakoshi and Kenwa Mabuni). These are widely practised in pretty much all streams of Wado; with one notable exception being Wado in Canada as Masaru Shintani seems not to have made them part of teaching.

Both sets of drills are radically different from what is show here.

As I say, I’m not sure what the idea was for these “two-steps”, but I am confident it was bad one. My dislike of very formal one-steps and three-steps is something I’ve written about at length, and these two-steps exhibit all the same problems: The timing, distancing, methodology are all very unrealistic and are effectively a martial dead-end as they have no relevance to either fighting or self-defence.

I would be interested to hear where these did come if anyone knows?

All the best,

Iain

PASmith
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Aarggghh. I detest TKD 2 step sparring. It doesn't represent realistic usage of traditional techniques OR introduce sport sparring techniques either. As Iain said and IMHO I don't think they achieve anything of note training wise and are actually counter-productive.

We have exactly the same 2 step 1-4 in the TAGB (and 4 more up to 8) so they must predate 1983?

I think the idea behind the 2 steps is the same as behind many moderen martial arts "we have these techiques but no idea how they shoould actually be applied so let's make up a drill that uses them that people need to memorise for their next grading".

Oerjan Nilsen
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Two steps appear in Choi's 1965 book

Tau
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Iain Abernethy wrote:

I’m not sure what the idea was for these “two-steps”, but I am confident it was bad one.

I laughed loudly at your concise and direct honesty there. I completely agree. But that doesn't stop me wondering on their origins. It seems Karate has several such drills; Wado's drills, Motobu's drills and so on. We know that TKD is mangled shotokan so I wondered if any Karate practitioners would recognise them.

Iain Abernethy
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Iain Abernethy wrote:
I’m not sure what the idea was for these “two-steps”, but I am confident it was bad one.

Tau wrote:
I laughed loudly at your concise and direct honesty there. I completely agree.

I calls it like I sees it :-) I’m pleased it raised a laugh.

Tau wrote:
But that doesn't stop me wondering on their origins.

I’d be interested in that too. Oerjan said they are Choi's 1965 book, so it could be that they have been there since the beginning?

Tau wrote:
It seems Karate has several such drills; Wado's drills, Motobu's drills and so on. We know that TKD is mangled shotokan so I wondered if any Karate practitioners would recognise them.

As per my previous post, they are nothing like the two-person drills in Wado. I don’t see them as having anything in common with Motobu’s drills either. Neither of those set of drills could be described as “two steps”. The number of attacks / counter-attacks in those drills varies on every one of them. The are also closer and involve a lot of sliding and taking angles. The distancing and nature of the drills are also totally different.  Again, I’m not seeing any commonality there at all.

My guess as to their origins would be as follows:

Karate introduces one-step and three-step sparring as an attempt to ape some of the formal practises in judo. This practise originates from the flawed “3k” version of karate and hence encapsulates all of the problems with that approach.

Three-step can make sense in judo because it gives you a couple of chances to feel the timing before executing the throw i.e. https://youtu.be/YOcVfmmMBLY?t=3m5s Karate copies this practise, badly.

We therefore had the one-step and three-step practises that originated in karate in the late 1930s – the karate that General Choi learnt – find their way to TKD. TKD wants to mark itself of distinct from karate, and as part of that two-step sparring is introduced. We have one-step and three-step, so let’s put some two-step stuff in there too.  I’d be surprised if it was anything other than that.

Tau wrote:
I wondered if any Karate practitioners would recognise them.

As variations on a faulty “3k practises”, yes.

As something that is being copied from other two-person practises present in karate, no.

As I say, they are nothing like Motobu’s drills or the Kihon or Ohyo Gumite of Wado.

All the best,

Iain

Oerjan Nilsen
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The 2 Step sparring format does not appear in Hwang Kee's 1958 textbook (Mu Duk Kwan). So the earliest documentation I know of is Choi Hong Hi's 1965 Textbook. I can reach out and see if he included them in his Korean language 1959 book (written almost exclusively in Hanja, so I can't comment on its content beyond very superficial). I wouldn't be surprised if Iain's theory is correct. But so far it looks as if the 2 step sparring came a little later than the beginning (the Kwan or schools that later formed taekwondo was founded in the 1940s-50s. Taekwondo got its name in 1955 and we do not see 2 step until 1965 (as far as I know).

Iain Abernethy
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Hi Oerjan,

Oerjan Nilsen wrote:
But so far it looks as if the 2 step sparring came a little later than the beginning (the Kwan or schools that later formed taekwondo was founded in the 1940s-50s. Taekwondo got its name in 1955 and we do not see 2 step until 1965 (as far as I know).

That’s very interesting information! Thanks for sharing.

Oerjan Nilsen wrote:
The 2 Step sparring format does not appear in Hwang Kee's 1958 textbook (Mu Duk Kwan). So the earliest documentation I know of is Choi Hong Hi's 1965 Textbook.

So as a working hypothesis, we could say these are a later creation – based on the 1 steps and 3 step practises, that were already in place, and that come from “3K karate” – and the intention was likely to be to “fill the gap” between the two? Do we feel that is where the information we have is leading us to?

All the best,

Iain

Anf
Anf's picture

We have nothing like that in tang soo do, which is kind of related to taekwondo (taekwondo is a state sponsored 'refinement' of tang soo do, which in turn is mostly karate).

Looks a bit clunky to me, and to be honest, I can't see that it's in any way traditional. The very last combo at the end where guy throws front kick, girl blocks it causing guy to spin, he then waits. In tang soo do if someone knocks you into a spin, you capitalise on it by using the moment for one of the many spinning kicks we practice. Taekwondo is, I believe, even more into such fancy kicks than TSD is, so I'd be very, very surprised if it is widespread within taekwondo to have someone not capitalise on it.

Oerjan Nilsen
Oerjan Nilsen's picture

Iain Abernethy wrote:
So as a working hypothesis, we could say these are a later creation – based on the 1 steps and 3 step practises, that were already in place, and that come from “3K karate” – and the intention was likely to be to “fill the gap” between the two? Do we feel that is where the information we have is leading us to?

All the best,

Iain

Yes I feel so. As a side not we do have these in my organisation (Traditional Taekwondo Union), well not these exact one, but the concept of 2 step sparring. I can answer in a few days if the 2 step sparring concept appears in Choi Hong Hi's 1959 book, or if the 1965 book represents the earliest appearance.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Oerjan Nilsen wrote:
I can answer in a few days if the 2 step sparring concept appears in Choi Hong Hi's 1959 book, or if the 1965 book represents the earliest appearance.

Brilliant! I love learning things from such detective work :-)

Thanks for following up on this!

All the best,

Iain

Oerjan Nilsen
Oerjan Nilsen's picture

Hi Iain :-) I have checked Hwang Kee's Tang Su Do textbook from 1958 and it did not have two step sparring in it. My friend checked Choi Hong Hi's 1959 Taekwondo textbook and it didn't have two step sparring in it either. So it seems like Choi Hong Hi's 1965 book is where this kind of formal sparring makes it very first documented appearance.

At this time (1965) Choi was the president of the Korean Taekwondo Association (KTA) which explains why this kind of formal sparring appears in both "streams" of taekwondo/Taekwon-Do today :-)

Tau
Tau's picture

 

Oerjan Nilsen wrote:
I have checked Hwang Kee's Tang Su Do textbook from 1958 and it did not have two step sparring in it. My friend checked Choi Hong Hi's 1959 Taekwondo textbook and it didn't have two step sparring in it either. So it seems like Choi Hong Hi's 1965 book is where this kind of formal sparring makes it very first documented appearance. At this time (1965) Choi was the president of the Korean Taekwondo Association (KTA) which explains why this kind of formal sparring appears in both "streams" of taekwondo/Taekwon-Do today :-)

Thank you.

But we're left with "best guess" as to the "why" of it.

Iain Abernethy
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Oerjan Nilsen wrote:
Hi Iain :-) I have checked Hwang Kee's Tang Su Do textbook from 1958 ...

Thank you for following up on this! That’s all useful information and helps narrow down the point of origin.

Tau wrote:
we're left with "best guess" as to the "why" of it.

We are, but I think the “working hypothesis” put forth seems robust to me. Especially when we look at their nature and time of origin. They would seem to be from the mid-1960s and refection of the martial arts of the time i.e. a growth of the “3k” practises of the 1940s.

All the best,

Iain