RHEE Tae Kwon Do

Discussion in 'General Martial Arts Discussion' started by Xio, May 16, 2004.

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  1. rtkd-badger

    rtkd-badger Fundimentaly Manipulated

    Forward stance

    Imonetwo,
    Seeing as how you are an instructor you may be able to help me with a problem that i am having with my 7 year old son, I would ask my instructor but we have been given 2 weeks off training due to school holidays (much to my disgust). :bang: When my son stands into a front stance he cant keep his feet parallel. His front foot faces forward but his back foot juts out sideways and if he tries to correct it he says it hurts behind his knee. I was wondering are there any exercises he can do to correct this problem. He is currently 6th grade and we have gradings coming up in December and I would like to fix this problem befor then.
     
  2. gakami

    gakami Valued Member

    Does Rhee TKD not partake in full contact training? That is part of the whole ITF thing isn't it? Just asking for info, I don't know much about the TKD scene. Do RTKD train for Olympic style competition?

    I personally come from a TKD/Korean MA background, to be specific Tang Soo Do (read my intro thread in the intro section). I was very disappointed to see a lot of the TKD schools around these days though. I've checked out a couple of Rhee schools in the past but was disappointed at the standard of the students regardless of belt level. This goes for TKD overall that I've seen. By "standard", I mean the focus of the students, the quality control in terms of correcting their stances and teaching how to kick/punch with power, and the discipline during training (timing, everyone moving as one, with conviction).

    I do not doubt at all that Rhee or his senior students themselves uphold the best there is in TKD and I can respect that, but it doesn't seem to have filtered down to some of their students. I know they have many schools all over Australia, how often do they visit these schools besides every few months for a grading? What protocols are implemented in maintaining quality control? With all the Rhee schools around, how much time do they have to visit every one of them to ensure everything's ok?

    By the way, why is there such hostility between the different TKD factions, in particular ITF and WTF?
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2004
  3. imonetwo

    imonetwo New Member

    Rhee TaeKwon-Do

    Two Answers-One Post
    Firstly Badger, your son needs the stretch the lower calf muscle much more intensely, difficult I realise for a 7 year old, but necessary for him to be able to have both feet facing forward, I also add it my take some time as we are all built differently. By the way, we dont have school holidays in my club, and only 2 weeks off for Xmas.
    Secondly
    Gakami, I understand your impressions completely about the standard taught at the RTKD dojangs you have visited, as they say, not all black belts are good fighters, the same applies to teaching. However, having said that, I must say that I am only responsible for the students I teach, but I agree totally about the need to concentrate on focus of power,and also to practise in such a way as to utilise the power one can extract from correctly excecuted techniques.
    I also have trained several times with Tang Soo Do clubs, and have found their style and attitude almost the same (except for minor differences) as the one taught by the Masters Rhee. To answer your first question, RTKD is non contact in the same way TSD is, contact is controlled among senior belts, but not allowed between junior belts. And secondly, the reason RTKD is no longer a member of the ITF is because we dont believe a Martial Arts should be a sport, we left the ITF in the late 70s because of, primarily this reason. My only answer as to why there is so much in-fighting between the ITF and WTf is ego. Myself and most instructors in Melbourne train regularily with Master Rhee Chong Hyup to maintain our standards,and hopefully we are passing it on to our students. I honestly say without reservation that I am,which is always very obvious at grading time :) I hope these answers have been informative.
     
  4. angry

    angry Valued Member

    McDojo yes!

    Chong Chul Rhee from what I have found through many research into tkd in Aust. was brought to the country by Steven Cheah (Cheah TKD) in the late 70's to teach his schools during the Bruce Lee booms. He than brought out his brothers to help with expanding the schools across the eastern states.

    I trained with Rhee in North Qld (TVL) (Go Cowboy's!)15 years ago and while I enjoyed the training and learned much as a beginner there where many things I questioned. The grading of 30 or more students at a time by one person is not anyway a reasonable or honest way to test students. It is hard to see techniques of four or five in one line at a time little lone six lines deep. The way they use students to teach classes for little reward as so as they have achieved 1st Dan. A 1st Dan is not an instructor but a student who has learned the basic techniques and that is all! The whole business structure is aimed at school children and has several aspects of a McDojo (McDojang?) While not having training contracts and it is price reasonably (at least in my area) it is defiantly McDojo like in it's poor quality control and use of double and triple grading of students. But it could be worse! Most of the Rhee schools in my area broke away around ten years ago to form South Pacific TKD and the standards there have dropped off a long way since but the have manage to retain the bad parts of the club structure though!

    Now I was only involved with the club for 18 month and by chance met a 4th Dan of another school of TKD who to this day remains an inspirational figure to me. I did learn good basics while I was training with Rhee and do not say they technique is inferior to the average TKD schools out there but I found that beyond basics there was very little taught. This is probably the reason for the fact that though for 25 years they have had many thousands of students they still have only a handful of senior ranks. After 15 years of training in tkd I still have much to learn and will spend many more years mastering techniques I have already been taught.
     
  5. gakami

    gakami Valued Member

    imonetwo - the TSD I did is different from the TSD you're likely to see in Australia. We did a lot of contact sparring and we were not competition focused at all. It was more about self-development, self-defence, physical stamina, technique, application of technique, and spirit and in order to do that, you must involve yourself in contact work otherwise you'll never know exactly where you stand in a real fight, and you'll never know what it feels like to hit and be hit. That was the philosophy of the instructor we had anyway, I was too young at the time to be doing much contact work but it was the philosophy of the training for all adults. Our fulltime instructor was one of those hardcore Korean guys with calloused knuckles who enforced strict discipline during classes. If I didn't jump high enough for the jumping high kicks, I would be hit by the big stick he is swinging below me as I jump. Simple as that.

    Thinking back retrospectively, that was one hell of a hardcore training I received and I am eternally grateful for that. That is exactly as I imagined training is like in Korea (well, back then anyway). Anyway seeing the state of TKD (and also a lot of Karate) these days is disappointing to say the least.

    I agree with "angry" below. Grading 30 students simultaneously in one class doesn't seem right unless the students are graded by their usual instructor who already knows they are all up to standard, which means the grading is purely for ceremonial purposes rather than an actual testing of skills? But if the grading was conducted by a visiting senior rank, then he really should be individually grading them for quality control purposes.
     
  6. rtkd-badger

    rtkd-badger Fundimentaly Manipulated

    Even though we practice what is supposed to be non contact sparring all blows are delivered at full power and as the opponent you either have to block , move, or get hit.
     
  7. gakami

    gakami Valued Member

    So... you're doing full contact sparring...?
     
  8. rtkd-badger

    rtkd-badger Fundimentaly Manipulated

    Well i suppose we are to an extent, but even though all techniques are delivered at full power they are controlled, otherwise we would soon run out of sparring partners. Lower belts however are no contact at all until they develop controll.
     
  9. imonetwo

    imonetwo New Member

    Tang Soo Do

    gakami
    The Tang Soo Do instructor I had the pleasure of training with was Master Kyu Sik Shin: 9th Dan Black Belt,a great yet humble man, and at the time I was considering training in Tang Soo Do, as apart from very minor differences, was exaclty the same as Rhee TaeKwon-Do. I was wondering if you have heard of him ? He has had a club here is Melbourne for many years. I met him through a friend who later joined my club and trained with me for several years.
     
  10. gakami

    gakami Valued Member

    hi imonetwo - no I haven't kept up with the TSD scene. I kinda lost the plot of the story after I heard that TSD had broken up into different opposing factions after Hwang Kee died. Do you know about Master Kyu Sik Shin's lineage? Just out of interest. It was a shock to me to hear about all the in-fighting going on in TSD. We all used to be one big happy family. :(
     
  11. imonetwo

    imonetwo New Member

    Master Shin

    gakami

    Dont know much about his background,But here is a site that has a little information about him. The infighting you spoke of seems to happen to all martial arts when westerners become involved. :)

    http://home.vicnet.net.au/~stsd/instructors.htm
     
  12. Thomas

    Thomas Combat Hapkido/Taekwondo

    Maybe... but it's just as bad, if not worse, among Koreans... take a look at the history of the "foundation of TKD" , the various federations, or the various Hapkido kwans... unfortunately westerners do not have the monopoly on this. Unfortunately many westerners learn this behavior from their non-western teachers !
     
  13. gakami

    gakami Valued Member

    imonetwo - oh HIM, I've seen that website before. Is that where you train?

    Thomas - McDojoism is predominantly a western phenomenon though. No where else will you find a strip mall karate school...
     
  14. Thomas

    Thomas Combat Hapkido/Taekwondo

    Depends on how you define "McDojo". By the way, I spent 4 years training in Korea and saw a fair share of Korean-owned/operated schools that would probably fit your definition of "McDojo"... The west does not have a monopoly on that either.

    By the way, just because a school is located on a "strip mall" does not make it a "McDojo". Take a look at this thread for examples of how some people would define "McDojos" beyond simple location or ethnicity of its instructors:http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5506
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2004
  15. gakami

    gakami Valued Member

    Hi Thomas, If we go back far enough into the history of Asian martial arts I am sure we would find cases of McDojoism there too, particularly in China. I mean, that's what half the challenge matches were all about. By the same token, the "wild west" (or wild east) attitudes in China back then also unofficially regulated the false teachers by weeding them out via trial by combat.

    But really, it wasn't until the huge Asian martial arts boom in the 50s and 60s when the West, particularly in the US from returning US military personnel stationed in Asian countries, was openly exposed to these martial arts in a largely commercial sense. Right from the get go there were claims of "combat judo" as taught by military colonels which of course do not resemble judo at all. They cash in on the Asian mystique - the small Asian man having secret techniques with which they despatch of the larger White men. Some of these books are still available today if you look hard enough. When Indian religion and culture started to become part of the pop culture in the beatnick 60s period, many yoga "mcdojos" were cropping up everywhere too. In terms of martial arts, first it was the judo/jujutsu boom, then came karate and taekwondo, then Bruce Lee popularised Chinese kung fu towards the mid to late 60s and well into the 70s. The 80s saw the ninja craze kick in.

    I do admit that in recent years there has been an increase martial arts as a viable way to make a living as a successful businessman in Asian countries (walk through Shanghai or Beijing and you'll see a plethora of kung fu / wu shu schools) and I dont' doubt that you'll find cases of mcdojoism there too. But as for the beginnings of mcdojoism as a widespread phenomenon, it started in the West, particularly in the US.
     
  16. Thomas

    Thomas Combat Hapkido/Taekwondo

    Good post.

    I would agree that the martial arts boom (and continuing boom) has led to an obvious rise in McDojoism and that the intial demand came in the west. However, the boom has spread in the "native" countries as well and McDojos have sprung up to take advantage of the interest as well. The west does not have a monopoly on McDojos, but I can see your argument of laying the blame here for seriously spreading interest in the martial arts. McDojos are everywhere, in the West and in the East.
     
  17. imonetwo

    imonetwo New Member

    Rhee TKD news

    Well seeing that this post is about Rhee TaeKwon-Do, I thought I would share the fact that I have two 1st Kups grading for their BB this Thursday here in Melbourne with Master Rhee Chong Hyup.
    I love gradings,they make me so proud.
     
  18. rtkd-badger

    rtkd-badger Fundimentaly Manipulated

    Best of luck to all your students who are grading.
    We have our grading this Saturday with Master Rhee Chong Chul.
    I love grading day as well
     
  19. ouchthathurts

    ouchthathurts New Member

    How did you get the belt image in there?

    i can't get the belt image to show up in my signature...how did you do it?
    Not that i want to brasg about getting my yellow belt...OH, yes i do :D
     
  20. rtkd-badger

    rtkd-badger Fundimentaly Manipulated

    In your signature type [​IMG]
    you should be able to get an address off another MAP member by right clicking on thier belt in their sig and clicking on properties then copy the address. see if that works
     
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