Читать книгу The Power of the Warrior - Néstor Galarraga - Страница 14

Taekwon-Do is a martial art in every sense of the word. This discipline was developed by General Choi Hong Hi (1918-2002) between the years 1945-1955. He developed it initially for the Korean Armed Forces, to be used as a tool for the defense of the country. Its efficiency was proved in hundreds of opportunities, particularly in the Vietnam War and by agents of the Korean Intelligence Service, during the Cold War. The same way as Judo, it became known in the world during the first War and, as Karate, it became popular during World War II; Taekwon-Do did so in the Vietnamese jungles. As it is commonly known, the United States supported South Korea for years against North Korea and the South Koreans returned Americans in Vietnam the favor. During that time, specialized training camps that reproduced the Vietnamese jungles were created in Korea, and the Korean marines were provided with special uniforms and a quite particular training. They learnt more than Taekwon-Do; something Alex Gillis in his book calls “a deadly art”.

It is estimated that between the years 1962 and 1975, between civilians and soldiers, one million people practiced the discipline in Vietnam. Many were the stories about how the Koreans used it in that war. In 1966, a reporter from Time wrote: “for westerners the method is as violent as it is effective” and he described many stories that are not the point here. Yet, he mentioned that all Korean soldiers, from General Chae Myung Shin in command to the last soldier, practiced Taekwon-Do —the Korean version of Karate— for 60 minutes, every day.

Simultaneously, the Korean Tiger Division was recognized as a highly qualified and brutally efficient combat unit, so much that the Viet Cong had orders to move as near the American troops as possible and to avoid combat in any way with the Korean forces. The possible explanation to this was a battle carried out during Saint Valentine´s night, in February 1967, when 1500 Viet Cong soldiers surrounded and attacked approximately 250 Korean marines, within a strongly fortified area controlled by the communists, in the province of Quảng Ngãi. The final result of the attack was a body-to-body combat in the middle of the night, between the rain and the fog, and where numbers spoke alone: 15 Koreans killed; 104 Viet Cong soldiers defeated within the perimeter and 140 outside it. The Koreans ended up surrounding those who, at the beginning, were controlling the action. There is no need to go over details, but it is worth mentioning that, from the beginning, the main objective was to attain the maximum level of effectiveness with the technique, together with a series of ideological, tactical and strategic principles. There are thousands of stories like this one where the effectiveness, the force, the speed, the precision and the resolution of the men that apply Taekwon-Do stands out.

In the 60´s, the expansion process of Taekwon-Do began and it started arriving non-stop to the different countries, as if it were part of a cultural insertion plan of the government. It was favored by two fundamental matters: on the one hand, the postwar process to which Koreans were subjected forced many to try to live Korea, since it was under the military regime of president Park Chung Hee (South Korean military man and politician that ruled the Republic of Korea by means of a dictatorship for 17 years, from 1962 to 1979), and to emigrate with the purpose of finding a new lifestyle in new lands and Taekwon-Do, to those who had practiced it for a long period of time in the army or socially, was the job alternative they found as immigrants, to develop anywhere in the world; on the other hand, the Korean intelligence services, the KCIA, used secret service agents to carry out activities in different countries, obviously, most of them were Taekwon-Do experts and many hid as instructors within the schools of “Korean Karate” and carried out quasi-criminal activities, while acting as spies or counterspies. The illegal entering into different countries of those who managed to escape from Korea was one of the main activities, while the put together the papers for their final destination, being generally North America or Europe.

Now then, many were the cases of Koreans who reported constantly what was going on in their country during the dictatorship of Park Chong Hee. Some pursued journalism and were consistently harassed by one of the three groups of intelligence, which kidnapped and deported back to Korea these people in order to be punished, tortured and, even, disappeared by the regime. At that time, there were three groups of power: the KCIA (Korean Central Intelligence Agency), the PMO (Prime Minister´s Office) and the PSF (Presidential Security Force). These three intelligence agencies orbited the president and dictator Park Chung Hee and gave him support but, at the same time, they conspired one against the other, following their own agendas and protecting their space of power. The three of them carried out intelligence service duties and conducted international operations; one would help you to escape, while the other would persecute you politically. What seems strange is that the downpour of claims and international scandals of South Korea showed the world its more brutal face, one that —up to that point— had only been attributed to the government of North Korea. As incredible as it may seem, that scenario, instead of hurting the expansion and growth of Taekwon-Do, ended up favoring it, with the exception of some countries like France, which strongly reacted against Korea. This was the process that helped the government of Korea understand that they could use Taekwon-Do as a tool for expansion and cultural insertion, since the discipline itself was not only a martial art or a sport, but a receptacle of cultural information of the Korean people, by which the native language could be taught and procedures, protocols and different cultural ways could be adopted by students. Many people from around the world started to become interested in the discipline, despite the fact that it was being perceived in many countries as an attempt of cultural action. This was later known as “the cultural other”, a policy of the Asian countries with the intention of promoting their own culture as a bridge for commercialization. Consequently, many of the great masters that we know through history and some of the famous pioneers might have probably been secret agents, working for the Korean Intelligence Service through one of these organizations, that is, for the government of Korea…

In the 70´s, a new process begins and, due to the many confrontations of General Choi with the government of Korea, the ITF moves its headquarters to Canada, where the discipline starts to develop internationally. In 1972, Korea creates WT while ITF organizes the first World Championship, in 1974. In the 80´s, two phenomena are occurring that will transform the discipline worldwide: the WT is recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), an essential step for WT Taekwondo to become an Olympic sport, and this finally manages to associate Park´s regime (General Choi´s sworn enemy) with Taekwon-Do and to use the Olympics and the sport as a way to clean his image internationally. At the same time, General Choi, completely disappointed and disoriented by the news that Taekwon-Do has been recognized by the IOC, but only its WT version, puts a plan in motion to take ITF Taekwon-Do to North Korea. Because of this, he will lose many of his main (Korean) disciples, who would decide not to accompany him to North Korea and who interpreted this as Choi´s political suicide and the death of ITF. They knew that if they undertook General Choi´s risky venture, in many cases, they could probably never see their families ever again. But Choi moves forward with his plan and he doubles the stakes. He negotiates with North Korea and he develops the technique one step further —leaving those he would start calling “traitors” outdated and out of the game— and he graduates native instructors of the 4th Dan, thus, controlling directly the existing national federations, unlike the predictions of the government of South Korean and his former students.

In the 90´s, ITF Taekwon-Do becomes an amazing discipline due to its extremely high level of efficiency and refined esthetics. It is likely that Choi, who was still being criticized for his way of conducting Taekwon-Do, found during those years the point of balance between esthetics and efficiency. Its enormous popularity made of it a martial art without precedents and of him, particularly, the founder of the last Martial Art. This has a very particular connotation; I personally believe that Taekwon-Do ITF style is historically the last Martial Art. There will be new methods, systems, styles, sports grounded on the different martial disciplines, but there will be no more martial arts per se. These belong to a particular process in history and they played a part in the wars where body-to-body combat was a fundamental element of the battlefront.

I am not interested in developing any further this historical feature of the discipline but, in its logic, I cannot ignore the most outstanding aspects of its transformation…

At first, the discipline was developed to be used by the army to defend its country. This is the fundamental reason it is recognized worldwide as a martial art. But, as time went by and the discipline became connected to several political events, mainly the confrontation between General Choi and the government of South Korea, it became a sport discipline without precedents, to the point that there are two sports sharing the same origin and the same name that have fought throughout history for the right to be called the original Korean Martial Art, for the technique, for the entering into the Olympic movement, and for its worldwide popularity.

From the beginning, ITF Taekwon-Do distinguished itself from the rest of the martial arts; it steered into a new direction, mainly the way to move the body and to get power, although at first it was a concept detached from the real practice. It is obvious that it was inspired from Karate; not only did it copy the basic concept of the technique, but also its first texts and bibliographies. What Choi tried at first was to make a superior Karate. But the idea to start using leg techniques inspired in Taekkyon, with the same ability as the fists, and to incorporate a variety of turning techniques and different jumping kicks separated Taekwon-Do from Karate. Simultaneously, from the beginning, students had to memorize the power theory, some scientific formulas and to know precisely what they were achieving with each movement, regarding its argument and application (this gave the discipline some scientific support). They became passionate with discipline and turned into soldiers and intellectuals (definition given by the founding father), true martial artists and, later on, elite athletes.

After meticulously analyzing its history, I can say, without the fear of being mistaken, that de current development of Taekwon-Do was possible due to a series of casual events, a real multicolor salad of coincidences. The sway of Japan over Korea, the great number of social incidents, the dispute over power and the different political stances triggered an unprecedented artistic and martial discipline with a highly esthetic content, a popular sport, a scientific-based technique and a guiding thread recognized by thousands of people worldwide as their lifestyle. The current standing of the discipline is a true coincidence, though I do not quite believe in coincidences.

I believe it is important to highlight the fact that there are two sports sharing the same origin and the same name. However, comparing them today would be like comparing basketball to volleyball. Between 1945 and 1955, as I explained in the introduction to this book, a Korean called Choi Hong Hi developed a new martial art for Korea and named it Taekwon-Do. The country was under the presidency of Syngman Rhee, a politician, leader of the Korean national movement and first president of South Korea since 1948 and until 1960. On April 11 of 1955, at approximately 8:40 pm, Taekwon-Do was accepted as the new Korean Martial Art. The growth and popularity earned in a short period of time resulted in a meeting on September 11 of 1961 where all the Masters and most important Korean martial arts schools reluctantly gathered to form the Korean Taekwon-Do Association and, obviously, General Choi was elected president. He immediately began to work to internationalize his project, while the rest of the Korean masters were conspiring to get the presidency of the KTA.

On March 22 of 1966, General Choi Hong Hi established the International Federation of Taekwon-Do ITF, based in South Korea, and he —who at the time was an Army General— was elected as president. It is important to highlight, at this point, the enormous persistence and tenacity of General Choi, who at that moment was supported by Nam Tae Hi, with whom he had created the Oh Do Kwan or “school of my way”. Nam cooperated in the formation process of the discipline as chief instructor, but it is important not to be misled: Taekwon-Do had only one ideologist and founding father, who fought for a name and the idea that Korea needed its authentic martial art against all schools and martial arts exponents who, at that time, wanted to continue with their old Karate schools and who disagreed and differed with the new project. Chung Do Kwan (blue wave school), created by Lee Wong Guk; Soong Moo Kwan (pine tree taekwondo), created by Ro Byung Jik; Yoon Moo Kwan and Ji Do Kwan (institute for wisdom’s way), created by Chu Sang Up and Yung Kwe Byong; YMCA Kwon Bop Bu and Chang Moo Kwa (school of martial development), created by Yoong Byung In; and Moo Duk Kwan (school of martial virtue), created by Hwang Kee had all a common denominator: they wanted to remain under the name Tang Soo Do (“karate” in Chinese), because mostly all of these men had been martially educated in Japan or trained in Korea by Japanese masters, and they wanted nothing to do with changing the technique or using a new name.

All of this happened during the foundation period but, sometime afterwards, General Choi fiercely confronted the Korean government for the positioning of Taekwon-Do worldwide. The General had some attributes that became fundamental at the time of carrying out his endeavors: martial and military training, courage, intuition and the peculiar capacity to stop at nothing. Thus, it is important to understand that everybody else came with. History showed, later on, that the others, self-proclaimed cofounders or mistakenly called “pioneers”, in many cases, had not even one light-bulb moment. Nevertheless, it is important to explain that there were two instructors that were essential in the whole creation and formation process: Nam Tae Hi, in the military development of the martial art, and Jong Chan Kim, in the civilian, institutional and sporting development of the discipline.

General Choi was tremendously resisted by the masters of the different Korean martial arts schools during the whole founding process and, later on, by the government trying to challenge the control that the General had over the organization and, then, by trying to erase him from history (in fact, there were two murder attempts against General Choi). I understand this had to do with two key issues rooted in the nature of the Korean people: firstly, the natural division of Korea, in every sense, as part of their cultural background; let us not forget the story of the three kingdoms and the never-ending wars for power; this is like a brand mark in the hearts of the Korean people. In fact, they are still divided today by parallel 38º, “north to south”, a crack that has not yet been filled; and, secondly, very important indeed, in Korea, the different martial arts styles of the time called Kuanes were Karate, Judo, Kendo schools, or even a mixture of all, in some cases. In fact, Tang Soo Do means “karate” in Chinese and it was the denomination under which they wanted to group themselves. It is obvious that all those styles had the Korean stamp on them, but the Japanese influence at that time was absolute. The radical change regarding the direction of martial arts started with Choi Hong Hi´s proposal for the creation of an authentic Korean martial art and this was what clearly laid down the rules.

Let us not forget that, between 1910 and 1945, the Japanese occupation of Korea was part of the expansion policy of the Empire of the Sun. Korea was under the rule of Japan for 35 years —from August 22 of 1910 to August 15 of 1945— during almost all the first half of the 20th Century until the Japanese surrender in World War II. The Japanese invasion was brutal; not only did they force the Korean into slavery and poverty but they also tried to snatch their identity away. Japan implemented a subjugation policy forcing Koreans to assimilate Japanese culture. At Korean schools, Japanese language was spoken; Korean written newspapers were shut down and history was distorted for Koreans to be seen as an inferior class. Martial arts were forbidden but certain members of some selected families were allowed to practice Judo or Karate. Furthermore, better off families would send their children to Japan to get educated and they would return to Korea culturally indoctrinated and ready to defend the empire, and the rest would grow old working as slaves and deprived of any kind of cultural education. It was perverse. By going over this part of history, I understood that, in the process of the creation of Taekwon-Do, the division resulting from the power struggles as an intangible part of the history of Korea and the influence that Japanese culture still exercised over the Korean people, even after so many years had gone by, as well as the lack of institutionalism, something quite common at that time, were all deeply rooted in the very culture or nature of the Korean people and strongly influenced the struggles to position and control the new Korean Martial Art which, at that time, was part of an integral plan to change the image that the world had of the Korean government.