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Strictly speaking, the Tae Kwon Do classes offered at Evergreen Martial Arts Academy should be called Tang Soo Do. Most people are not familiar with Tang Soo Do and so Tae Kwon Do is used for clarity. Tang Soo Do was the Korean pronunciation of the Hanja characters 唐手道, which in Japanese are pronounced Karate-do. In English, the characters translate to 'The way of the Tang hand'. These Hanja characters were first used to describe the Okinawan empty-hand martial arts system, since their system was derived from Chinese martial arts skills that originated during the Tang Dynasty. Tang Soo Do was used to describe a number of martial arts styles that came into prominence after Korea regained its independence from Japanese rule in 1945. The founder of the Moo Duk Kwan association, Grand Master Hwang Kee, worked for most of his life to ensure that Tang Soo Do remained as close as possible to its traditional roots. Most of GM Hwang Kee's peers pursued a modernization of Korean martial arts (ultimately named Tae Kwon Do) in order to promote the sport throughout the World. GM Hwang Kee and his Moo Duk Kwan stood alone as almost all the other styles and schools of Korean martial arts merged into the modern Tae Kwon Do. As a result of GM Hwang Kee's efforts, we have retained more traditional elements in our core curriculum than the modernized Tae Kwon Do organizations such as the International Tae Kwon Do Federation (ITF), the World Tae Kwon Do Federation (WTF) and the American Tae Kwon Do Association (ATA). At Evergreen Martial Arts Academy's Tang Soo Do Tae Kwon Do program, we have readily incorporated skills from a wide variety of sources into our program, without compromising the traditional elements such as the forms and the step sparring routines. We believe that we have the best of both worlds. |
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