The art of Taekwondo is often characterized as a martial art that uses powerful, yet unrealistic kicking techniques for combat. While it is true that Taekwondo does possess an arsenal of flashy kicking techniques, that characterization is quite superficial. If you were to examine the patterns used by practitioners of Taekwondo, you would find certain movements that could be interpreted as grappling techniques. Lower belt patterns tend to have more fist movements and long range techniques that may be viewed as grabbing and entering techniques, whereas high belt patterns have more open hand and close range movements that represent grappling and infighting. All of the patterns utilize an action-reaction principle in their movements. This action-reaction movement greatly resembles off-balancing techniques utilized in arts like judo or jujutsu.
A Brief History of Patterns
In order to see that Taekwondo has grappling techniques embedded in its patterns, we must first examine the patterns of Shotokan Karate, the style that most agree has had the greatest influence on Taekwondo’s techniques and development.
During the 11th century, many Japanese warriors fled to Okinawa as a result of the devastation of the Taira-Minamoto wars. The warriors of the Minamoto clan believed that all movement was the same. Therefore practitioners of their art, Minamoto Bujitsu, believed that any type of combat, be it striking, grappling, or using weapons all relied on similar movements. Students of this style would be taught a combative movement. Once they had mastered that movement, they were shown how it relates to striking, grappling, or weapons usage. We see this same pretense today in Japanese Aikido and jujutsu, Filipino Kali, and Vietnamese Thanh Long where sword, stick, or knife techniques double as joint-locking and takedown techniques when the weapon is removed from the practitioner’s hands.
In 1377, the king of Okinawa pledged allegiance to China. The result of this union was a flood of Chinese custom and culture into the country of Okinawa. Specifically, there was the immigration of 36 Chinese families. This group of families included many experts in the Chinese art Kempo or “Fist Law.” The art of Kempo combined with the native Okinawan art Te to form today’s Okinawan Karate or Okinawa-te. Later, in 1429, King Sho Hashi began to trade with other countries, including Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan, and China which resulted in the cities of Naha and Shuri becoming major trading centers. The opening of trade with these other countries resulted in the martial arts of these other countries becoming available to the people of Okinawa. These countries, had their own indigenous martial arts, but Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and China specifically had martial arts with extensive grappling in their repertoire. About 50 years later in 1477, King Sho Shin banned all private weapon ownership which acted as a driving force for the Okinawan people to greatly develop their empty-hand fighting skills. Finally, about 130 years later in 1609, the Satsuma clan invaded Okinawa at the behest of the Tokugawa shogunate. This invasion resulted in the an even greater advancement of the empty-hand fighting skills of the Okinawan people as their art became extremely violent, as its purpose was to quickly disable and kill an armed and possible armored attacker through the use of powerful striking techniques as well as bone breaking and joint disruption techniques. It is at this point in the history of the Japanese/Okinawan martial arts, most of the patterns that were taught were of Chinese origin. These patterns contained highly effective and brutal fighting techniques loaded with Chin-na or Chinese joint-locking techniques.
In 1868 however, this all changed. Japan moved from a feudalistic government to a democratic one that resulted in a few changes to the martial arts. The martial arts began to be taught as a way to promote the values of the past. This was done by using the martial arts to foster health, spirit, morality, and national identity, instead of the most efficient way to disable an opponent. Finally, a sportification of Japanese martial arts began. This switch to a more holistic, sporting martial art gained ground in 1908 when Itosu “Anko” Yasutsune was able to incorporate karate training into the physical education programs in all elementary schools on Okinawa. In order to do this however, a few changes needed to be made to the art. For these changes, he was often criticized for effectively watering down the combat efficacy of karate. He disguised the more dangerous techniques, i.e. grappling, and taught the art as one primarily based on blocking and punching. No combative application was taught for any technique, meaning the patterns were taught without their application thereby making them no different than any of the traditional dances popular at the time. Lastly, deceptive names were given to the techniques that were taught, such as “high block” or “low block”. Prior to this, what we know as a “high block” or “low block” was utilized as a striking or grappling technique in addition to its role in blocking. It is now clear that karate patterns did at one time contain more than just striking and blocking techniques.
Taekwondo Patterns
Today’s Taekwondo patterns, specifically those used by Traditional Taekwondo practitioners, share many similarities with the older Japanese patterns. The original Okinawan Pinan pattern set and the newer Heian set are thought to be watered-down versions of the Kanku Dai (Kusanku) pattern. The Heian set was changed by Itosu to make them easier to learn by introducing easier techniques first. These patterns are still taught today in some Traditional Taekwondo schools under the Pyong-Ahn name. Early Traditional Taekwondo did not emphasize sparring as the art was still considered to be for self-defense purposes. The techniques in these patterns were not meant to be used to teach sport fighting; instead, these patterns were to be used by a soldier in battle and were meant to be used against aggressive, untrained attackers, which is why the applications of the patterns emphasize close-range self-defense techniques.
When Traditional Taekwondo and Shotokan patterns are compared, many similarities may be found. For example, the following Japanese patterns have a nearly identical Korean counterpart: Kanku Dai and Kong-Soo-Kan; Tekki and Chul-Gi; Bassai and Pal-Sek; Jion and Jaon; and Empi and Unbi. Other patterns are not identical, but similar movement patterns are found in the following: Heian Nidan and Won-Hyo; Tekki Shodan, Nidan, and Sandan and the Chang-Hon pattern Po-Eun; and Heian Shodan and the Chang-Hon patterns Chon-Ji and Dan-Gun.
The Chang-Hon patterns were the first “original” Taekwondo patterns and were developed by General Choi Hong Hi. The movements in these patterns have a large Shotokan influence, which is not a surprise considering General Choi received his 2nd degree black belt in Shotokan Karate while in Japan. Techniques found within the Chang-Hon patterns include throws, takedowns, chokes, strangles, joint locks of the wrist, elbow, finger, leg, and neck, and some ground fighting techniques. This pattern set is unique in that it contains complex footwork patterns in the nine under-black belt patterns. This intricate footwork is the basis for the grappling techniques in the patterns. Many of the Chang-Hon patterns are quite long and contain hand and foot combinations that do not often seem to make sense. These seemingly nonsensical combinations often tend to have grappling applications. It is through a thorough examination of the Chang-Hon patterns that we will find Taekwondo’s hidden grappling techniques.
A Brief History of Japanese Jujutsu
and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu
The history of Japanese jujutsu is as interesting as that of its striking counterpart. Of course, when something is as old as an art like jujutsu, its history becomes more than a little muddled. For example, depending on the researcher, the roots of Japanese jujutsu come from ancient Greek grappling systems like Pankration, older Mongolian grappling arts, or simply that jujutsu is completely Japanese in its roots and has not been diluted by the native arts of other lands since its inception. The concern of this section is not to argue which history is most accurate and which is most self-serving, rather it is to illustrate a connection between older Japanese jujutsu and the corresponding Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
One of the largest misconceptions about Japanese jujutsu is that it was always practiced as a stand-alone art. This art, which has been known as jujutsu, taijutsu, wajutsu, torite, and yawara existed as an art that balanced the use of empty hand skills with weapons skills so that it would be useful to the samurai. A purely empty hand martial art would not be useful to the samurai because they fought as armed soldiers, much like soldiers of today. It is for this very reason that today’s military does not spend a great deal of time