As a black belt earner in TKD and a Shotokan practitioner, I loved learning more about Tang Soo Do. I believe leaning concepts of different styles makes for a stronger and well rounded martial artist in your own style.

TSD is what made Cobra Kai exist

For the first several years TKD existed, there was absolutely no difference between it and Tang Soo Do. The standard joke at the time was the difference was five letters. The Korean government wanted to nationalize its' martial arts and make it distinctly Korean. Problem was, Tang Soo Do was essentially Shotokan by another name. The solution was to add kicks and change the hyungs. Thus, TKD was born. It's still basically Shotokan, but with a bunch of jumps and kicks added in to make it "stand out".

As a shotokan practitioner, I have a special admiration for korean martial arts, specially tang soo do. Martial arts have their own bright, each one in their own way. All of them deserves respect and space to develop their own culture, helping the world to be a better place, with better people.

This is a great informational on Korean Martial Arts. I hold a 5th Dan in Taekwondo and Hapkido. Through Jidokwon. My Grand Master was HoYung (Tiger) Chung, (10th Dan). Ho Yung “Tiger” Chung immigrated to the United States in 1971 with a passion to teach and inspire. But, the story doesn’t start there. As a soldier in the Korean Army, Tiger Chung had the privilege of teaching young American soldiers Tae Kwon Do - the ancient Korean art of self-defense. Beloved by his students, Tiger Chung was invited to the United States as a guest and never looked back. Tiger Chung uprooted his family and moved to the land of the people whom he grew to love and became a proud U.S. citizen. Tiger Chung’s Martial Arts have their roots locally. Opening his first school in Detroit in the early 1970s, Tiger Chung has taught thousands of students - some of whom are still practicing today and have also opened their own schools. But, there’s more to Tae Kwon Do than “karate”. Today’s Tae Kwon Do has evolved - not only is Tae Kwon Do self-defense, but it’s also discipline. Patience. Loyalty. Wellness. Together, it’s about becoming a better, more well-rounded person. Tiger Chung’s resume is extensive: as a 10th Degree Black Belt, he has achieved Grand Master status and is renowned around the world; is a former National (Korea) Tae Kwon Do Champion, world record holder (1981) for breaking 17 two inch cement blocks studied under Choi Yong-Sool, the founder of Hap Ki Do.

I grew up in tang soo do and my childhood friend group were also my martial arts peers. Learning the stories that each form tells of historical battles,(my favorite was a form representing a 3 way battle on a bridge). Growing up both challenging my best friends and also cheering them on, pushing eachother past our limits every day. I met Jae-chul Shin and presented an original staff form as part of the trials for my first degree. I hope someday to start from the beginning and work my way back and forwards further. Rework the 7 tenets back into my life ^^ I've forgotten most of the art, but of what I do remember I hold very dear.

Komap sumnida for taking the time to make and share this video. My training in Tang Soo Do started back in 1974 and I have had the Honor of meeting and training with some of the best Kwan Jang Nim's in Tang Soo Do ( KJN Hwang Kee, KJN Jae Chul Shin, KJN CS Kim, KJN Robert Beaudoin, and KJN Chuck Norris ). I have trained in many Martial Arts but roots will always be in Tang Soo Do. Once again Komap sumnida.

As a once Region 9 TSD Cho Dan (1st degree) i retired from the art to pursue a more grappling based art such as Jiu-Jitsu. I will say growing up with TSD it was amazing what it did to my discipline and patience as far as combat oriented sports. TSD is definitely one of a kind and will always be near and dear to my heart. I still have my signed Dobak (Gi for others) and ceremonial sword that was gifted to me for achieving 1st Dan by GM Jae C. Shin. Thank you for the educational video!

I have trained in Choi Kwang Do, Then more recently Tang Soo Do, and now am embarking on the Taekwondo journey. I am grateful for the TSD training I have received as there are many similarities. I agree that the TKD has many "flashy" kicks, and at 69 I am just not capable of them, but will try. I think that any art is worthwhile if it works for you, in that it lets you move, gain flexibility and stamina, and along the way gain more confidence in yourself. Its not easy, but it is worth it, and you get back all and more of what you put into it.

As a Goju Ryu, Combat Hapkido, Judoka, Kali and Boxing practitioner, I can say with confidence that I have an endless curiosity for other points of view. So keep running with your flag and don't you let the haters get you down.

The founder of Tang Soo Do was Kwan Chang Nim (Grandmaster) Jae Chul Shin, who was a student of Hwang Kee. And Chuck Norris was Jae Chul Shin’s student. Taekwondo branched out as a sport to gain recognition worldwide for Korea, while Tang Soo Do remained as a traditional martial art I’m a student of Tang Soo Do for 15 years and we are required to learn about the history from our student manuals

I practice Tang Soo Do, I receive my 3rd degree red belt in 2015, but due to the lack of interest in traditional martial arts the school closed in 2015. I then went to train with ATA Taekwondo and I was very disappointed with how it was so commercialized. Like the lack of discipline and order was shocking. I still practice Tang So Do on my own, but I hope to find another school to continue training.

I practice Taekwondo, this and your other videos are great and have alot of history and information that needs to be taught...thank you

Great video once again! Awesome history presentation.

Thanks for recommending this video. The style I learned was Chung Do Kwan, but I also have a Moo Do Kwan path from back in the day. What I learned was more TSD than current TKD. Look at the patch. It has a fist on it. Eventually, I would go on to train Kang Duk Won from a lineage where my teachers teacher had a black belt under Mas Oyama (kyokushin) as well as doing Kang Duk Won out of San Jose, Ca. which directly traces its origins to the founder of the style in Korea. Not to be confused with American KDW which is mostly on the East Coast US.

Very well done. From a TSD (Soo Bahk Do) Moo Duk Kwan practitioner, i appreciate your respect, open mindedness, inclusivity, and historical accuracy in the production of this! I also wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment in the outro. Kansahamnida. 🌿👊🌿

I've done TSD before but I'm starting to like Taekyeon alot more because of the low kicks, oblique kicks and sweeping/takedown techniques. There is one master in South Korean that opened a dojang he mixed modern boxing with traditional Taekyeon together to form a type of Korean kickboxing. He have been collaboration with several Korean martial artist including top Korean MMA fighters to show and introduce his art and did sparring sessions with them.

Nicely said. Your thesis as to the intent of martial arts was very eloquent and fair.

Many thanks for this great overview! And your great openness to do not name one style superior than the other. Let's learn from each other

as a TSD student i was aware of most of this but to have it all laid out in a concise manner is an eye opener. thank you for making this vid.

Thank you for the video and pictures. It's great to see the history of my Grandmaster and things he grew up with.

A minor note, but the art that folks now refer to as Tang Soo Do (당수도) isn't the only art that used that term. I read before that prior to the consolidation of the Kwans into Taekwondo, several of them used 당수도 to refer to their own art. Edit: Also, in Korea Tang Soo Do / 당수도 is almost non-existent these days. I live in a city in Korea of ~835,000 people. The nearest dojang I could find on a Korean mapping app is in another province and a about 1.5 hour drive in good traffic.

Fantastic video, I have done martial arts myself when younger & still remember many of the moves I was taught. With Cobra Kai an its popularity right now, great time to share this video. I also remember the many Martial Arts films I have watched as well, it is amazing how each art form expresses itself, some with similar forms, others with minor or major changes, it still continues to adapt, because it shows how important it is to adapt not just to things in personal life, in what people encounter everyday.. To Change or not to change

Very well instructed and said towards the end as well. I appreciate you video. Thank you!

many thanks for this video, very helpful and informative

I learned a lot from this video, man! Thanks. I remember the scene from Jet Li’s Fearless where he’s having tea with the Japanese master and they are talking about different wushu styles being better than the others. Jet Li said there are no different levels of wushu, just different levels of mastery. That stuck with me. I’m not a practitioner anymore, but I miss it.

I appreciate your respectful demeanor. Thank you for the content.

After learning what Tang soo do is, I can now say that I would prefer Tang soo do over Taekwondo.

I loved this video, it really laid out the differences in history and style between the two arts with going too deep; a great resource for those exploring either art or those curious about their sister style. I practiced Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan for about 4 years, long enough to reach Cho Dan. I would have kept going and probably made a career of the art had it not been for my master vanishing with his family literally the day after my promotion ceremony. It's been ten years and I'm now starting Taekwando tonight. The bitter feeling I have towards my former master is still there, but I hoping that I can treat this as a new beginning and heal from the betrayal I felt.

Thank you for this documentary. I take Jhoon Rhee Taekwondo (American Taekwondo) and have also had experience in Krav Maga. Jhoon Rhee originally practiced Tang Soo Do but was forced to adopt ITF Taekwondo because of General Choi. Afterwards though, Jhoon Rhee decided to blend his knowledge from both Tang Soo Do and ITF Taekwondo creating his own style of Taekwondo. It’s interesting because I still notice a lot of the Tang Soo Do roots of the style I take, we use various weapons (Bo Staff, Katanas, Sticks, Kamas), we use various joint locks, hand strikes, Elbow strikes, and knee strikes in our self defenses, we learn some basic throws and sweeps, and we also punch a lot in sparring.

Woooah! thank you for educating me...(you answered one of the million questions about differing arts)

Thanks for the detailed breakdown; very interesting.

Karateka and kiclboxer here. This video was great and very informative. Tang soo do was one of the parent styles that my instructor learned and branched off and formed his version of American Karate from.

Super fantastic video, my friend and your wise words at the end ring true

Awesome video! Thank you for adding us in! We are the one step sparring video at 7:20 😊🥋👍 #MKTKD

great video very informative well done

I found this video very interesting. Thank you for posting.

Thanks for this. I grew up practicing TKD Moo Duk Kwan for 11 years before I got distracted with high school life and quit while training for black belt testing. That was about 20 years ago, and I still regret not finishing. I missed it so I started attending TKD classes with my boys at a school affiliated with Kukkiwon. Starting over again as a white belt with my MDK background has been an interesting experience. This new style is very kick heavy, where MDK was more balanced. In MDK, we also practiced with the kobudo weapons, as well as some grappling. I'm looking forward to actually earning my black belt this time, and I still cherish my MDK heritage as well. I have a dream of retiring from my boring office job one day and opening a school where I can share my MDK heritage alongside the modern TKD I'm practicing today.

I come from a TSD background and feel you did an excellent job of accurately depicting the difference between TKD and TSD. Good video, only criticism I have is you never mentioned JC Shin who was a key player in bringing TSD to america and its current popularity

Great insights, thank you very much.

Great video to help people to understand the difference between Taekwondo and Tang Soo Do. It's funny because in Europe, Tang Soo Do is very rare and most people don't know anything about it, but it seems that in the US you have a lot of schools of Tang Soo Do ! I never saw a Tang Soo Do practitioner, but I would love it to see the difference between this, Taekwondo and Karate.

TSD was just called karate in the eighties, so it also didn't get the recognition they should have, a similar thing happened with kempo at that time. Though it was largely caused by owners of these dojos putting karate on their signs to attract customers.

I've trained in Shotokan and Tang Soo Do, both are very similar

Thanks for this very informative video. I studied Tae Kwon Do over 30 years and also studied Tang Soo do. I knew of the formation of the different branches after WW2 in Korea but never really understood truly the influence of Japanese Martial arts on the Korean Martial arts. However after noticing the form Naianchi was also a Japanese Karate form which is a Tang soo do form I learned I did a little digging and found your video and explanation. very insightful and interesting. I can say Tae Kwon do and Tang soo do are very very similar when I trained from one to the other I had little trouble making the adjustments I needed to from one to the other. Mainly the forms and some of the technqiues and movements but mainly the same. As you mentioned in your video in Tae Kwon Do no real formal weapons training was offered and it was suggested that be done on your own at Black belt level and up. where Tang soo do did offer more in weapons training. Again great video and I appreciate the other insights by many of the coments listed in here.

Great video. Having started in Tae Kwondo Moo Duck Kwon then, because I moved around a lot as a child, studying other forms of taekwondo such as USTU and finally ending up in a Tang Soo Do school in the 90's where I've stayed, I would say that the characteristics and differences described here are generally accurate. It's funny though, because we do pretty much have the same kicks available in both styles, I find myself trying to get my students inject a little more taekwondo energy into sparring. There's a much heavier reliance on punching but kicking is So much fun!

I began my martial arts journey in kenpo In the early '80s... Then moved into TKD after I moved into a new city. I enjoyed the competition of TKD a lot and earned my black belt, but I missed some of the more practical and less flashy aspects of kenpo. So I began looking for something that incorporated a little bit of each. I was ecstatic to find Tang Soo Do. Which by the early 2000s had morphed into a Korean mixed martial art. It incorporates kicks from TKD, hand techniques similar to kenpo or shotokan, judo throws and joint locks and pressure points from jujitsu and aikido. I found this to be one of the most useful and practical forms of martial arts since it incorporated techniques that were useful in multiple situations, and unlike TKD it didn't leave you vulnerable if a fight ended up on the ground.

Loved the video but it was lacking any reference to ITF (International TKD Federated) which split from the sport-based WTF to maintain a more practical version on TKD. The Rhee brothers spread this to a number of countries and it is still a strong variant in Australia.

Thank you for including me in your video

Well done. You got the history exactly right. You did your homework.

This was interesting. I studied TSD Moo Duk Kwan for 7 years and TKD (mixed with Hapkido) for another 6 years and other than small differences in some forms and techniques I would never be able to tell someone the difference bw TKD and TSD. Thanks for the info.

Wonderful video, I had my children watch it. Thank you.

I like how it was explained. Great Content. Here in Davao, Philippines. We have Soo Bahk Do(Tang Soo Do) and Tae Kwon Do as well.

very well presented as a practitioner as Karate-do-shotoakai I agree with the sentiment. each martial art what ever is the answer is for you, and it is the right answer for you and your situation.

I trained in tang soo do and got my 1st degree, now I'm trying tae kwon do and I was amazed

While it’s correct that Tae Kwon do became the common name for the various arts, kukkiwon under the World TKD federation had a predecessor. It was named Tae Kwon Do under the leadership of Major General Choi Hong Hi who also formed the International TKD federation. However he was exiled because of his links with North Korea. It was then that the World TKD federation was formed.

I have dabbled and mostly read about martial arts for the last 18 years or so. I have been an avid language student for a decade. I think martial arts styles are a bit similar to languages in the sense that nations put their own twist on whatever dialect of language X they are speaking to distinguish themselves as a true and distinct nation; they will make up differences where there are none if they have to and martial artists will create their own branches of styles to create a personal legacy and advance their philosophy of fighting. This obviously also leads to people taking after them and million strong international families of martial artists are born where people from all over the world speak the same "language" whether it's BJJ, TKD, shotokan, kendo, savate, judo or sambo. It's also similar to how dancing traverses national boundaries. Also similar to languages some martial arts may be more 'practical' than others and while many people have campaigned for a universal language for a long time the efforts have been unsuccessful. Simply being practical is not enough to satisfy people's hunger for transcendence and sense of belonging. If you belong to everything, do you truly belong to anything? Language and different martial arts are ways for people to make sense of the world and carve out a spot where they feel rooted and linked to specific people.

Toudi (older version of karate) and Tang soo do have the same meaning, they both translate to "Chinese hands", also the form you showed in the video is called Kanku dai in shotokan (it has other name like kosokun) is originally name of a Chinese sailor Kushanku

I trained under Son Duk-sung’s system. It was based on Chung Do Kwan and was extremely traditional and I felt was based more on Shotokan then the more flashy forms of TKD today.

Thank you for sharing this objective and informative video. Soo bahk!

The Tang Soo Do that I practiced at SFU over 4 or so years, somehow becoming 2nd degree black belt after my past experience in karate...we did have 1 step sparring, but also had regular sparring beyond 1 step *without pads or gear over our bodies*. The rule my teacher lent us was that the higher up your belt, the more contact you could make *without hurting* your opponent. So, for example, white belts could do moves towards each other but be far from touching each other. Black, on the other hand, may do up to 1 on 4 situations (yes, it involves moving handling group tactics head on) or if 1-1, may be quite fast and accurate but with controlled contact, or no contact if it would have otherwise been a serious blow (eye strikes, crotch, throat, heavy tosses, etc). We also practiced wing-chun a bit after I became...I think black belt? Maybe earlier. Oddly enough, we practiced right beside a Taekwondo class, and only once did the teacher let us join their class with the other teacher's permission. Personally I hated it: the "point sparring" and trying to win off showing aggression rather than practicality felt too trite. That's not to speak down about taekwondo practitioners though, as their teacher was certainly swift, accurate and effective I felt--beyond just teaching the style well, I struggled to follow his movements at first and could tell he could flatten me out if desired. It was just weird...going for speed and touch, rather than more decisive, critical or methodical blows to outwit the opponent. Anyways ust my 2 cents on the video. Thanks for the great info!

I'm glad Tang Soo Do"s founder didn't just change cause times did. It is more effective. Taekwondo is guilty of popularity. Which made the art more show than form and function. Flashy isn't best for self defense. Like wushu and kung fu. It's meant to be timeless. Tried and true methods for slow and gradual improvement. Not a for the moment thing. But since schools are for profit now. They cater more to jsut accepting student versus making life long practitioner's

As a practitioner of Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan. Thank you for the video. Very informative.

Well researched! I got my black belt in TSD in 1989 and competed on the East Coast for years. TSD forms are very basic and not very exciting but I did well with them. The stances were wider and lower to the ground compared to TKD. Politics between the two were fierce back then. TKD “committee” wouldn’t allow any other Korean style to try out for the Olympics. It was all about school and style promotion.

I’m thinking about learning KO AM MU DO from an instructor from my home town which is think is a form of taekwondo. Do you know much about this art? There’s also another instructor that teaches isshinryu karate. I would love to know your personal opinion on both of these arts and if you would lean more towards one than the other. Thanks!

Awesome analyzation.

Very cool doc

Great video. I am a Tang soo do practitioner for over 25 years if you have any questions about tang soo do please feel free to reach out.

i trained in tae kwon do, tang soo do, and kick boxing as a kid. never got past orange belt but i trained with the red belts and stayed for 2 sessions every time and also learned how to fight with sticks and swords and against guns

I used to practice Moo Duk Kwan Taekwondo as a teenager. We wore black karate style gi or dobok, practiced self-defense one steps with takedowns, learned falls, rolls and bumps, learned self-defense techniques, did free sparring AND point sparring. However I learned the taegeuk forms, some schools learned the palgwe forms. We would also crosstrain with Tang Soo Do practitioners, freestyle karate practitioners and with kick-boxers too occasionally. I never cared for politics, so to me, ALL Moo Duk Kwan practitioners are my brethren. My nephews are also training in the same style as me, their uniforms are a little different since it is a different school, but it's still the same thing. ^_^ Overall this is an excellent and very informative video. 😎👍

I've been practicing various martial arts since I was 16 years old. I'm 41 now. I've been taking tand soo do for the past 3 years and I can tell you some things about it. My school seems to focus on more simple practicle kicks like round house, side kicks and inside out kicks. It was pretty disapointing to me at first because I joined the class so that I could learn all of the fancy spin kicks that you see in the movies. I wanted to learn how to do jumping spinning hook kicks or tornado kicks like Sean Claude Van Dam. We practice a lot of drills for sparring. The last 15 minutes of every class is dedicated for sparring. I don't know if this is what all TSD schools are like or if that's just my school. The fisrt martial art that I got my black belt in was Kosho Ryu Kempo, which is from Okinawa. Both TSD and Kosho Ryu practice the 5 pinan forms, but they are different slightly. It's hard to explain in a comment section. The forms are essintially the same but different. In tand soo do we are mainly practicing the more basic kicks, which may seem easy at first, but we do hundreds of these basic kicks in every class until we are all completly exausted. I still want to learn the fancy spining kicks one day, but I guess I'll have to join a TKD school for that.

I tried TSD for a while but I had trouble dedicating myself to it. Now I wish I could try more Korean martial arts, whether it’s TSD, TKD, or Hapkido

I learned Tang Soo Do from Chuck Norris in the early 80's. Actually, Tang Soo Do means Way of the Knife Hand. Not Chinese hand. The Chuck Norris system has adapted so many different techniques and styles over time, Chuck renamed the style as Chun Kuk Do in the 90's, or The Universal Way is what it is known as today.

Good video for a noob like me on TKD. I have studied Shito ryu karate for 30 years and can honestly say it makes sense. The beginner Poomsae(?), look very similar to the pinan/ heian kata in karate. All karate came from white crane Kung Fu although there is a bit of debate around that. (Chinese boxing/ hun gar etc). Having watched a lot of Jesse Enkamp and done a lot of research myself, basically all martial arts are linked; even though a lot karateka hate to admit the Chinese connection. The height and speed of TKD and TSD kicks are something else, as I have felt 1st hand in open competitions.

I train in Tae Kwon Do Moo Duk Kwan which despite its name is more like Tang soo Do than modern TKD. We are VERY oldschool. We wear the old style uniforms and we are 60% kick 40% punching. We do Tae-Guk forms along with traditional MDK forms. Our 1st BlackBelt form is the popular Bassai. We spar 1-2x a week with saftey gear and it looks more like kickboxing than Olympic style TKD. We also do 1 step sparing, takedowns, breaking and self defense

Its always been interesting me that the Kwans of TKD don't share the same distinction as the styles of Karate. I tell people I studied TKD but never really mention Ji Do Kwan. Conversely Karate is almost always discussed with the style first (Shotokan, kyokushin, goju ryu, okinowan etc). I could rattle off Karate styles all day without ever studying them but have forgotten most of the Kwans. And I don't care what anyone says about TKD sparring, even Olympic style, It's live combat against an unwilling opponent, that will always translate to the street and is far more applicable than the old "it's too dangerous to do live" nonsense that happens all too often. Great job with these video's.

I studied Tang Soo Do under Mike Conniry. It wasn't until a few decades later that the art was called Tangsooology. I'm not sure how far it spread past San Diego, Ca but I'd be interested to know if there are any others who learned this method.

唐手道, which was also the original reading of “Karatedo,” which later became 空手道 sometime after WWI in Japan

I began doing Tang Soo Do when I was younger. I fell out od the practice as I just got older and busier with my time. Now with some health issues, both mental and physical I want to get myself back into martial arts as I feel it will do much good for my health. Ive wanted to get into Muay Thai more just because I find its practicality and its intense style more appealing but I also wouldnt mind entering back into familiar territory

Great video.

A problem with the practicality argument against taekwondo and other martial arts it’s that martial arts can be split in 2 sports and self-defense taekwondo is a sport you would never say “why do you play football? It wouldn’t help you in a fight.”

I lived in Trenton, New Jersey when I was younger and I was close to a location of Shin "Karate" Institute. Shin was the first teacher of Chuck Norris when he was in Korea with the Air Force. Shin was a major Tang Soo Do guy out of the Philadelphia area for many years. I guess he just used "Karate" since more people were familiar with that than Taekwondo or Tang Soo Do all those years ago. Now Taekwondo is a household word and the schools are "everywhere". Unless you are in a major city Taekwondo might be the only martial arts school close to you. The criticism though is that now it's more of a sport and exercise program for everyone as compared to serious MARTIAL arts training. That's it.

The biggest difference between Tkd and TSD is that TSD are honest about their martial arts origin.

I trained in old school TKD & Boxing simultaneously which was great for me

can you do the differences of the uniform called a dobok they are different types of dobok. there is a v neck dobok that is used in the WTF/Olympic Taekwondo while the front open trim colored dobok is used in ITF Taekwondo, Hapkido and other Korean Martial Arts. and then sometimes there is a Y shape Trim Dobok that is also used in hapkido

I am a Kukkiwon TKD black belt from Finland and my school is part of a family of schools across Finland and Denmark. We share a Master who came from the Moo Duk Kwan. MDK split in two where the other part joined what became Kukkiwon and the other formed TSD. We still practice some Shotokan katas in the Kukkiwon way (technique) along with the Kukkiwon curriculum but we do not practice the weapons at all. I usually think that there are people who practice WT(F) TKD, the sport, and people who practice Kukkiwon TKD, the martial art. Even though technically it is the same.

Great video with such humility. I will only add that chuck norris didn’t do some or even a lot of Tang Soo Do, it’s literally what he does. In the 60’s as a Tang Soo Do black belt he decided to break from the Korean organizations and form “American Tang Soo Do” and what is today called the Chuck Norris System. They are one in the same. For some time he also called it Chun Kuk Do but that stopped in 2015. Yes Chuck developed the art further but no deferent then so many other Tang Soo Do schools. Tang Soo Do is the least unified art I have ever seen or trained in. That’s also the disadvantage to Shotokan which is more uniform. I say all this as a Tang Soo Do school owner in Wickenburg Arizona. I also have a 4th dan in American Tang Soo Do and 1st dan in Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan.

Finally someone who brings light to the kwans I do song moo kwan. Supreme grand master Byong Jik Ro’s son still comes to classes

I left my comment and then skimmed the comments underneath to see others talking about who taught who etc. Shin taught Chuck Norris in Korea and then settled in in the Philadelphia, PA area for the long haul. He had a branch in Trenton, NJ which I lived pretty close to in grammar school.

My instructor taught me Moo Duk Kwan …but we competed in Olympic TKD ..later we changed to point karate …this was years after I had studied shotakan karate ..I look back now And see all the similarities and I consider myself more of a karate stylus now then I do an Olympic taekwondo guy

Taekwon-do ITF style was created before by General Choi and it is older than the WT style. It would be nice if you also do a video about the traditional Taekwon-do ITF vs Tang so do

I am a 3rd Dan black belt in Taekwondo and a 1st Dan midnight blue belt in Tang Soo Do. The only significant differences between the two are the forms, the rules in sparring, and the differences in the warm-up/workout routines. A black belt in one can easily transition to a black belt in the other. The techniques and stances are all identical.

Good video. I love me some "tang.

did tang soo do in high school love it.

At minute 6:57, she was my master and still my friend Master Jenny from USK Ballantyne, Charlotte Nc, Tang Soo Do!!

My root style was tang soo do, to me it is a good platform to incorporate other styles techniques into it.

I was told by a 7th degree blackbelt back in 2000 (think he was a 4th or 5th dan at the time) that the Korean people selected Tang Soo Do to be the name of the unified Korean martial arts but the Korean government thought it sounded Chinese and to avoid confusion instead chose Tae Kwon Do instead. However, as I grew older I realized , aside from the language and traditions, it has much more in common with Karate than TKD. So I'm not sure how accurate that information was. I stopped practicing TSD a long time ago though and moved on to other martials like Muay Thai though so I'm not really invested in the history of TSD.

I learned Tae Kwon Do under Master John Chu back in 1977. While called TKD the forms were defiantly Japanese. Master Chu was a 7th Dan in both TKD and TSD. Our TKD was with the Moo Duk Kwan school. Later I trained under Master Park with TKD under Moo Hak Kwan (Hapkido.) Yes I made 5th Dan and then I branched out to Krav Maga and JKD (along with judo under Master S. J. Kim, he also taught TKD with Song Moo Kwan.) Yea.. lots of Kwans! Each with their own philosophy. Now days I train purely for self defense.

I'd started with hand to hand in JROTC and then Tang Soo-do my last year of high school in 1974. In 1976 I was assigned to South Korea and continued to train and also went to Yudo class for something to add to my knowledge. In 1979 I returned to South Korea and started studying Hapkido. One night on the second half of my tour in a club was the second time I had to use what I'd learned because a drunk tried to hit me over the head with a full bottle of beer. He ended up on the floor. The first time I had to use what I'd learned was against my brother while I was in high school. He used to bully me. He said that he wanted to see if I had learned anything as he was trying to hit me. As I was already tired I wasn't in the mood for him and after blocking a few times I struck him in the solar plex with a heel of palm. The stove was preheating and he bounced off of it and just looked at me like I was crazy. Keep in mind I weighed 122 pounds and he was almost twice my weight. I really enjoyed my Hapkido classes and other than an incident in 1981 I fortunately have not had to use my training. I like it like that.

Pak's Karate here in my city is actually Tang Soo Do. Though the Karate i took here is Shorin-ryu.

I learned Shorin Ryu as a kid...dabbled in Shotokan briefly in college and studied for a little while with a Sensei/Shidoshi who'd blended TKD with Shotokan into something he called Tae-Sho. But, I'd love to see Shorin Ryu, JKD, or maybe some Filipino martial arts open up where I live...but it's a town that's heavy on TKD b/c of the Olympic ties and general popularity. Jun Rhi may be gone, as far as I know....not having seen a commercial in years, but plenty of tournament focused studios exist in town (primarly TKD w/ one or two Shotokan or Kempo/Kenpo and the occasional Judo). I'll be honest, I prefer more of a practical streetfight focus. My original Sensei, a Marine by the name of Hicks, did a reasonable job working the practical with me. At least as far as anyone can with a 7 year old. I like the video Mr Hinkamp. That was a nice, balanced review and you're right. Debates about what the "best" style are pointless.