Korean Martial Arts Lineage

Note about Hapkido: After 1975 many individual schools made their own organizations for business promotional purposes. Since this type of occurance has happend in multiple regions around the globe, Hapkido has lost its ability to maintain quality control and has turned into a generic art.

Note about Taekwondo: After 1973 many Taekwondo and Hapkido schools each had their own organization and most Taekwondo schools used other generic martial arts’ names for business purposes. Taekwondo has become an Olympic discipline and has changed from an art to a sport. Since Taekwondo has also become a generic term, many public schools now use other generic art names in conjunction with the Taekwondo name, which has further damaged the traditional Taekwondo identity.

Note about the current situation of the general martial art community: With the influx of business tactics and the goal of financial success as the primary motivational factor for the majority of martial art school owners, the overal level of quality control has diminished to an alarming level within the martial art community. Many of the arts that once defined the skills and values for their particualr art within the sphere of the entire community have become generic. Karate, Taekwondo, Hapkido, Kungfu, to name a few, have lost their ability to govern themselves and even the ability to define common syllabi, concepts, and philosophies.

Now that these arts do not have the means to govern their name, many individuals within the martial art community use mulitiple martial art names (and to some degree techniques) as if they can be combined without losing the integrity of their original traditional identity. In the past, martial arts were divided into two main divisions, hard and soft style. However, now since the mixing of techniques has become a prominent phenomena, the soft style arts (Hapkido, Kungfu, etc) and the hard style arts (Karate, Taekwondo, etc) now look similar to one another, and the features that once definded these arts and styles have been lost. The wonderful martial art identities that were founded by the those original masters have now become just a synthisys of techniques and their art names are used indiscriminately for the benifit of an individual’s buisiness purposes, like a retail store.

With the onset of the co-optation of most martial art names by financial motivated individuals, and the public realization of this fact, many members of the martial art community now wish to claim that they have “pure” roots. Whether they are simply unaware of the true development of the modern martial arts or have selfish interests, there are many individuals who are attempting to rewrite the the historical development of the martial art lineage in order to cast a brighter light onto themselves for promotional purposes. Unfortunately the ignorance and common place of these new “historical claims” has lead to further degradation of the traditional martial art identities.

Now there are multidutes of books, videos, and websites that exemplify these current trends, which are also created by individuals who do not have any qualification. Black belts and even color belts call themselves by a master or grandmaster title without true certification or testing. These are also the individuals who make many of the books and videos that are sold to the public, which in turn has caused somewhat of a prolififeration of these false martial art practitioners and claims. This has caused drastic public confusion as to the true nature of these particular martial arts, and now today, in many cases it is hard to tell what the original arts of Karate, Hapkido, and Taekwondo ever were; and moreover what the spirit of these martial arts were.

These events and circumstances have been an eye opener to many of the traditional practitioners within the martial art community. In order to truly maintain the level of quality for the representation of a martial art within the public, a strong governing organization combined with thorough awareness of all of the traits that define that particular art (technically, conceptually, and philosophically) for that art’s practitioners, is needed. We can also see the need for legal protection which is evident from a few martial arts such as Hwa Rang Do®, Tae Soo Do® and other martial arts which are now internationally registered trademarks. This type of action has created strong control of the quality of these arts and also ensures the integrity of their public representation will remain good.

A martial art is not a sport or type of academic study. There are traditional virtues and qualities that define all aspects of each particular martial art. It is strongly reccomended that if you wish to practice a martial art you thoroughly research which art contains what you wish to learn technically, and which art’s identity has a high level of quality and will maintain that level in the future.

If you are a member of the martial art community, and have participated in the degradation of the quality of your own martial art identity or the quality of the martial art community through the use of multiple martial art names and the mixing of techniques, or through actions such as the creation of false titles, ranks, and certifications, or through the use of fabricated historical accounts and claims, it is deeply and sincerely hoped that you come to understand the emptiness of these actions, and the pride that can be felt by following the traditional way of the martial arts, and maintianing and working for the benifit of your honorable martial art identity and the integrity of the future generations of practitioners of choice your one true art spirit.