To a degree this has allready been done. Martial arts of the world an encyclopedia by Thomas A. Green it is 2 volumes and has entries on both eastern and western traditions.

What I liked about this is that the entries each have their own bibliographies and are fact checked for historical accuracy

MS

I volunteer to edit and collate the info. If anyone wants, they can send me files in email or Word format at jkdchick@bullshido.com

"I'm willing to bet I could **** up an emu real good, if I got the drop on the bastard."
-- KC Elbows, my new hero.

Boy Phrost, you werent kidding when you said you were gonna bring this to over here huh?

Thanks for giving me credit, by the way.

My original thoughts were more focused on the evolution of the techniques in an art, as well as the general history.

For example, GJJ. The Gracies claimed to have improved JJ. Well, how? What did they improve? Did they invent sweeps? Did they modify the arm-bar? Exactly what did they do?

If someone tracked the development of individual techniques and strategies in an art, we'd have answers to these questions. Plus it would be cool to be able to open a book and see how a technique has changed over the years. Or to see when and why a technique fell out of favor.

You young guns are running with this. Good thing too, the lazy bastards at the ADCC wouldnt even have gotten this far. :)

This is a very good idea, but as Osiris and a few others in this forum have stated, it may not be possible to do this.

Just with your example alone, Taekwondo, it poses much difficulty. Now, I myself have studied Taekwondo for 10 years, and I have heard many different accounts of it's origins. Some say that the art has existed for thousands of years. Some say that it is derived from earlier arts of Soo Bahk Do and Tae Kyon. And yet some say that the art is very contemporary and was invented by Gen. Choi Hong Hi in 1955. Others seek to disclaim that and state that Taekwondo was officially named and established in 1961, but not by Gen. Choi.

But aside from even that, much of the Korean manuscripts and documentations of their history and their martial arts were destroyed when the Japanese occupied the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

So you see, there are many different accounts. Sifting through these to find the truth may be tricky at best.

The best won victory is that obtained without bloodshed - Bushido proverb

Edited by - Rising Phoenix on June 04 2003 13:13:48

I think it would be good to start of what we agree is myth or misconception and go from there to help us dissect what we all know not be true, exagerated are just plain ridiculousness. Of course we could always pre qualify some of that with "some believe, or some school of thoughts think"

<<<<<this is not the true Omega and he's going to kill me if he finds I'm on his computer>>>>>

Go away I'm talking to myself

me,

You are right that there are books out there on history..However, the average person will not really know where to look for them, plus they are just one perspective of the whole. Here we could have several people contributing their findings and we can pick out the similar facts that they all contain. This is what I tried to do when I did my original papers.

Jeremy M. Talbott
http://www.koreanma.homestead.com/index.html
http://www.martialscience.homestead.com/home.html

A recommendation.

First, Phrost is right, kung fu would be impossible, as it's like a thousand arts.

Second, the easiest way to do it is to make a thread dedicated to that, in a forum only for such threads. Each thread gets titled with the name of the art. We begin with the arts that have the most representation on bullshido- tkd, wing chun, jkd, bjj, wrestling, and so on. We determine who is the most knowledgeable rep in THAT group, and let them take charge for a while.

Then, we make certain threads for the well known for the wrong reason schools, the ashida kim schools, the chung moo quan schools, shaolin do, etc. Now, this is where it gets hard, because it is impossible to come up with a real history of said groups without former insiders. However, I know that there are organized groups of former insiders collecting exactly such data on chung moo quan, jungyae moosul, one mantis chain, and temple kung fu. Links to their forums could be used to establish some info. This has the end effect of attracting more insiders to converse. I know this because that's how it worked with chung moo- as soon as the group we founded became known, insiders began to contribute to our timeline, our list of schools, our listing of higher belts, their reasons for leaving, etc.

So, what needs to be done is a forum set aside, much like KFSS's cage. From there, only threads titled after specific arts should be allowed, and the threads should periodically be culled of extraneous info(for instance, because the point is to collect the raw data, pointless conversation shouldn't intrude, as the rest of the forum is good for that- that way, someone wanting to know about that art doesn't have to sift through two members arguing or such).

So, if a space is made, I'll start titling threads, and begin the oomyungdoe/chungmooquan thread with the info as we've collected it thus far.

Again, I have the some research on the kwans of TKD so let me know. I am not saying I am the authority, just that I have some info to share

Jeremy M. Talbott
http://www.koreanma.homestead.com/index.html
http://www.martialscience.homestead.com/home.html

And we must come to a consensu that something is unknowable, for instance, claims that cannot be proved because of destroyed documents that might or might not have supported those claims, then functionally, the art cannot be proven to be older than that. Meaning, claims of tkd being older but documents were all destroyed by the Japanese do not change the truth that tkd can not be shown to be older than a certain date, and fix that date until more historical data is found.

That is what we did with chung moo quan. While the founder claims that it is 1500 years old, because he has not been forthcoming with any actual historical documentation, we cannot verify it any older than the early 1970's, so we cannot just assume it is older just because someone tells us to assume that.

Yeah, Miguk should be in charge of the korean arts at the onset.

Thanks KC, but I believe that could be almost a joint effort in that area. rmclain would definetly benifit the Chang Moo Kwan aspect of TKD. He is quite knowledgeable in that school's history. I have a good foot hole in the Jidokwan history. I believe there is a person on the list that could benefit the Haedong Kumdo area as well as there is someone who can take care of the Taekkyon history.

Jeremy M. Talbott
http://www.koreanma.homestead.com/index.html
http://www.martialscience.homestead.com/home.html

Quick facts about Taekwon-do:

It is a modern version of the ancient korean martial art of tae kyon, witch is about 3000 years old.

It is the best martial art because it's main weapon is the kick, witch has more power and range
than anything.

It has many spinning kicks. along time ago they were used too hit invaders off horses.

ITF is better then WTF because they have general choi who founded tkd. he was a ninth 9th degree balck belt it karate and beat all the japanese at their own art! he then made taekwon-do and beat them again!

But, miguk, there needs to be one ruling authority who misuses his authority and treats his underlings like crap, or it's just not tkd.

Oh wait, I get it, you're promoting others as fast as you can. Well done.

Please tell me that your post was in jest JKD

Jeremy M. Talbott
http://www.koreanma.homestead.com/index.html
http://www.martialscience.homestead.com/home.html

Thank you KC...I have learned from the best. ;)

Jeremy M. Talbott
http://www.koreanma.homestead.com/index.html
http://www.martialscience.homestead.com/home.html

No miguk.............iam serious.

what the hell do you think?