Horsham Tae Kwon-Do

31/12/2021

My final post is here, and this time it's not just this card, but it's also this video I made:
https://youtu.be/wE_36OXeJDg

Thank you to everyone who read any number of these post. I know many of you made a serious effort to keep up and read as many as you could this year. I also know a lot of people supported what I was doing in spirit but couldn't find the time to keep up (there are over 365 posts, many with a lot of writing on them). As much as this was a crash course for me, and anyone who kept up all year, this project wasn't supposed to overwhelm anyone. I really hope that even though I'm done with this for now, these posts will serve as a resource for our community, and those of you who read them will recommend them to anyone who wants a deeper look at Taekwondo theory and history.

I will hopefully still be posting about Horsham Taekwondo related matters from time to time, and I will probably end up covering anything I left untouched in the syllabus at some point in the future. I'll always be here if anyone has any questions about anything I've talked about this year, or anything I haven't talked about. If there are questions left to be answered then I want to find the answer to them eventually.

Thanks so much, and let's all have a fantastic 2022! - Isla 😁

31/12/2021

31/12/2021

30/12/2021

This is sort of part of the Tong Il series, but also something I think needs to stand on it's own too. I hope that, if you didn't already see it this way, this year has helped you to see how incredible it is that after the Japanese Empire tried to erase Korean history, culture, language and identity from the world, now people all over the world know at least a little bit about Korea and its history thanks to General Choi's relentless propagation of his Taekwondo. When we say the pattern interpretations are there for us to take inspiration from, I hope this project has given you sufficient resources to really appreciate all the inspiration there is to be taken from Korean history, and from General Choi himself for his life's work.

The information for these cards (sorry it's a double page spread, but I think its justified here) comes from Alex Gillis's 'A Killing Art: The Untold History of Tae Kwon Do'. If you're going to take one reading recommendation from me, please take this one. This book was the first outside reading I did on Taekwondo (back in 2017 I think), and as interesting as it was the first time, going back through it with all the knowledge I've gained this year has made it so much richer of an experience.

Tomorrow's post will be my last, and I'm quite nervous about it because it's going to be something a bit different!

Thanks, Isla

29/12/2021

This is the 21st and possibly final post on Tong Il. The post I have planned for tomorrow was inspired by this series, but may or may not end up being it's own thing, so we'll see what I come up with tomorrow.

This post is mostly composed of knowledge I've accumulated over the course of this year, but I did manage to find some articles on the topic which mention a lot of the same information as well as related information:

Shin, G.-W., Freda, J. and Yi, G. (1999), The Politics of Ethnic Nationalism in Divided Korea. Nations and Nationalism, 5: 465-484. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1354-5078.1999.00465.x

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2015/04/30/how-ethnic-nationalism-undercuts-multiculturalism-on-the-korean-peninsula/

https://isis.org.my/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/files_IF_2013_IF8_IF8_I2.pdf

Thanks, Isla

28/12/2021

You can see the Tong Il flag in the background. It's the Korean peninsula in blue on a while background.

For further reading I suggest the Korean Herald's section on North Korea.
http://www.koreaherald.com/list.php?ct=020104000000

There's also a new york times article release in early 2018 before the latter 2 summits
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/world/asia/north-south-korea-summit.html

And while I wouldn't advise trusting Wikipedia, they sometimes have useful links to reliable sources, particularly links to archives of no longer live sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Korean_summits

Thanks, Isla

27/12/2021

I'm very close to wrapping up the Tong Il series, and very close to finishing up this project altogether. I remember several months ago being worried that I wouldn't find 365 days worth of things to talk about, and here we are with 4 days remaining and I'm having to think very carefully about how I'm going to use them! 😅

For this card I primarily used:
https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/30130/pyongyang-s-push-for-korean-reunification-isn-t-empty-rhetoric (You have to give them your email address to be sent a link to access the full article unfortunately, but it is free)

https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/05/13/peninsula-of-paradoxes-south-korean-public-opinion-on-unification-and-outside-powers-pub-81737 (A long study write up by a South Korean scholar)

Harrison, S., 2003. Korean endgame. Princeton: Princeton University Press.(A book about Korean reunification by an American scholar and journalist).

Thanks, Isla

26/12/2021

If you want to take a closer look at these plans, you should be able to find copies online. If you check out the wikipedia article for Korean unification they have some links to archived copies of the original text from North Korean websites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_reunification
North Korean urls end in .kp , which is something I didn't know before clicking around a few today. The ones I looked at were surprisingly foreigner oriented, having options for various languages.

Thanks, Isla

25/12/2021

Information for this one once again comes from Andrei Lankov's book The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia

Also, merry christmas to those who celebrate :)

Thanks, Isla

24/12/2021

Information for this one comes mostly from the book
The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia
by Andrei Lankov

Thanks, Isla

23/12/2021

We're pretty much getting to the point of modern inter-korean relations and the possibility of Tong Il being realized in the future. Sorry to those following this series as I post it for the heavy topic over the Christmas period - I'm anticipating that this story will have a hopeful ending! 8 posts remain before year's end and I've completed my year long project!

As I mentioned yesterday, I definitely recommend Korea: The Impossible Country by Daniel Tudor.

Thanks, Isla

22/12/2021

We always hear about North Korean dictators, but South Korea's brush with authoritarianism is less well know.

Another book I've been reading for this series which I can recommend is:
Korea: The Impossible Country by Daniel Tudor
It has a really nice succinct recap of all of pre-modern Korean history in the first chapter, before getting into the modern history of South Korea.

Thanks, Isla