Before Taekwondo

Chapter 1 left a question: if the modern art dates from the 1940s and 1950s, what came before it? Korea had fighting traditions long before then, and some of them have names that sound like taekwondo's. This chapter reads what the sources say about three of them: subak, taekkyeon and the 18th-century manual Muye Dobo Tongji. It asks one question of each: what is actually documented, and what is later interpretation?

The Big Picture: Fragments

The Korean martial arts article describes practices "shaped mainly by military needs and state institutions rather than by a hereditary warrior class", and says that under the Joseon dynasty "the dominance of Neo-Confucianism reduced the social status of martial pursuits". It adds that "much of premodern Korean martial traditions survive only in fragments", because the collapse of Joseon, the Japanese occupation, the Korean War and the division of Korea "disrupted martial transmission". The Muye Dobo Tongji article gives a similar reason from an earlier angle: repeated invasions, including the Mongol invasions of Korea, destroyed "palaces and libraries" and so "the majority of any documentation of Korean indigenous martial techniques and combat styles has been lost".

The same Korean martial arts article makes two points that matter for everything below. Early evidence "comes from archaeological remains, such as tomb murals from the Goguryeo period, and later historical sources rather than detailed instructional texts", so "specific techniques and training methods are not well documented". And Koreans "relied more heavily on bows and arrows in warfare than they did on close-range weapons". The picture is of an armed, archery-led military tradition, not mainly of unarmed arts.

Subak

The Subak article defines it as "a historical Korean martial art and a combat sport recorded as both a competitive activity and a method of hand-to-hand combat". The name is written with the Chinese characters for "hand" and "strike" (su + bak), and the article says "the exact techniques and characteristics of Subak are uncertain due to the fragmentary nature of surviving documentation". Its records, as the article gives them:

Two features of this record are worth stating plainly. The word is attested for roughly a thousand years, so it is well documented as a word and an activity. But the article says no technique list survives, and it warns that the Chinese characters read in Mandarin as shoubo "functioned primarily as a descriptive expression for unarmed fighting rather than the name of a clearly defined or continuous martial system". The word may mean "bare-hand fighting" in general rather than one art.

The 1790s: A Manual, a Word and a Quotation

The Muye Dobo Tongji article describes "a Korean martial arts text written by Yi Tŏngmu, Pak Chega, and Paek Tongsu and published in four volumes in 1795", "commissioned in 1790 by King Jeongjo". It grew out of earlier works: the Muye jebo (1610, six weapon systems, compiled after the Japanese invasions of 1592–98, and with no unarmed content), a later 18-weapon version associated with Crown Prince Sado, and the Muyesinbo (1758). The article calls it "little more than a field manual for cataloguing required skills" and "widely regarded as a resource for understanding the nature of Korean military science in the 18th century".

Its contents matter for our question. Volumes 1 to 3 "focus primarily on polearms and swordsmanship", and the fourth volume "covers unarmed combat (gwonbeop, 'boxing'), blunt weapons (staff and flail) and equestrian skills". Unarmed combat is therefore a part of the book, not its centre. The article adds that the gwonbeop material was modified so that partners used "matched methods which would only produce a 'stalemate'", to fit Neo-Confucian thought, and that this practice "rapidly fell into disuse for its lack of practical combat effectiveness". It also notes that the Chinese characters for gwonbeop mean "boxing", the same as Chinese quánfǎ or Japanese kenpō, so the term itself points to wider East Asian vocabulary, not a purely Korean one.

The same decade supplies the earliest written appearance of the word taekkyeon. The Taekkyeon article says "the earliest written source of the term appears during the reign of King Jeongjo (1776–1800)... in the book Jaemulbo", where the author glossed a second-century Chinese reference to unarmed contests as "like today's Taekkyon". The Subak article gives the same quotation in a different form, dating the Jaemulbo to 1798: "Subak and Gakryeok are like today's Taekkyeon". That passage is "often cited in debates about the relationship between Subak and Taekkyeon", because it can be read either way.

Taekkyeon

The Taekkyeon article calls it "a traditional Korean martial art and a combat sport", characterised by "fluid, dynamic footwork" called pumbalbgi, with hand and foot techniques "to unbalance, trip, or throw the opponent". In competition "points are scored by throwing the opponent or landing kicks on their head". Its account of the history runs like this:

1. Joseon. It "was widely practiced". Two versions existed: "one for combat application used by militaries, the other as a game, very popular among lower classes alongside ssireum". Tournaments were held at festivals; the article names the Dano festival. In 1895 the anthropologist Stewart Culin described it in Korean Games, which the article calls the first documentation in the West. Song Deok-gi, the main source of the later revival, wrote that "it cannot be said for sure when and how Taekkyon came into existence".
2. Decline. Its popularity "declined as Neo-Confucianism became widespread among the elite". By the early 1900s it was practised "only around the capital city of Hanyang (Seoul), in the district of Jongro". The Japanese occupation "prohibited gatherings of people and indigenous fighting techniques, which nearly made the art extinct".
3. One surviving master. After the Korean War "there was only one surviving master: Song Deok-gi", who had learned from Im Ho and practised in secret. After a demonstration for President Syngman Rhee's birthday he was revealed to the public on 26 March 1958 and became known as the "Last Taekkyon Master of the Joseon Dynasty". That is the same Syngman Rhee who, in Chapter 1's table, saw a 1952 demonstration and took it for taekkyeon.
4. Recognition. On 1 June 1983 the Korean government designated it an Important Intangible Cultural Asset, "through the effort of Song's pupil, Shin Han-seung". In November 2011 UNESCO listed it, "honored as the first martial art on the list".

The Question That Matters: Do These Lead to Taekwondo?

The sources answer in three different ways.

• The name. Chapter 1's table reports that "Tae Kwon Do" was chosen as the name closest to the pronunciation of taekkyon, and the Taekkyeon article says taekkyeon "influenced the name and conceptualization of taekwondo". So for the name, the link is documented.
• The technique and lineage. The same article, in its section "Taekkyon and taekwondo", says: "Even though the taekwondo establishment claims an ancient lineage through taekkyon, and even partially modeled its name on it, the two disciplines don't have much in common and taekkyon associations explicitly deny any link." It calls the idea of taekkyeon as an "ancient version of taekwondo" a "common myth" that arose "mainly due to the spread of taekwondo as the national martial sport of Korea after the Korean War". Note that these are the article's statements, and the article is itself sourced from taekkyeon-side groups.
• The older fighting tradition in general. Subak is "widely known as a distinct martial art" in the article, though "some scholars consider it to be related to, or an earlier name for, Taekkyon". The article states that "there is no continuous, documented technical lineage linking historical Subak to modern Taekkyeon".

Putting those together, the claims the sources do support are narrow: a shared set of words (subak, taekkyeon), a documented influence on the choice of name, and a long record of Korean unarmed and weapon-based fighting. A documented unbroken lineage from those to modern taekwondo is not what the passages I read describe. That fits Chapter 1's finding that the main taekwondo article places the modern art in the 1940s and 1950s.

Other Strands the Sources Mention

• Ssireum (wrestling). The Korean martial arts article calls it, under the name gakjeo or ssireum, "generally considered the oldest form of wrestling and grappling in Korea", and notes depictions in Goguryeo tomb murals of the 4th to 6th centuries. The Taekkyeon article says taekkyeon and ssireum are the only two Korean martial arts to have received national "living treasure" recognition.
• The Hwarang. The Korean martial arts article calls them "an elite youth group" of Silla with classical education, ritual practice, moral education, loyalty and physical training, sometimes credited with helping Silla's unification. It adds that "surviving historical sources do not describe a formalized martial arts system", so "the actual martial role of the Hwarang... is debated". Chapter 8 returns to this, because modern taekwondo teaching sometimes cites the Hwarang.
• Songdo Subak. The Subak article describes a "modern revival movement" whose founder, Song Chang-ryeol (1932–2017), said he learned the art during the colonial period; his son systematised it. The article says "the historical continuity of these practices... remains a subject of debate due to limited independent documentation", and that the organisation has been in public disputes with taekkyeon groups over lineage and heritage designation. I give this only as an example of how the question is still live, not as a judgment on either side.

Reading Rules From This Chapter

1. A word is not a lineage. Subak, taekkyeon and taekwondo share syllables and a peninsula. Check what actually connects them.
2. Murals and manuals are different evidence. A painted figure "sometimes interpreted" as a fighter is weaker than a catalogued manual, and both are weaker than a documented chain of teachers.
3. Look for breaks. Colonial-era suppression, war and a 1987 split are recorded gaps. A claim of "unbroken" continuity should name how it crossed them.
4. Ask who is writing. Taekkyeon groups deny a taekwondo link; "the taekwondo establishment" claims one. Each has an interest.

Exercises

Next chapter: The Kwans and the Naming, which looks at the schools opened after 1945, the Japanese karate influence the sources discuss, and how the name "taekwondo" was adopted.