LT.Div3. Chapter 20

Finding Distance of Taekwondo


"What's the reason that I cannot defeat my opponent despite my many techniques?"
"You know many parts yet not the entirety."




What is the distance that appears when Haneul(Heaven) and Tang(Earth) united? Distance refers to all of what is between you and your opponent. Your will and his will, i.e, what you intend to do and what he intends to do are respectively you and your opponent. That you change and he also changes makes everything change. The distance of Taekwondo is what changes continuously. It is the relation between you and him.
That you as a man want to do something means that you intend to change something with the help of your mind and body, thus what you want to do at a time is by all means related to what you and your opponent are like. The opponent in Taekwondo is the representative of the world. Thus the distance in Taekwondo is determined by the complex factors; your and his poses, your and his intentions, and the spatio-temporal distance and so on. And each of them is each distance moment by moment as unified into a whole indistinguishably, determining the whole distance.

The 'distance' in Taekwondo is simple. Although it relies on so many factors of you and your opponent the whole is a nondistinctive one thing ultimately, so those who practice Taekwondo can feel its simplicity. Just as a song is a mere simple song although it is constituted of melody, rhythm, words and any other various factors. As it is possible to sing a song without considerations of its melody, rhythm and something else, the distance of Taekwondo is not found in distinctive analysis of each factors but merely in a skilled motion. However, just as you can sing a song better with good knowledge about its melody and rhythm, you can also make better distance of Taekwondo in every situation with good knowledge about the factors related.

You should always keep yourself in the best, the ideal distance when doing Taekwondo, and the ideal distance the one where your opponent's intention fall short while yours can reach him. This is called "Taekwondo distance". When you as a Taekwondo man know the proper distance for you, you also know what motion you should and can make in whatever state, thus you know yourself. When you know your opponent's distance you know what kind of offense he will make in whatever state and know how you should defend it, thus you know your opponent. When you conceive the both in one you know the "Taekwondo distance".

In this Taekwondo distance the opponent's attack falls short to you while yours can strike him, so you as a Taekwondo man can get this distance when you, erasing yourself, are harmonized with everything in the world. And you can keep yourself in that continuously changing distance with everything of yours kept in its own proper place following the most proper motions. This is why you can always protect yourself controling over your opponent when you keep this right Taekwondo distance. Then we can say you know everything of Kyorugi.

In this manner, that you know distance is not that you can judge merely with your brain but that you can respond to and cope with everything with proper motion in the proper distance. This is the true knowledge, not only in Taekwondo but also out of Taekwondo. This sort of Taekwondo knowledge is empty one. This empty knowledge implies not that you know nothing but that the knowledge contains nothing false, thus rather nothing you don't know. What should you know more?