Div.5 Chapter 35

Attacking in the Ways of Haneul, Tang, and Saram

Your indignation moves the center of your mind, so you can move the center of your body, too.

Since the Taekwondo figure is the same as life, his part and his entirety are mutually inclusive. This mutual inclusion appears in every motion, regardless of its size or speed, so the correct principles of Taekwondo control every change, from a momentary movement to the longer processes of training and life.

Accordingly, in Taekwondo the ideal attack strikes the opponent with an explosive blast of power but one dealt in relaxed smooth motions. At the same time, one’s mind should be kept empty, just as the center of a large drum is empty despite its thundering vibration. This is possible because you follow the way of Haneul, keeping everything of yours in its proper position. Your attack lies in having the opponent opposed to the world, so the sharpness of your attack is unseen and unrecognized, even by those who stand next to it. Your opponent is thus subdued in a natural way. This is simply following the way of Tang. And all of this comes back to you, accomplished as you originally intended. This is because you control Taekwondo following the way of Saram.

Generally speaking, the attack in Taekwondo means brining the universe to a point and focusing it on the opponent’s weakest spot. It is a spatio-temporal point; and no part of your body should remain attached to it. This is connected to that aspect of Nature that never for even a moment stops changing. In Taekwondo, you should conceptualize your opponent’s weakest point and strike. It is around this point that he becomes opposed to the world. A point strikes in a line while a line cuts something with a surface; and, a line that thrusts a point and a surface that cuts a line consist of momentary figures of Taekwondo. This should be applied to every attack, whether it be striking, throwing, pressing or grabbing an opponent, because every motion should follow TAEKWONDO.

There can be no stopping this sort of Taekwondo attack. Why? A line is separate being beyond a set of points, just as is a surface beyond a set of lines; yet a line can be broken and a surface can be cut. The line and the surface that overcome this threat become shorter and narrower respectively so that a Taekwondo-Een can attack a point of your opponent with just such a point in its ultimate. Therefore, the attack cannot be stopped because a point cannot be divided nor restricted.

A point, which is unrestricted and without shape is similar to DO, which is in everything, shapeless; and it is also similar to Heaven (Haneul) which resembles Do. This is why King Sejong[1], in developing Hangeul (the Korean alphabet), represented Haneul (Heaven) with the symbol ‘●’[2]. Is it not wondrous that the principles of Taekwondo attack and the symbols of Hangeul, though they are of a different sort, demonstrate such consistency in principle?

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[1] King Sejong was the fourth monarch of Korea’s Choseon Dynasty (1392-1910) and is regarded as the inventor of Hangeul, the Korean alphabet. See below.

[2] Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, was invented in 1443 by Korea’s King Sejong. It is comprised of phonograms of vowel and consonant combinations. It has been called the most scientific alphabet in the world because its consonants suggest the manner in which their corresponding sounds are produced by the articulatory organs, while its vowels represent a fundamental Oriental worldview (in this case Korean). Its basic consonants are ㄱ (g), ㄴ (n), ㅁ (m), ㅅ (s), ㅇ (ng), though there are additional consonants based on these basic sound groupings. Its three basic vowels are ●, ㅡ, ㅣ, which represent Heaven (Haneul), Earth (Tang), and Man (Saram), respectively. A simple consonant and vowel are employed as the basic elements for constructing increasingly complex phonograms that have at times added articulatory features, such as aspiration and tense. Several (at least two and at most six) consonants and vowels combine to produce each syllable (or phonogram), the actual reading and teaching units of Korean.