Man
by nature has the instinct to preserve his own life as well as his race,
and therefore engages himself in doing physical activities all the time
either consciously or unconsciously. Man cannot do without physical
motions and he grows and developes them, regardless of time and space.
In ancient times people had no means other than the bare hands and body
to defend themselves; so they naturally developed the bare-hand fighting
techniques.
Even
at times when arms were developed as the defensive or offensive means,
people continued to enjoy the bare-hand fighting techniques for the
purpose of building physical strength as well as showing off through
matches at the rituals of tribal communities.
In
the history of the Korean Peninsula, there were three tribes dwelling
there, each enjoying warrior's martial art contests during the ritual
seasons.
At
that time people learned techniques from their experiences of fighting
against the beasts whose defensive and offensive motions were also the
subject of analysis. It is believed that this was exactly the true grounding
of today's Taekwondo, whose name has descended from "subak",
"taekkyon", "takkyon" and so on.
Later in the
latter part of ancient times on the Korean Peninsula, three kingdoms
came into existence, always rivaling among themselves for the hegemony.
They were Koguryo, Paekje and Silla, all indulged in growing national
strength with trained warriors. Therefore, the Korean history tells
that there were military personalities among the well-known prominent
national leaders of the three kingdoms, which proves the military tendency
of ruling hierarchy.
As
a result, youth warrior's corps were organized, such as "hwarangdo"
in Silla and "chouisonin" in Koguryo, which both adopted the
martial arts training as one of the important subjects of learning.
A renowned martial art book of the days, called "muyedobo-tongji"
said; "Taekwondo the art of hand-to-hand fight) is the basis of
martial art, enabling one to build strength by means of using the hand
and foot freely and training arms and legs as well as the body to be
adaptable to any critical situation, which means Taekwondo was already
prevalent in that age. Thus, it can be easily assumed that Taekwondo
was originated from the days of tribal communities on the Korean Peninsula.
Silla
was the kingdom founded in B.C. 57 on the southeastern part of Korea
and Koguryo founded in B.C. 37 on the northern part of Korea along the
Yalu River, both making great efforts to raise their youngsters into
strong warriors called "hwarang" and "sonbae" respectively,
certainly with Taekwondo as one of the principal subjects of physical
training.
