Читать книгу Taekwondo Black Belt Poomsae. Original Koryo and Koryo онлайн

23 страница из 38

The use of kwon bop (Chinese: chuan fa; Japanese: kenpo) as a martial tradition can be traced to a primitive era in Korean history categorized as the Three Kingdoms Period. Koguryo (37 BC–AD 668), the largest of the three, was founded along the Yalu River and encompassed an area with land holdings reaching far up into Manchuria and what is now North Korea. Due to its close proximity to China, the kingdom was in constant conflict with its imperialistic neighbor. In answer to a continual fear of invasion, the ruling aristocracy established a warrior corps that came to be known as the sunbae, literally translated as “senior” or “respected one.” Sunbae philosophy emphasized a deep belief in the gods who created the universe coupled with a strong will to defend the country against all odds. These warriors, selected from all rungs of society, practiced kwon bop, dressed in black velvet robes, and were required to shave their heads. The sunbae hierarchal structure was such that anyone with high aptitude and an ambitious character could obtain superior rank. Using this select group of soldiers as a blueprint for its own design, the tiny kingdom of Silla (57 BC–AD 935) would later create a similar warrior corps, a military fraternity known as the hwarang, whose legendary triumphs would echo down through the halls of Korean martial arts history for generations to come. Unlike the sunbae, however, members of the hwarang, practicing hwarang-do or the “way of the flowering manhood,” were composed of elite warriors exclusively drawn from noble stock. Aside from their knowledge of kwon bop, these youthful soldiers were distinguished from other combat troops by virtue of their unique holistic training in archery, music, poetry, equestrian skills, and the Eastern philosophical paradigms of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The kwon bop of the sunbae and hwarang was documented in the Muye Dobo Tongji.