including Ming general Qi Jiguang’s (1528–1587) New Book of Effective
Discipline (ca. 1561), together with contemporary Korean practices, and
includes illustrated routines, on foot and from horseback, for broadsword
(a cross between cutlass and saber), flail, and a variety of poled weapons
such as spear, trident, crescent halberd, and others. The chapter on boxing
(quanfain Chinese, kwonbopin Korean, kenpô in Japanese) is taken pri-
marily from General Qi Jiguang’s manual. Some Korean sources refer to
this chapter as illustrating subak practice. It is possible that a combination
of Chinese boxing and seizing techniques similar to those shown in Qi’s
manual influenced t’aek’kyo ̆n,a nineteenth-century Korean sport described
as employing “flying foot” and grappling techniques.
Although the references to traditional Korean martial arts are scat-
tered and there are large gaps in information for some periods, it is still
possible to piece together a broad outline, which generally reflects Chinese
influence. The Koreans appear to have modeled their military martial arts
system on that prevailing as early as the Chinese Han period (206 B.C.–A.D.
220) and to have retained the term subak, originally associated with that
period, through the fifteenth century, long after the Chinese terminology
had changed. The term for wrestling changed from kakjoto kakryuk (jueli
in Chinese and ssiru ̆min colloquial Korean) during the Yi period.
Modern Korean taekwondoappears to be based mainly on Japanese
karate, which was, itself, based primarily on Chinese boxing modified in Oki-
nawa and introduced to the Japanese martial arts community in the 1920s.
Stanley E. HenningSee alsoHapkidô; Korea; T’aek’kyo ̆n; Taekwondo
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