Aryana Libris

Author : Gillis Alex
Title : A killing art The untold history of Tae Kwon Do
Year : 2008

Link download : Gillis_Alex_-_A_killing_art.zip

Introduction. The farther away you are from the truth, the more the hateful and pleasurable states will arise. There is also self-deception. - Bodhidharma, as quoted in The Bodhisattva Warriors. Tae Kwon Do leads to enlightenment along one of five paths, some people believe, but I have my doubts. I am stuck on the path of Courtesy, which instructors in small gyms around the world know well but which is largely ignored by Tae Kwon Do's leaders. This book is about Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, and Indomitable Spirit - the tenets of Tae Kwon Do - a true story about a martial art that I love in spite of its bizarre and wondrous history. Most of us have heard about Tae Kwon Do through children, whose laughter dominates evening and weekend classes in North America, but the art hides a history of secret-service agents, gangsterism, and “fearsome weaponry,” as one of its founders, Choi Hong-Hi, once described it. He wrote that Tae Kwon Do is “able to take lives easily, when needed, by defending and attacking 72 vital spots using 16 well-trained parts of the body.” Choi had a fondness for numbers. He liked their devastating precision. Few young people in Olympic Tae Kwon Do know about Choi, who more than anyone deserves the label “founder” in this martial art. Other “founders” - and there are many - erased him from the popular record long ago. A Killing Art restores him and his pioneers to their place in Tae Kwon Do history. This book is based on Choi's memoirs, the memoirs of Kim Un-yong (a founder of Olympic Tae Kwon Do), and on the hundreds of interviews and documents that I list in the footnotes and bibliography. ...