Question 016: Japanese influence on TKD

If it quacks, looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it is probably a duck. I get lots of disagreement about the contention that Taekwondo was greatly influenced by karate, primarily Shotokan.TKD did not exist until it was conceived in the 1950’s by a group of Korean martial art instructors who had black belts in karate. Due to the long occupation of Korea by Japan and the basic extinction of Taekkyon and Subak in Korea, karate was the fighting art of choice at the time. These TKD founders took what they knew best, karate, blended it with what they knew of the ancient Korean martial arts, and came up with TKD. 

Check out these photographs of Master Gichin Funakoshi, founder of Shotokan karate, performing the Pinan Shodan kata, which came decades before Taekwondo was founded. Compare it to the Won-hyo hyung of traditional Taekwondo.

Which came first the chicken or the egg? This is first time I have heard that Korean Yudo came before Japanese Judo. Did the Koreans also found baseball? People were hitting rocks and balls with sticks in Korea centuries before Doubleday founded baseball in the United States. That does not mean that baseball existed in Korea before Doubleday founded it.

Kano modified Jujutsu to make it more palatable to the masses and called it Judo. Judo did not exist before that time. As Judo became more popular, it spread into Korea as Yudo.