In Taekwondo there is a correct direction your attack should follow in which you are in harmony with your opponent. As your opponent’s center refers to the center of both his motion and his life, by disrupting it you can cut the flow of his changes, by oppressing it you can suppress his motions, and by penetrating it you can kill him at will.

So mysterious is the human body that you can subdue it merely by controlling one of its fingers and you can fell it merely by striking one of its small parts. Though it may not always be simple to attack his center it is always possible to link your attack on one of his lesser and more vulnerable parts to his center. When facing your opponent in TAEKWONDO, his center is always the closest to you. If you can spot it you will also realize that it is closer than any of his other parts.

There are some spots that link a person’s core to almost every other part of his body, so that by controlling them one can effectively control him. We call such spots “vital points” (Geupso) . These vital points are spread throughout a man’s body and follow the way of Yin and Yang. As such, they can paradoxically render a man's body extremely weak and vulnerable on the one hand, though it may be extremely strong on the other. This mysterious harmony finds its origins in the fact that the entirety can be found in every element, however seemingly insignificant, of the life of man.

As has been often repeated, life is above all else a self-intending process. In the apparent end that we ultimately reach after various trials and processes we discover not completion but a new beginning, the entirety of which comprises life’s ultimate nature. There can be no completion in life. In this sort of life there is neither mystery on one hand, nor even any distinction between mystery and non-mystery on the other; thus there is no discerning between life and no life. The essence of such life is continuous change, which is why the sixty-fourth, and final, kwae¹⁾, rather than reading Su Hwa Ki Jae (????[]), reads Hwa Su Mi Jae (????[]).²⁾

In the same manner, life is a process of continuous change and this change may also be called “Growth”. A seed grows to a large tree, bears flowers and fruit, and creates the seeds of new life only because that life is continuous growth. The entirety of this process reveals the full nature of life. Therefore, a seed is not the nature of life, nor again is the big tree, nor the flower. The true nature of life is the change that occurs from form to form, and also what is maintained within that change. In other words, continuous change towards itself, this is all.

Everything that changes, thus all life - whether a small seed or giant tree - contains all potential change within it. Therefore we can say that every life contains each part in its entirety and its entirety in every part. This is the figure of life itself. Since the nature of TAEKWONDO is essentially the same as life, each part of Taekwondo also contains its entirety and its entirety contains each of its parts. The nature of living itself cannot but be the same with the nature of life. In Taekwondo the entirety and its parts are the same and different at once. These facts remain the same for a moment as for all time.

Since TAEKWONDO has the same nature as life its motion of attacking the opponent’s center should also be continuously transformed. Repeated motion with no change makes Taekwondo unable to harmonize with life, which changes and grows moment to moment, and with the world, which is also in continuous flux through time. The result of such repetition would be revealing your blind spots to your opponent. This will result in your ultimate defeat.

Therefore, living Taekwondo attacks the opponent’s center with its boundless change. Water flows downward because it never sticks to a fixed shape, never ceases its endless change, as it passes various obstacles. A life can survive because it too has evolved over a very long history. Taekwondo in eternal time also grows with life, and thus no man can define the true nature of TAEKWONDO in his shape no matter what figure he may attain. TAEKWONDO is hidden within the continuous change of man’s appearance. It breathes with life.

 

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