Division
8. The Basics
Chapter
57
The
Art of One Skill
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“Why is it you teach
me I must suppress anger in my technique?”
“Because you should not cling to what is mutable
but seek the permanent principle.” |
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What is Taekwondo? It is the art of one skill. Taekwondo begins
with one skill and finds completion there also. Its beginning
and its end are one. Taekwondo is in nothing more than a single
basic skill. This is not to say you should always perform use
this one skill when you spar with your opponent, but rather
that you should become the skill itself. You have to practice
many techniques to arrive at proper Taekwondo, training in which
you should hone and master your own one skill that penetrates
all those various techniques and discard all else. Just as a
weapon that is part of you surpasses other weapons, so this
one skill as a part of you will capably suppresses a hundred
others, to include your own self and the opponent you would
subdue.
Because your self has become the skill itself, it is natural
and nothing exceptional to perform it. Thus, the opponent will
not recognize it, and if he were to recognize it he could not
defend against it. The one skill, though simple, also contains
all techniques in one and comprises boundless changes. Though
you perform it fleetingly, you can achieve it only through long
and steady training, for it is the principle of Taekwondo to
subdue the opponent with the end part of the entirety. Taekwondo
is simple. Taekwondo is in a moment, like the crossroads of
life and death.
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