Posted by Alex Gillis, Aug. 9, 2009, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

None of Grandmaster C. K. Choi’s Sparring Patterns made it into Tae Kwon Do’s text books. If you imagine the art’s main books as “Bibles,” then Choi’s 19 Sparring Patterns are the “Lost Gospels.”

To improve sparring training, Choi’s instructor, Major Woo Jong Lim (see his photo), began developing the Sparring Patterns in South Korea in the late 1950’s. Choi got involved in 1961, when he took a gruelling overnight trip by train and bus to meet General Choi Hong-Hi in Dongducheon, South Korea, where the General was putting together Tae Kwon Do’s first patterns.

The General had cleared his office of furniture and was in such a hurry to start that he didn’t offer the young C. K. Choi a glass of water after the journey.

The General credits C. K. Choi with developing the Gae-Baek pattern, which is practiced worldwide in the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF). C. K. Choi also helped with sequences of other patterns. Still, CK Choi believes that the traditional patterns (Ch’ang Hon) are good for exercise but aren’t effective for fight training.

“Gae-Baek and the other patterns were not practical for sparring,” he told me. “They were too similar to old Karate -- very stiff, and not natural for sparring. Tae Kwon Do aims to train body and mind. Tae Kwon Do can be only as good as its practioners' fighting ability and mental discipline."

He repeats that anything called “Tae Kwon Do” must work in any fighting situation – on the street, in a bar, in a UFC ring, in formal competitions, in the Olymics, anywhere. If it’s a derivative of original Tae Kwon Do (which was used in combat, especially during the Vietnam War), then it must by devastating physically.

C. K. Choi completed Major Woo Jong Lim’s Sparring Patterns in the 1970’s in Canada. The "Forearm Block” and “Guarding Block,” which used to be available here, will soon be available on DVD.