I just finished rereading “Palgue 4-5-6” by Kim Pyung Soo for the first time in several years and remembered purchasing this book along with its two companion books in the series when I was first starting practicing Karate and Tae Kwon Do. These books were some of the first ones I owned concerning the martial arts and kata or forms in particular.
This book, along with its two companion volumes, demonstrates the correct movements in this particular series of forms which are required for advancement in most Tae Kwon Do schools. These forms are generally required to advance in rank for the intermediate student in Tae Kwon Do. If I recall correctly, I learned these three forms in order to advance from green belt to blue belt, but it has been awhile so I might be mistaken.
After the customary introduction, the author includes a very brief section on the history of Korea and Tae Kwon Do in particular. Since the primary focus of this book is to be on the katas or forms, I wasn’t too bothered by the briefness of most of the fringe subjects that the author discusses throughout the book such as; target areas, basic bowing procedure, basic warm-up and stretching exercises, etc. In this particular volume, I was surprised to find numerous pages devoted to pre-arranged self-defense techniques, offensive hand strikes, one-step sparring, and free sparring hand strikes. I really don’t know why the author included these sections in this book other than perhaps as reference material since it doesn’t really add to the focus of the book.
From my personal experience and my professional opinion, I feel that any book dealing with katas or forms, should focus solely on the movements in the particular kata being discussed and the applications of each movement. There truly is no need to go into pre-arranged self-defense techniques, offensive hand strikes, one-step sparring, and free sparring hand strikes, etc., since these techniques should all be learned separately from learning kata.
Although the principles learned in kata can and do translate into the other areas. It is redundant and a waste of the authors talent and the readers time. Now having said that, this book, and the other two in the series, are still cherished and close to my heart as they were instrumental in helping me learn this particular series of katas.
The layout for the forms in this book is very basic and runs the same for all three katas or hyungs. All of the photographs were taken from the “top of the shaft” position, although there are a couple side views shown for a few on the different techniques.
The photographs are all of the starting and finishing positions for each of the techniques, which is rather basic. There are no photographs to show body position as you move from one technique to another. A definite drawback! What little explanation there is for each move is very basic and quite brief. Not nearly as detailed as it should be. The foot position diagrams are pretty good and they do help somewhat with how your feet should move when moving from one technique to another. However, it could have been done a lot better.
You can tell that this book was written in the early 70’s as the author refers to the ruling body of Tae Kwon Do as the Korea Taekwondo Association, which as you may or may not know, was the predecessor of today’s World Taekwondo Federation (WTF). This volume finishes up with some common Tae Kwon Do terms in both English and Korean.
This series of books should be considered really basic reference material for the Palgue series of forms. For more detailed information on these Tae Kwon Do forms and the black belt forms, I recommend these two books by Richard Chung, “Tae Kwon Do” and “Advancing in Tae Kwon Do.” Both of these are in hardcover and are well worth the price.
Shawn Kovacich has been practicing the martial arts for over 25 years and currently holds the rank of 4th degree (Yodan) black belt in both Karate and Tae Kwon Do. Shawn has also competed in such prestigious full-contact bare knuckle karate competitions as the Shidokan Open and the Sabaki Challenge, among others. In addition to his many accomplishments, Shawn is also a two time world record holder for endurance high kicking as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records. Shawn is the author of Back Kick, volume one in the highly acclaimed Achieving Kicking Excellence™ series.
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