Mission 8 of 10 Β· 2ndβ9th dan
Dan 2 through 9 β the long game
Nine more forms, decades of waiting time, and a slow shift from doing to teaching.
After 1st dan the ranks stop being about new techniques and start being about depth, teaching, and time. Kukkiwon time-in-grade is roughly equal to your current rank in years: 1 year to test for 2nd dan, 2 years for 3rd, 3 years for 4th, and so on. Reaching 9th dan honestly takes around 40 years.
Each dan rank carries a new poomsae. The black-belt forms are named after concepts and places rather than trigrams, and they get progressively slower, deeper and more internal.
Techniques
Keumgang block
keumgang makgi
2nd dan. One arm high, one arm low, held in a crane stance β slow, tense, and held long. Power without motion.
Taebaek's speed
Taebaek
3rd dan. Sharp, fast, precise. Introduces the grabbing block and the scissor-block into side kick.
Pyongwon's expansiveness
Pyongwon
4th dan. Wide, open, generous movements to match the theme of the great plain.
Sipjin's variety
Sipjin
5th dan. Ten symbols of long life, and the widest technique vocabulary of any Kukkiwon form.
Jitae and Cheonkwon
Jitae / Cheonkwon
6th and 7th dan. Earth and sky as opposites: one grounded and rooted, one large, circular and rising.
Hansu and Ilyeo
Hansu / Ilyeo
8th and 9th dan. Water that fits any container, then the Buddhist idea of body and mind as a single thing. Ilyeo's floor pattern traces the swastika-shaped ε, an ancient Buddhist symbol.
Terms
Quiz
Which poomsae belongs to 2nd dan?