Taekkyon
traditional Korean martial art
Taekkyon (Korean: 택견; 태껸; Korean pronunciation: [tʰɛk̚k͈jʌn]), also spelled taekkyeon, is a traditional Korean martial art and a combat sport. It is characterized by a fluid, dynamic footwork called pumbalbgi, or "stepping-on-triangles". Taekkyon includes hand and foot techniques to unbalance, trip, or throw the opponent. In competitive taekkyon points are scored by throwing the opponent or landing kicks on their head. A taekkyon practitioner is called a "taekkyon-kkun". Practitioners, referees, and coaches wear taekkyon uniforms, which today are based on traditional garments such as the gouijeoksam, or, depending on the school, the cheollik for competitions.
Since the twentieth century, taekkyon has come to be seen as a living link to Korea's past. As such, it has provided historical references for modern Korean martial arts and is often considered as the oldest martial discipline of Korea. It was almost wiped out during the Japanese occupation, before being rediscovered after the Korean War. It influenced the name and conceptualization of taekwondo.
“Taekkyon” enters the record as traditional Korean martial art. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Taekkyon, traditional and Korean can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q715133. None of the 4 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Taekkyon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.