I'm sure that there are similarities, and we have some former MDK instructors in our organization. The term Kong Soo Do, as used by the members of the IKSDF is as a term that generally fell into disuse and is now being revitalized. It is a label used by former Taekwondo and Hapkido and Tang Soo Do instructors who wished a different term to describe what they teach which better lends itself to non-sport self-defense training and also honors its ties with the Okinawan/Japanese/Chinese arts that preceded it.
TKD has somewhat of a stigma to it, brought about in large part by politics and a move to sports rather than good ole fashioned self-defense. What I teach personally would look foreign to a modern TKD practitioner, yet it is old school TKD i.e. locks, throws, balance displacement, cavity pressing, sealing the breath etc. I rarely kick above the knee, particularly with a 25+ lbs belt with gun, taser, cuffs, MTM mask, flashlight, 911 tool, radio etc. When contemplating using a different label for what I teach i.e. KSD (which simply means 'empty hand way' the same as Karate), I was shocked at the amount of instructors also looking for a venue to do the same thing. So we formed the IKSDF with multiple schools in the U.S. and Australia. The ranks remained the same, what we teach remains the same (pure self-defense), just the label has changed.
If your interested, here is a section of current discussions on KSD,
http://www.martialwarrior.com/index.php?board=92.0Some of the articles I've written that have been published in the e-magazine Totally TKD
http://mskksd.8m.net/rich_text_1.htmlAnd the specific article I wrote in Totally TKD, issue #10 on the IKSDF
http://www.raynerslanetkd.com/TTKD/TotallyTKD_Back_Issues.html Ok, I've bored everyone enough and it's late...I'm going to bed.
