Martial arts vocabulary confusion?

Question

I'm trying to convert the romanized vocabulary in "The Art of Kyuki-Do" to 한글, and I can make sense of most of it. However, there are a couple of words that I haven't been able to find in my dictionary, or online: * "Tahn-jeon", which the book defines as "slow pushing". I would expect it to be 단전 in 한글, but I'm not having any luck finding that word with a definition that makes sense in this context. * "Bahn-sohn", which the book defines as "meditation". 반손 seems the logical spelling, but again, I can't find that as a word meaning "meditation". Are these misspelled in the book? Or are they just obscure words? Thanks!

Answer 1

The dictionary gives the word '명상' for meditation. When I looked up '반손' on dic.daum.net, there were no entries. I could be a bad spelling or archaic word. If the book or author were old, they may use Japanese words that are not longer in common usage.

Answer 2

Great Question! So "Tahn-jeon" is actually spelt as 탄전 in korean which comes from the chinese characters 彈戰. 탄彈 meaning "flick or extend outwards (usually with hands)" while 전戰 means "battle or fight". Korean words derived from Chinese do not always reflect the exact meanings but reather a general concept and then is adapted for their need, such as "slow pushing" in the case of Taekwondo. In english for example, we have the word, "capital punishment" which means the death penalty. However, capital has a meaning of "head, main, partial, or chapter". In this context capital punishment makes no sense but we all know the word for its used meaning. Bahn-son is actually 반선 is represented by the characters 返禪 which mean to turn around and ZEN. Following the same logic we can extrapolate the intended meaning that when we turn from the world and give our hearts to reflection of the past behind us through the Chinese concept of zen or 禪, that I believe most of us are familiar with, then we are meditating. Most koreans use 명상 for meditation but I hope that helps you understand a bit!