you are helping ITF practitioners to gain Kukkiwon certification? Does this mean that they must start practising the Kukkiwon curriculum, ie taegueks over chan hong forms? And that they should start competing in WTF organised events in place of ITF?
Back in the 1970s and through the 1980s, the Kukkiwon had an ITF dan assimilation program, whereby the Kukkiwon would give corresponding Kukkiwon dan rank to ITF dan holders. Many ITF instructors got grandfathered in this way. There was a list published of those who participated, including practitioners such as GM CHO Hee Il, etc. Others went through the Oh Do Kwan, which I believe did the bulk of the transfers. Or maybe transfer is not the right word, since as Oh Do Kwan members, they never left in the first place.
Of these Oh Do Kwan/ITF practitioners, some continued to practice the chang hon tul. Many or most eventually changed over to the Kukkiwon curriculum and participated in WTF events. I can tell you that of the ITF conversions I did here in Hawaii, I think all eventually made the transfer over, including a korean born senior I helped, who in turn helped his students. I will also say that the conversion process was not immediate in all cases, and some still practice itf forms on their own, or teach those itf forms at the higher dan levels.
Funny but true story. I was helping judge the forms competition at our state championships a while back and one of the competitors did an itf form. One of the judges, a newly minted first dan, got confused and asked me "what form is that?". I responded "an itf form", to which she responded "what is itf?". the funny part is that five years prior, her instructor was an ITF man teaching the itf forms only.
It's just that i saw you and mastercole say that the Kukkiwon has no standardization which made me wonder why there isn't more ITF practitioners with Kukkiwon certification. I just wanted to know the particulars.
that isn't what mastercole and I said. What I said was, the unification efforts of the pioneers went in three stages -- name, certification and technical standards. First stage was deciding on the name. Second stage was agreeing to a unified certification instead of kwan certification. Last stage is unification of technical standards. It took Korea, with all its motivated pioneers and leaders, forty five or more years to unify. It took twenty years to settle the name, thirty years to agree on kukkiwon certification, and forty five to finally get technical standards unified. Today, the instructors coming out of korea are all very much standardized in their name, certification and technical standards.
In the US and in other countries, we are still at stage two, which is unification of certification through the Kukkiwon. At some point, we will be at stage three, and I believe these kukkiwon instructor courses as well as the WTF World Poomsae Championships are helping that process. But in the US, especially, there are those out there who desire kukkiwon certification, but cannot obtain it for whatever reason. Those are the people we are trying to help.
Those who are already at stage three, in my opinion would better serve the efforts of the Kukkiwon by doing their part in getting others to stage three, instead of complaining. Anyone can complain, but it is a different thing to go out there and actually try to improve things.
How can people help to raise the technical standards? Many ways. For one thing, they can continue to concentrate on their students. they can also go to courses and help people there who are having a hard time with a particular movement. they can take their technically accurate students to tournaments and raise the bar by winning medals at those tournaments. They can become poomsae referees and help to have referees' standards of accuracy raised. they can give seminars to other schools, for free, to help raise their standards. they can go train with their fellow instructors and show them the latest standards. there are many many things that people can do to help raise the standards in their neighborhood, their state, nationally and worldwide.
All we ask is 1%. Do your part to better taekwondo by 1% and take care to not hurt taekwondo in anyway. There are enough people out there whose entire mission seems to be to try and hurt taekwondo, the kukkiwon, usat, wtf, the olympics as much as possible. Please do not be one of them. Instead, if you are a kukki taekwondoin, go out of your way to be the opposite of that. Use those people as an example of how not to be. 1%. If everyone did that, then we all will get there that much faster.
Put another way, treat your fellow taekwondoin, all taekwondoin irregardless of affiliation or certification, like family members. Welcome them in. Make them feel at home. If they need help, help them. Treat them as you would your own father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, son, daughter, because that is what they are. Taekwondo is a family, and they are your family members.
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