Manny
Senior Master
Talking about systems of teahcing learning, forms, and sparring what are the diferences amoung ITF and WTF.
Manny
Manny
diferences beetwen ITF and WTF
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Shaderon
Master of Arts
There are lots of differences and lots of similarities.
The lines are blurring as a lot of the ITF teaching is including sport techniques in order to make us competitive in the competitions.
To start the ball rolling, the patterns/Hyungs are different, the WTF patterns include kicking slightly earlier and the ITF patterns and standard techniques place a little more emphasis on arm techs. With teaching styles it's mostly down to the individual instructors but with large organisations they have to be guided by the seniors, our instructors (ITF) are quite good at explaining defence applications for moves, but I can still see where some application theory has been lost already at the lower levels. I have never been in a WTF school so I can't comment on their curriculum.
Our ITF school does sport sparring, but we also do a self defence and fixed sparring which includes techs that would be considered illegal in sport sparring, e.g. take downs and killing strikes.
The lines are blurring as a lot of the ITF teaching is including sport techniques in order to make us competitive in the competitions.
To start the ball rolling, the patterns/Hyungs are different, the WTF patterns include kicking slightly earlier and the ITF patterns and standard techniques place a little more emphasis on arm techs. With teaching styles it's mostly down to the individual instructors but with large organisations they have to be guided by the seniors, our instructors (ITF) are quite good at explaining defence applications for moves, but I can still see where some application theory has been lost already at the lower levels. I have never been in a WTF school so I can't comment on their curriculum.
Our ITF school does sport sparring, but we also do a self defence and fixed sparring which includes techs that would be considered illegal in sport sparring, e.g. take downs and killing strikes.
You might be... we're not! I don't have time to go into detail right now, but I'll be back later.
Shaderon
Master of Arts
You don't teach sport techs too.... wow!
You know I'd love to know what everyone's teaching as well.... lets get some curriculums in here guys! This will be interesting.
You know I'd love to know what everyone's teaching as well.... lets get some curriculums in here guys! This will be interesting.
Damian Mavis
Master Black Belt
I run an ITF school, primary goal is traditional martial arts self defence but we do everything else too to a lesser degree. Sometimes we practice flashy jumping kicks and sometimes practice some sparring tricks that arent practical for street defence and I explain that fact...... but for the most part we concentrate on practical applications of the techniques. Then we also work on muay thai and submission grappling techniques that I feel are important in any martial artists arsenal for street defence, but that is a very small part of our training since it is a TKD school. I dont want to stray too far from the core but do feel some things are necessary to teach from those other arts.
Damian Mavis
Honour TKD Thailand
Damian Mavis
Honour TKD Thailand
We also don't generally go to WTF competitions - we hold our own, or go to competitions with other ITF affiliates or Ch'ang H'on stylists.
The primary difference between the ITF and the WTF is not the forms (patterns, tuls, hyung, palgwe, etc) - as there are a fair number of WTF schools/organizations that use the Ch'ang H'on pattern set. The ITF, however, uses the Ch'ang H'on pattern set almost exclusively, and those that learn other patterns learn them in addition to the Ch'ang H'on patterns.
The way I understand it, ITF was founded by Gen. Choi as his kwan; the other 8 primary kwans coalesced into the WTF after he left Korea (somewhat precipitously, and for political reasons - search the site and you'll find discussions of this, especially from Last Fearner [Master Eisenhart]). From that point on, the technical differences became more pronounced as the separate kwans continued to evolve.
Some differences:
Pattern set (see above)
Technique names - roundhouse kick (WTF) = turning kick (ITF); front stance (WTF) = walking stance (ITF); and so on
Sparring rules - the ITF target range is belt to the top of the head, and no hogu are used (I was a BB before I ever saw a hogu - and then it was when the Olympics aired some of the TKD bouts); the WTF target range is groin to base of throat (hands - I think head kicks are legal, at least in some places), with hogu. The ITF tends to use primarily continuous sparring (fight continues for 2 minutes unless 1 fighter is dropped or there's some other problem) and points are totalled when the round is over; the WTF uses (to my understanding) primarily point sparring, where the fight is stopped to award points.
There are others, but these are the primary ones that come to mind right now.
wade
Black Belt
Kacey, thanks. Your post just made my day. Until now I did not realize that the WTF used the point sparring system, ie, stopping after an exhange of techniques to award points. It will certainly change the way I train. 
Kacey Wade is being funny WTF style of fighting is contious sparring no stopping to award points , we use electronic scorer that each corner judge myst press when they see a legal point and two out of three must react in time in order to recieve such points.
ITF uses the stoppage for awarding point in point sparring they also have what is called contous point sparring when the competitor are awarded there points after each round is done.
Wade I must admit if WTF was stopping to award points we have been training our fighters wrong for all these years.
ITF uses the stoppage for awarding point in point sparring they also have what is called contous point sparring when the competitor are awarded there points after each round is done.
Wade I must admit if WTF was stopping to award points we have been training our fighters wrong for all these years.
See, I said I wasn't sure... and Terry, I come from the ITF - the ITF is predominately continuous sparring; point sparring is rarely used in tournament competition, although we still use it for training purposes in class. The last time I saw any WTF sparring it appeared to me to be what I would consider point sparring - but it's been quite a few years.
Yea Kacey I'mk an old ITF guy myself and back in the day they used alot of continous sparring but around here they do more of the point sparring at competitions than continous. Different orgs. inside the ITF style fight diferently, but Olympic style fighting there is no stoppage except from the referree and tht is rare nowadays.
Damian Mavis
Master Black Belt
Uh.... heh, now Im not sure who is joking or if your being serious.... I've never seen point sparring in the ITF where they stop and I've been to 4 countries to train ITF.... but thats not the part you should be debating.
"the WTF target range is groin to base of throat (hands - I think head kicks are legal, at least in some places)"
Terry... why didnt you argue this!? haha Guess you missed it. I thought Kacey was joking, maybe he was?
It puts a vision of 2 guys in hogus taking turns hoofing eachother in the crotch as hard as they can until someone drops during a FULL CONTACT KNOCKOUT sport match. Cause WTF is advertised as full contact and the goal is to knock them out but I always assumed they were kicking eachother in the head to knock eachother out... silly me! Its a crotch knockout!
Damian Mavis
Honour TKD Thailand
"the WTF target range is groin to base of throat (hands - I think head kicks are legal, at least in some places)"
Terry... why didnt you argue this!? haha Guess you missed it. I thought Kacey was joking, maybe he was?
It puts a vision of 2 guys in hogus taking turns hoofing eachother in the crotch as hard as they can until someone drops during a FULL CONTACT KNOCKOUT sport match. Cause WTF is advertised as full contact and the goal is to knock them out but I always assumed they were kicking eachother in the head to knock eachother out... silly me! Its a crotch knockout!
Damian Mavis
Honour TKD Thailand
My own sense is that the crucial difference between the two is in their respective attitudes: the ITF preservesto a much greater extent than the WTF, not surprisinglyGen. Choi's vision of TKD as a combat tool, a killing battlefield resource for soldiers out of ammunition, or separated from their weapons, or tasked with silent killing responsibilities, as were the Black Tiger and White Tiger commando groups in the Korean and Vietnamese war. Simon O'Neil in one of his Combat-TKD newsletters has an excellent discussion of the military form of TKD that Gen. Choi and his associates developed for this purpose; the effectiveness of their training is attested by the fact that during the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong field command ordered their troops to avoid any engagement with Korean troops that they could possibly avoid, unless the odds were overwhelmingly in their favor, specifically because of their H2H combat skills. The battle of Tra Binh Dong, where a seriously outnumbered and outgunned batallion of the 11th ROK Marines basically mangled and dissected forward units of the N. Vietnamese regular army in CQ combat, killing hundreds of them in fairly nasty ways, shows the good sense of that VC directive. For Gen. Choi, whatever faults he may have had, the combat effectiveness of TKD was always the paramount consideration.
But when he fell from the power he had held under the Park dictatorship, the monopoly over KMA he had been the main force in bringing about stayed with the ROK government, not him. And in the aftermath of the war years, South Korea wound up opting for international sport competition, not military combat usefulness, as the main benefit of TKD to the nation. The WTF was the ROK government's instrument in promoting that development, giving it a fundamentally different character from the ITF, Gen. Choi's organization. That's what I see as the historical source of the difference between the two orgs, and my sense is that the ITF will always be supportive of a more street-combat kind of TKDthe TKD of the original brawling kwans and the life-and-death fighting system of the ROK commandosthan the WTF's Olympic foot-tag version. This comment isn't intended to be partisan in any way: my school is in fact affiliated with the WTF, not the ITF. But we're Song Moo Kwan and heavily committed to TKD as a close-quarters fighting system with major emphasis on hand techs, really a kind of Korean Shotokan karate, as the kwan founder, Byung Jik Ro, conceived itso our attitude, which is the important thing, is much closer to ITF than WTF....
But when he fell from the power he had held under the Park dictatorship, the monopoly over KMA he had been the main force in bringing about stayed with the ROK government, not him. And in the aftermath of the war years, South Korea wound up opting for international sport competition, not military combat usefulness, as the main benefit of TKD to the nation. The WTF was the ROK government's instrument in promoting that development, giving it a fundamentally different character from the ITF, Gen. Choi's organization. That's what I see as the historical source of the difference between the two orgs, and my sense is that the ITF will always be supportive of a more street-combat kind of TKDthe TKD of the original brawling kwans and the life-and-death fighting system of the ROK commandosthan the WTF's Olympic foot-tag version. This comment isn't intended to be partisan in any way: my school is in fact affiliated with the WTF, not the ITF. But we're Song Moo Kwan and heavily committed to TKD as a close-quarters fighting system with major emphasis on hand techs, really a kind of Korean Shotokan karate, as the kwan founder, Byung Jik Ro, conceived itso our attitude, which is the important thing, is much closer to ITF than WTF....
cali_tkdbruin
Master of Arts
Just a point of clarification regarding WTF/Olympic sparring. Attacks below the waist are prohibited in WTF/Olympic sparring. No shots to the nads allowed thank goodness! Also, it's full contact, continuous sparring, no stopping unless there's an injury, a knockout or an equiptment adjustment timeout as was previously mentioned. Finally, head shots with the foot are legal, encouraged and score double the points than a shot to the hogu. Can't use the hands to strike at the head though. Finally, head shots are usually only allowed for the older, more experienced TKD practitioners. That's normally teenagers and up. The peewees, are usually restricted from head hunting. This is just some of the stuff that's reviewed at referee seminars we must attend prior to competitions.
Shaderon
Master of Arts
Ok so it looks like ITF and WTF sparring are extreemly similar if not the same and just vary with organisations.
Kacey, when I said we do sport style sparring in order to get us into competitions, I meant got us into competing in competitions withing the ITF, I didn't mean we compete in the WTF ones. I think I wasn't too clear on that one.
In GTUK at colour belt level we do minute and a half rounds of continuous sparring, stopping only for illegal techs and things like travelling. We do get taught sport techs for sparring, for example with our front turning kick, a sparring kick is with the top of the foot as it's easier on the legs and gentler for the opponant, but we train the proper turning kick much harder and use it for breaking (striking with the ball of the foot).
Do any of the WTF schools do this?
Kacey, when I said we do sport style sparring in order to get us into competitions, I meant got us into competing in competitions withing the ITF, I didn't mean we compete in the WTF ones. I think I wasn't too clear on that one.
In GTUK at colour belt level we do minute and a half rounds of continuous sparring, stopping only for illegal techs and things like travelling. We do get taught sport techs for sparring, for example with our front turning kick, a sparring kick is with the top of the foot as it's easier on the legs and gentler for the opponant, but we train the proper turning kick much harder and use it for breaking (striking with the ball of the foot).
Do any of the WTF schools do this?
Damian Mavis
Master Black Belt
I went back to reread the whole thread to try to find the non polite disrespectful comments... but couldnt find any, Carol, who were you warning? Me? I didnt think I was being rude... thought I was funny, I must suck at jokes.
Damian Mavis
Honour TKD Thailand
Damian Mavis
Honour TKD Thailand
wade
Black Belt
I have a question. Exactly how much contact does the ITF allow during their continuous sparring? Is it full like the WTF or is it light like non-contact karate systems? If it is light then what is the combat effectiveness of it.
Damian Mavis
Master Black Belt
Adult male ITF sparring is semi contact, that means its pretty much full contact if you can manage to not break his jaw or something along those lines. If you do something like break your opponents jaw you will most likely get disqualified. And we are more prone to let a heavy head kick go with no penalty than a punch, head kicks are harder to score so we allow a great deal of freedom, short of things like breaking your opponents jaw like I said.
There is very little combat effectiveness for sparring in any format filled with rules. Combat has no rules and to prepare for it properly you cant practice for it following a rule set your attacker would not follow.
Damian Mavis
Honour TKD Thailand
There is very little combat effectiveness for sparring in any format filled with rules. Combat has no rules and to prepare for it properly you cant practice for it following a rule set your attacker would not follow.
Damian Mavis
Honour TKD Thailand
Shaderon
Master of Arts
Female sparring in the GTUK ITF school, is pretty much light contact. Well they say that, you get warned at the beginning that it's light contact but anything short of a proper injury or a knockout is usually allowed. If you knock out your opponant it's an instant disqualification, drawing blood causes a quick stoppage to check if it needs mopping up. Cloths are kept besides the corner judges to quickly mop up blood on the floor after a bout if necessary.
I do agree with Damian though, I know someone will disagree with us but I would never think of using sparring techniques in a fight, I view it as a bit of fun designed to get you used to the idea of giving and taking a hit, and to speed your reactions. I would use the techniques I use in class and learn in my hyungs in a real fight. Our 1, 2 and 3 step sparring is much more useful as combat practice to me, especially since I am a 5'5" lightly built female who's faster than is strong, my main weapon is my brain, not my feet. I know the attacker doesn't always stand there and take it, but if you surprise them by not being a victim then I am sure that getting a few combat moves in on someone will be more effective than the sparring techniques. I have been thinking a lot and reading up about this and I know that in a lot of schools combat techniques aren't taught to their fullest advantage, both in ITF and WTF too, but a little bit of research and digging can come up with some surprising uses for relatively gentle techs. (e.g. blocks used to lock or break limbs)
I certainly feel that the ITF and WTF schools don't have as many differences these days as people think. Sure the patterns are different, but my schools patterns seem to be different to other ITF schools patterns anyway, sparring seems to be very similar and techs are similar even if the names are sometimes different.
I also think it's down to attitude and a "me and them" style of thinking in a lot of people. We are told we are different so we assume we are, but really we aren't that much, it's not what we learn, it's how we learn it.
I do agree with Damian though, I know someone will disagree with us but I would never think of using sparring techniques in a fight, I view it as a bit of fun designed to get you used to the idea of giving and taking a hit, and to speed your reactions. I would use the techniques I use in class and learn in my hyungs in a real fight. Our 1, 2 and 3 step sparring is much more useful as combat practice to me, especially since I am a 5'5" lightly built female who's faster than is strong, my main weapon is my brain, not my feet. I know the attacker doesn't always stand there and take it, but if you surprise them by not being a victim then I am sure that getting a few combat moves in on someone will be more effective than the sparring techniques. I have been thinking a lot and reading up about this and I know that in a lot of schools combat techniques aren't taught to their fullest advantage, both in ITF and WTF too, but a little bit of research and digging can come up with some surprising uses for relatively gentle techs. (e.g. blocks used to lock or break limbs)
I certainly feel that the ITF and WTF schools don't have as many differences these days as people think. Sure the patterns are different, but my schools patterns seem to be different to other ITF schools patterns anyway, sparring seems to be very similar and techs are similar even if the names are sometimes different.
I also think it's down to attitude and a "me and them" style of thinking in a lot of people. We are told we are different so we assume we are, but really we aren't that much, it's not what we learn, it's how we learn it.
Laurentkd
Master Black Belt
We are competing in the AAU more now, which allows WTF and ITF forms. They also have light contact point sparring (no hogu, with foam boots and gloves) and heavy contact "Olympic" sparring (with hogu, no foam). I assumed that point sparring was offered for the benifit of ITFers and Olympic for the benifit of WTFers (although students can compete in both). I don't know that my thoughts are right, only that I have them!
