ITF and the WTF

[matt.m]

There currently is no relationship between ITF and WTF, nor should there be. For if you embrace Gen. Choi's organization, you embrace his philosophy. .

Dude, not trying to start a fight but I disagree with the embracing of philosophies. GM Hildebrand, like my dad......want absolutely nothing changed from the cirriculum that GGM Park taught them. That is called honoring your instructor.

I have a dan in judo, if I had the physical capability to teach I would not change the way or cirriculum of my instructor. When I reach dan in Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido then your crazy if you think I would change the way that I was taught and change anything of the cirriculum.

 

[Kacey]

There currently is no relationship between ITF and WTF, nor should there be. For if you embrace Gen. Choi's organization, you embrace his philosophy. Aside from the technical differences (ITF-sine wave, more Shotokan inspired), the WTF made a concerted effort to grow and develop Tae Kwon Do according to traditional Korean thinking and philosophy. The ITF was the product of one man. The Kukkiwon/WTF is the work of many people and rooted in Korean tradition.
Aside from his habit of taking credit for other peoples' work, Choi made personal overtures to North Korea, despite the fact that the North has systematically starved its own people and has a megalomaniac as a dictator. What Choi considered patriotism, South Korea considers treason. He may have had deep affection for the region that gave birth to him, but the political reality is that his birthland was an oppressive communist country and he never faced up to that.
And as for embracing and practicing ITF and WTF poomse, you cannot be Democrat and Republican or Catholic and Protestant. You cannot practice ITF and WTF. Each has its own nuances, philosophy, and mindset. Pick one.

You are welcome to your opinion; mine, as stated previously, is different. Please expand on your rationale for your opinion - I consider myself open-minded, and am willing to be convinced, but I find little fact in your post - only opinon - which does not have as great an impact on me. In addition, I know quite a few people in the ITF whose opinion of the WTF mirrors yours - that only the ITF is the correct version, only Gen. Choi truly preserved the Korean culture in his kwan, etc.

As far as Gen. Choi's involvement with North Korea - he was a Korean patriot, born in Korea when it was a single country under Japanese rule. He spent much of his life trying to oust the Japanese, and then to reunite his country. He want to die, and be buried, in the town in which he was born - which happens to be in North Korea. He was, like the rest of us, human, and took the course he did because as his life ended, as he was dying (and he died a slow, lingering death from cancer) he wanted more than anything to be buried where he was born. While I fault some of the decisions he made which allowed that to occur (the current split in the ITF is due, in part, to his "willing" the ITF to a North Korean for the privilege of returning to his homeland to die), I will not fault him for his desire.

 

[zDom]

There currently is no relationship between ITF and WTF, nor should there be. For if you embrace Gen. Choi's organization, you embrace his philosophy. Aside from the technical differences (ITF-sine wave, more Shotokan inspired), the WTF made a concerted effort to grow and develop Tae Kwon Do according to traditional Korean thinking and philosophy. The ITF was the product of one man. The Kukkiwon/WTF is the work of many people and rooted in Korean tradition.
Aside from his habit of taking credit for other peoples' work, Choi made personal overtures to North Korea, despite the fact that the North has systematically starved its own people and has a megalomaniac as a dictator. What Choi considered patriotism, South Korea considers treason. He may have had deep affection for the region that gave birth to him, but the political reality is that his birthland was an oppressive communist country and he never faced up to that.
And as for embracing and practicing ITF and WTF poomse, you cannot be Democrat and Republican or Catholic and Protestant. You cannot practice ITF and WTF. Each has its own nuances, philosophy, and mindset. Pick one.

BS.

The GM who founded the (U.S.) Moo Sul Kwan, Lee H. Park, decided to go with the WTF forms but, IMO, kept some of the best parts of the ITF, including some of the ITF forms.

Ideology -- pffft.

I do still practice some of the ITF forms because PARK trained with them and decided to leave some of them in his curriculum, like Matt pointed out.

Politics don't mean squat to me when it comes to TKD and forms — only technique.

When it comes down to it, MSK really doesn't fit EITHER mold. We look more like ITF style when it comes to fighting, we do WTF forms.

We are neither Democrats nor Republicans. We are neither Catholics nor Protestants.

We can and DO practice ITF and WTF forms.

We are the Moo Sul Kwan: Long live the memory of Lee H. Park!

HOSHIN! and PIL SUNG!

 

[matt.m]

Scott,

The man took the words out of my mouth. I am speechless. That my friends is a hard thing to do. But to add to the post of Scott's, it isn't and never will be...."Tae Kwon Do is doing x,y,z or whatever." Nope it is and will always be as long as I have any say at all, "How did GGM Lee H. Park do it." The two highest ranking members in Moo Sul kwan according to art are GM Charles Hildebrand 7th dan tkd, 5th dan hkd and Mike Morton 5th dan hkd.

GM Hildebrand has everything to the smallest detail written down....Dad does to. So if they are in Park's 1st batch of dan students then what would give Scott, I, or anyone else the right to change anything or care about silly politics?

If you get wrapped up into politics then you are not training. If you are not training then say nothing.

 

[exile]

I'd feel better about the direction the thread has taken if we could make things a little more precise.

There currently is no relationship between ITF and WTF, nor should there be. For if you embrace Gen. Choi's organization, you embrace his philosophy. Aside from the technical differences (ITF-sine wave, more Shotokan inspired), the WTF made a concerted effort to grow and develop Tae Kwon Do according to traditional Korean thinking and philosophy. The ITF was the product of one man. The Kukkiwon/WTF is the work of many people and rooted in Korean tradition.
Aside from his habit of taking credit for other peoples' work, Choi made personal overtures to North Korea, despite the fact that the North has systematically starved its own people and has a megalomaniac as a dictator. What Choi considered patriotism, South Korea considers treason. He may have had deep affection for the region that gave birth to him, but the political reality is that his birthland was an oppressive communist country and he never faced up to that.

What you seem to be saying is that, if you are a member of ITF, you must believe everything that its founder believed. Because if you deny that membership in ITF requires you to share all of Gen. Choi's beliefs---which I'll call the crucial premise of TTKD's remearks---then there's no logical basis for anything in the paragraph I've just quoted. So now how much sense does the `crucial premise' make? Well, the founder of the Protestant movement, Martin Luther, was a ferocious anti-Semite who believed the earth was flat (because if it were round, the geometry of the situation would mean that not all the faithful would be able to see their Savior's return before the Last Judgment simultaneously). Anybody want to maintain that to be a Protestant means you have to be an anti-Semitic flat earther? The direct source of the modern fields of logic and philosophy, Aristotle, believed in spontaneous generation as the source of organic life. How many students and adherents of Aristotelian philosophy and its modern outgrowth, formal logic, believe that invertebrates arose out of mineral deposits and other such stuff? Either (i) unbigoted modern Protestants who don't believe the earth is flat, logicians who deny spontaneous generation, and a zillion other comparable examples, are somehow being inconsistent in their beliefs, or (ii) it's incorrect to assume that by virtue being part of an organization, community of shared assumption or whatever, you have to believe every last thing that the founder believed. Which of (i) or (ii) seems more plausible, eh? Does anyone really want to maintain that to be a member of an ITF dojang, you must, to be logically consistent, share Gen. Choi's intense desire to see the two Koreas reunified in his/your lifetime??

And as for embracing and practicing ITF and WTF poomse, you cannot be Democrat and Republican or Catholic and Protestant. You cannot practice ITF and WTF. Each has its own nuances, philosophy, and mindset. Pick one.

To defend this claim, instead of just asserting it, you are going to have to show that when you try to practice both ITF poomse and WTF poomse, the same situation (in the relevant respects) arises which make it impossible to believe both Democratic and Republican political stances or Catholic and Protestant religious beliefs. For the latter case, say, I know why you can't be a Protestant and a Catholic simultaneously---it would involve accepting sets of mutually exclusive beliefs, about the source of divine grace, the status of the sacraments, the religious role and efficacy of the clergy (and more generally, the relationship between God and man). The differences in belief between the two religions involve a number of inherently mutually incompatible claims. Can anyone tell me exactly what is `mutually incompatible' about performing, say, Chon-ji (ITF) on the one hand and Palgwe Sam-Jang (WTF) on the other? Just what is incompatible about them? The moves involved, or the way they're sequenced? In the first one, I see in the first eight moves a series of lunge punches and down blocks. And when I look at the second, I see... a series of lunch punches, down blocks and rising blocks. IFT TKD has rising blocks too, so... where is the incompatibility?

Is it maybe in the bunkai? Is it the case that the kinds of combat applications associated with ITF tuls are fundamentally different from those associated with WTF poomsae? That, in other words, the two fighting systems are different? I'd like to see what the evidence for this position would be, given that the kind of bunkai analysis carried out by Stuart Anslow for the ITF forms are virtually the same kinds of moves that Simon O'Neil has published in his interpretations of WTF taegeuks and dan-level hyungs---and, for that matter, that Iain Abernethy has produced for Shotokan kata and Lawrence Kane & Kris Wilder have for Gojo-Ryu kata. In fact O'Neil has used the same `decoding' rules of kata interpretation on both WTF and ITF forms to yield extremely effective bunkai for the ITF and WTF patterns he examines. So how can they be incompatible when they correspond to fighting systems that are doing the same kinds of things?

OK, so then maybe incompatible philosophies? Well, just what `philosophy' are we talkng about? In this connection, I have to confess, I love the the passage from Abernethy's book Bunkai-Jutsu: the Practical Application of Karate Kata where he notes that

It is also fairly common to see movements attributed spiritual significance... it must be remembered that every single movement within the katas is for use in combat. To my mind, when a movement is attributed a physical or spiritual significance, as opposed to a combative one, it is a sure sign that the person espousing that significance has no idea what that movement is actually for! But rather than be honest and admit that they do not understand the movement's purpose, they prefer to bluff their way around it... every single movement within kata is for use in combat. We should never try to attribute other meanings simply because we do not understand how a movement is to be applied.

The work of people like Anslow and O'Neil shows pretty decisively that TKD patterns contain the same kind of combat-specific information encoded as so-called `blocks', `strikes' and `stances', and that the kinds of fighting techniques the ITF and WTF patterns encode is essentially the same. So what basis is there for the claim that a particular sequence of encoded combat techniques represents a `philosophy' of anything except fighting technique?

If what I've just said is mistaken, it should be easy to show it. Just take any particular ITF form, produce a defensible translation of it into some political or spiritual or philosophical doctrine. Then do the same thing for any random WTF form, and then show that the two doctrines are incompatible in the same way that the Catholic view of divine grace and the Lutheran or Calvinist views are incompatible. Do that, and then maybe there'll be some substance to the claim that ITF tuls and WTF poomsae are incompatible. If you can't do that, then that claim has no content at all.

 

[zDom]

Thanks for being the calm voice of reason, Exile.

Sometimes my passion for martial arts gets the best of me

 

[Kacey]

zDom, Matt, and exile - thanks very much for saying what I meant to say, much more clearly than I managed to say it. Despite your very clear statements, I am going to add a few things myself.

There currently is no relationship between ITF and WTF,
There is no formal relationship between the ITF and the WTF, this is true. There are, however, informal relationships between members of the ITF and the WTF - here, for example.

nor should there be.

I find this close-minded and self-limiting, and about as meaningful as telling a Catholic and Protestant - to use your own comparison - that they cannot, and should not, interact in any fashion solely because of their ideological differences - never mind that there's always the possibility of changing someone's mind if you are open to the ideas of others.

For if you embrace Gen. Choi's organization, you embrace his philosophy.

This is just meaningless. Exile covered this quite completely, so I won't attempt to add to his answer; I will say, however, that I was a senior color belt - possibly even a 1st Dan, before I ever heard anything about his philosophy. In the day-to-day functioning of the dojang, it is simply irrelevant.

Aside from the technical differences (ITF-sine wave, more Shotokan inspired),

Why aside from them? There are technical differences - that is well-known. Different is not necessarily bad; it is simply different. Too many people have your opinion - that "different is dead-and one death is never enouhg. You die and die and die." (Zenna Henderson, Pilgrimage: The Book of the People). Differences should be celebrated, explored, and used to strengthen the whole - not derided and ignored.

the WTF made a concerted effort to grow and develop Tae Kwon Do according to traditional Korean thinking and philosophy. The ITF was the product of one man. The Kukkiwon/WTF is the work of many people and rooted in Korean tradition.

Interestingly enough, this is exactly what the ITF teaches... except that it teaches that Gen. Choi made a concerted effort to grow and develop Taekwon-Do according to Korean thinking and philosophy. Gen. Choi credits quite a few people with inspiring and helping him - but yes, he does take primary credit for doing much of the work... which he did, at least for his kwan. As far as the WTF being rooted in Korean tradition... well, I learned quite a bit of Korean history on my journey through TKD, and I intend to learn more - but when I started learning it, it was because it was required for promotion, to demonstrate respect for the country and culture that created the art; were ITF TKD solely for the glorification of Gen. Choi, then surely at least one pattern (all named for persons or events significant in Korean history) would be named for him - but not one ever was. Quite a few are named for Korean patriots who worked to overthrow the Japanese - many of them contemporaries of Gen. Choi - but none for him.

Aside from his habit of taking credit for other peoples' work,
See previous.

Choi made personal overtures to North Korea, despite the fact that the North has systematically starved its own people and has a megalomaniac as a dictator.

As I said, Gen. Choi was born in a united Korea; it so happened that his birthplace was in North Korea. Is it so odd that an old man would want to return to his birthplace as his death approached?

What Choi considered patriotism, South Korea considers treason.

This is a matter of opinion. Gen. Choi was a Korean patriot, and has been painted by South Korea as less than patriotic because, due to his love for his birthplace and his desire to see his country reunited, he never gave up hope that North Korea could be turned from its Communist track and reunited with South Korea. This does not make him a traitor; it makes hima a patriot. You might check a few sources that do not originate within your own organization; history is written by the winners, and Gen. Choi did not win this fight - certainly not according to the WTF. Other sources differ in their interpretation. A google search using the terms "Gen. Choi Hong Hi history" creates a lengthy list of sources, many of which contradict each other. Even for such recent events, history is unclear, and motivations and actions are open to interpretation.

He may have had deep affection for the region that gave birth to him, but the political reality is that his birthland was an oppressive communist country and he never faced up to that.

His birthland was a united Korea, a single, non-Communist, country, not the split country that it is today. His love was for that Korea, for the land that gave him birth, not for the Communist country that North Korea became later in his life.

And as for embracing and practicing ITF and WTF poomse, you cannot be Democrat and Republican or Catholic and Protestant. You cannot practice ITF and WTF. Each has its own nuances, philosophy, and mindset. Pick one.

Why? I would rather learn from each, and choose the best from each, than cut myself off from a large body of experience and knowledge. That is, in my opinion, censorship - something I intensely dislike and disagree with. If that is your choice, then you are welcome to choose it for yourself; for myself, I will learn from anyone who has something valuable to teach - which, in my opinion and experience, is everyone. The wheat will separate from the chaff in its own time.

 

[exile]

Thanks for being the calm voice of reason, Exile.

Sometimes my passion for martial arts gets the best of me

Hey zDom, I thought your comments were fine. I think you were getting at the same ideas---and I think Kacey's post summed up those ideas really nicely and concisely (I mean well but usually wind up writing about three times as much as I should...)

I think what you and Matt were getting at from a more personal angle was the same idea as what I was saying---you folks are able to reconcile both WTF and ITF forms and techniques in your actual dojang practice, and it's quite clear to you that no terrible contradiction results. Insisting that the two are mutually incompatible is a very strong claim, one that seems immediately contradicted by your and Matt's experience in the art, and if that claim can't be backed up by some very solid evidence, it seems to me it has no credibility. Like you guys and Kacey, I see there being plenty of grounds for cross-fertilization... I mean, look, we got karate by mixing Chinese fighting systems with native Okinawan arts---and two quite different cultures were involved there! ITF and WTF are variant expressions of a single culture---how much incompatibility should we expect to be there???

 

[exile]

I am going to add a few things myself.

There currently is no relationship between ITF and WTF,
There is no formal relationship between the ITF and the WTF, this is true. There are, however, informal relationships between members of the ITF and the WTF - here, for example.

nor should there be.

I find this close-minded and self-limiting, and about as meaningful as telling a Catholic and Protestant - to use your own comparison - that they cannot, and should not, interact in any fashion solely because of their ideological differences - never mind that there's always the possibility of changing someone's mind if you are open to the ideas of others.

For if you embrace Gen. Choi's organization, you embrace his philosophy.

This is just meaningless. Exile covered this quite completely, so I won't attempt to add to his answer; I will say, however, that I was a senior color belt - possibly even a 1st Dan, before I ever heard anything about his philosophy. In the day-to-day functioning of the dojang, it is simply irrelevant.

Aside from the technical differences (ITF-sine wave, more Shotokan inspired),

Why aside from them? There are technical differences - that is well-known. Different is not necessarily bad; it is simply different. Too many people have your opinion - that "different is dead-and one death is never enouhg. You die and die and die." (Zenna Henderson, Pilgrimage: The Book of the People). Differences should be celebrated, explored, and used to strengthen the whole - not derided and ignored.

the WTF made a concerted effort to grow and develop Tae Kwon Do according to traditional Korean thinking and philosophy. The ITF was the product of one man. The Kukkiwon/WTF is the work of many people and rooted in Korean tradition.

Interestingly enough, this is exactly what the ITF teaches... except that it teaches that Gen. Choi made a concerted effort to grow and develop Taekwon-Do according to Korean thinking and philosophy. Gen. Choi credits quite a few people with inspiring and helping him - but yes, he does take primary credit for doing much of the work... which he did, at least for his kwan. As far as the WTF being rooted in Korean tradition... well, I learned quite a bit of Korean history on my journey through TKD, and I intend to learn more - but when I started learning it, it was because it was required for promotion, to demonstrate respect for the country and culture that created the art; were ITF TKD solely for the glorification of Gen. Choi, then surely at least one pattern (all named for persons or events significant in Korean history) would be named for him - but not one ever was. Quite a few are named for Korean patriots who worked to overthrow the Japanese - many of them contemporaries of Gen. Choi - but none for him.

Aside from his habit of taking credit for other peoples' work,
See previous.

Choi made personal overtures to North Korea, despite the fact that the North has systematically starved its own people and has a megalomaniac as a dictator.

As I said, Gen. Choi was born in a united Korea; it so happened that his birthplace was in North Korea. Is it so odd that an old man would want to return to his birthplace as his death approached?

What Choi considered patriotism, South Korea considers treason.

This is a matter of opinion. Gen. Choi was a Korean patriot, and has been painted by South Korea as less than patriotic because, due to his love for his birthplace and his desire to see his country reunited, he never gave up hope that North Korea could be turned from its Communist track and reunited with South Korea. This does not make him a traitor; it makes hima a patriot. You might check a few sources that do not originate within your own organization; history is written by the winners, and Gen. Choi did not win this fight - certainly not according to the WTF. Other sources differ in their interpretation. A google search using the terms "Gen. Choi Hong Hi history" creates a lengthy list of sources, many of which contradict each other. Even for such recent events, history is unclear, and motivations and actions are open to interpretation.

He may have had deep affection for the region that gave birth to him, but the political reality is that his birthland was an oppressive communist country and he never faced up to that.

His birthland was a united Korea, a single, non-Communist, country, not the split country that it is today. His love was for that Korea, for the land that gave him birth, not for the Communist country that North Korea became later in his life.

And as for embracing and practicing ITF and WTF poomse, you cannot be Democrat and Republican or Catholic and Protestant. You cannot practice ITF and WTF. Each has its own nuances, philosophy, and mindset. Pick one.

Why? I would rather learn from each, and choose the best from each, than cut myself off from a large body of experience and knowledge. That is, in my opinion, censorship - something I intensely dislike and disagree with. If that is your choice, then you are welcome to choose it for yourself; for myself, I will learn from anyone who has something valuable to teach - which, in my opinion and experience, is everyone. The wheat will separate from the chaff in its own time.

Another great, informative and eloquent post, Kacey. I couldn't agree more with your perspective (and nice to see a Zenna Henderson citation!) The last thing we need in the MAs is more parochialism and faction-fighting.

 

[TraditionalTKD]

If politics is meaningless, why is the (mostly) accepted head of the ITF, Chang Ung, from North Korea? Why did Chuck Sereff of the USTF quit the ITF and make his organization independent rather than follow someone from North Korea?
Look, I understand Choi was born in Korea before it became divided in communist North and democratic South. But the fact remains that Choi dealt extensively with North Korea, and enemy state to the South and to the western world, and did this without approval from South Korea when he lived there. He would no doubt have been refused permission had he applied for it.
He considered himself a Korean patriot. That works when Korea was subjugated by Japan and worked to become free. But to deal with an enemy state on your own simply because you miss the days of unification is not patriotism, it is treason. It would be no different if Canada were oppressively communist and I dealt extensively with them without approval from my government.
Why did he not request to be buried in, say Canada or Austria, and have his remains moved to Korea when it was finally unified? And again, why choose a North Korean to run your organization?

 

[zDom]

We don't have any "ties" to the ITF organization in MSK, from what I understand.

But that is no reason to toss out the ITF forms.

Some TKD organizations also do "Basai" but don't have any connection to JMA organizations.

 

[matt.m]

Moo Sul Kwan has no formal ties with the ITF, however....last Thursday I brought this thread up to Grandmaster Hildebrand. he said and I quote "We are a WTF school that happens to embrace the teachings of late Great Grandmaster Park, he taught the ITF forms."

See guys I told you, just felt like giving a direct quote from the President and Grandmaster of Moo Sul Kwan.

Dad himself has told me he would rather die than change GM Park's Hapkido cirriculum. Sorry, if its a bit strong worded, but Scott and I learn from Masters of exceptional apptitude and conviction.

As I stated before, I personally believe you are getting a full tae kwon do experience and only learn half the cirriculum if you choose one side over the other. They both reflect Tae Kwon Do history. It should also help to fashion what Tae Kwon Do becomes, not what some don't want it to be.