Kukkiwon respect

[Daniel Sullivan]

I had posted a thread along these lines a while back and cannot find it. I probably did not name it what I thought that I had, so oh well.

But anyway, here goes:

What does the Kukkiwon do right?

Well, I think that they do a lot that is right. While there is legitimate room for improvement, the good should not be overlooked.

So here is my list:

International certification body and portable rank
If you tell me that you are a Kukkiwon ildan, I can expect certain, minimum things that you should be able to do well. I can also check your name on the Kukkiwon website to make sure that that cert of yours was not a forgery.

Uniform minimum standards/common base
I have seen a lot of comments over a long period of time that the Kukkiwon curriculum is not comprehensive enough, but I think that this is ultimately good. It has just enough that anyone can identify it as 'taekwondo' (same forms and body of techniques), yet the school is not limited to that curriculum. I could graft the Kukkiwon curriculum onto a hapkido curriculum and strictly teach SD and be a legit Kukkiwon school. The guy down the road can focus on sport/competition. Thus you can have two very different schools that are not micromanaged by a large org, but have a lot of the perks of being in a large org.

Mechanism for students under fifteen to advance past geub grades
With the poom grade, young students can continue to advance past ilgeub without being a full first dan. Not only that, it provides a uniform junior rank system, so a first poom from one school should share specific skills with a first poom from any other KKW school.

Hands off
The Kukkiwon catches a lot of flack about not regulating and policing its member schools. At the same time, it gets slammed for being a big org that tells you what to do. Really, they do not police to any great extent and they do not really tell you how to run your school. Thus the Kwan Jang of the school is still a king or queen in his or her own castle.

These are the main benefits as I see it. I do feel that there are likely to be others. I know that there is a lot of legitmate gripes about the Kukkiwon. And those are posted daily. This thread is supposed to be one that is aimed towards the positive.

And no, for the record, I do not see Kukkiwon schools as superior to non KKW schools. Each org and style of taekwondo has its merits and flaws.

Train hard and enjoy!

Daniel

 

[terryl965]

Nice post Daniel and you are right no one org is perfect. Yet the KKW is trying to make things better and for this to happen people in general need to look ahead and not in the past.

 

[Twin Fist]

i LIKE the minimum requirements for each belt.

i LIKE the fact that you can go there and look someone up

 

[goingd]

The Kukkiwon, I think, has an incredible capability to allow Taekwondo to unify, and at the same time, allow every practitioner to individualize. Their standards are fairly basic. A Kukkiwon Dan test essentially consists of form performance, breaking, sparring, and possible knowledge on the subject for higher Dans.
Everyone of course has their own interpretation of the forms, but they are still practicing the same forms as millions of others.
Breaking can be done any number of ways.
Sparring allows one to demonstrate reaction without having to demonstrate a universal set of defense techniques.

With the Kukkiwon we can all practice the same thing, yet continue to expand our own light on Taekwondo.

 

[NPTKD]

i LIKE the minimum requirements for each belt.

i LIKE the fact that you can go there and look someone up

i LIKE the new softer side of you! It's much more pleasing to the eye.

 

[NPTKD]

Hey, I just noticed that up there, see it ? ( infractions) strange.... I know where, how and what was said, but I guess I am special! Wow! If I were only ITF.......

 

[Twin Fist]

i havnt been infraction free in over a year, every single mod knows my name and i am ALWAYS on thier "oh **** not again" list

in fact, i think right now i am carrying 45 "bad dog" points.

 

[matt.m]

Every N.G.B., National Governing body, has a list or set of what is "Generally Required" at each belt level. The thing I see across the board in TKD and Judo are the fact that if someone claims a certain belt rank then you have a general idea of knowledge that the person has.

For example, redbelts is tkd will know pal jang if they learned the taegueks. If someone is a brown 1st in judo they will be able to demonstrate sweeping hip makkikomi. Doesn't matter the school. It should all transfer proportionately.

 

[DerekB]

It is nice being able too look up names on there site... But the Korean that typed all my info in thought Derek was spelled Dereck. Plainly spelled out right on my 1st Dan application. Tried too fix with my 2nd Dan application c/w note about mistake and copy of original application. Still spelt wrong. Checked it out on the Kukkiwon web page, guess next time I'm in Korea I can go and get it straightend out in person.