In the difficulties of organizations (eg. 3 ITF's, or the direction of the WTF, etc.) the question of "should I stay with my current organization?" "should I switch to "X" organization?" or "should I create my own organization?" are issues that school owners need to think about from time to time.
This is a valid concern. Switching organizations is hard for a wide variety of reasons, especially for an instructor who wants to maintain the integrity of what he's teaching. A friend of mine - another student of my sahbum - joined us after being with another organization for 10 or 12 years (neither ITF nor WTF - a child-oriented sporting association) and is going through growing pains as he shifts his students over to a new (and more difficult) set of requirements. Most of his students are happy - some are pissed, because it's much harder to slide now.
Some of the issues that I see (but are limited to) are: 1) Can I do what I want in my current organization?
Yes, I can.
2) Is what the next organization has better than what I have?
Haven't seen one yet that was.
3) What would the price be for going out on my own?
Dunno... only thought about it once, when I followed my sahbum into the
YCTA at it's inception, a decision I made in the best interest of my students (the only consideration that should be important to an instructor - or at least to a good instructor, one who puts his/her students' needs above his/her own).
4) Can I affect the leadership of my organization for the positive change that I want to see?
Yes. Of course, being on our association's board of directors, that's easy for me to see - but I just sent out an email reminder of upcoming events to my students, and one upcoming event is our state meeting, where any student who chooses to come can give input into what the state is going to do - what events will be held and where (and who will run them), how money will be spent, how we can raise money to send students to events out of state, and so on - and also give input into what they'd like to see the association as a whole do in the future.
Can we stay in our organizations & still be who we want to be? Can we affect the change that we want to see? What is the "ideal" organization for you?
As should be obvious from the above, I'm pretty happy where I am, and can't imagine going anywhere else at this point, at least not in TKD... cross-training (something I'd like to do in the future) is a different issue.
I agree, that's true so far as the average MA trainee is concerned. And I think it's true at a more basic level as well. But the kind of point that Lauren was making, about rank portability and verification, is going to haunt you as you get closer and closer to that shodan test, if you're like a lot of folks out there.
I have to say that this issue never bothered me - although I reached I Dan (and for that matter, II Dan) in the USTF/ITF, where we were told, repeatedly and in detail, that there would be a class we could transfer into wherever we went, and our rank would go with us. In retrospect, that may not have been as true as it was made out to be - but rank portability wasn't something that concerned me as a color belt.
KKW cert does give certain bragging rights to both the new BB and the owner/instructor,
At this point in time, it's still something that doesn't concern me. In contrast to those who discuss the portability of KKW certification, I just don't care. My rank is certified by people I know, whose opinions I value and trust - if others don't accept that rank, it really doesn't bother me. I've never thought about my rank as something that gave me "bragging rights" - rather, it's something that gives me the opportunity to learn even more.
even though it might not have much emotional impact on white belts in their first month of training.
I have yet to meet a white belt - with the exception of a few who had prior experiences in other arts - who cared
where my certification was from. They care that I've been in TKD for 21 years, that I've been teaching in the same YMCA for nearly 9 years, that when they talk to my students, my students tell them why they stay in my class - I have
yet to have a student of any rank ask who my certificate is from, or when, or what association, or anything like that; the closest I've had is a student who moved here from England, who wanted a school that did Ch'ang H'on forms, because that's what he had learned, but he didn't care which association I was in.
The real problem with being affiliated with a major org, as an owner/chief instructor, is that it's all too easy to wind up taking over their view of the nature of the art and structuring your curriculum accordingly.
This could be bad... could be good. I
like the curriculum we use - or I'd change it. I add things to it as I find it to be appropriate - we have minimum requirements, but I don't know an instructor in the association who doesn't personalize by adding other things. Using a good curriculum as a base helps keep you from unintentionally omitting useful pieces. Why rewrite it if it works?
If the curriculum locks you into something, and precludes independent thought - that's a different issue, and I agree, that's a problem.
For a lot of schools, that's probably part of what they regard as a sound business model.
You have to start somewhere - it might as well be what you know and where you're comfortable;
then you can modify, if you feel you need to.
I think that, in the case of the Korean TKD directorate, this literal-minded affiliation strategy winds up channelling people in the direction of competition rather than combat-readiness for real-life threat situations. It's not so much that being with the KKW forces you to go a certain way, but rather that going that way becomes the course of least resistance. You start buying into a view of the MA culture that comes from what is, after all, the technical/pedagogical branch of the South Korean TKD establishment, dedicated first and foremost to Olympic glory.
Having never been in the KKW, I can't speak to any of this.
