TKD Unity

[terryl965]

With all the fuss right now going on between the WTF and the ITF and new groups like the FMT. GM and Masters a like are trying to put these smaller groups into position so when or if the time comes for unification between these two major organization they can and will have a say so to what changes need to be there for it to work.

What I mean is in my area the FMT and founder G.M. Won Chik Park is pulling schools and members together to form a brotherhood for fair and complete competition without all of the business aspect to it, do you think this can work without the big headed Master and GM getting in the way. They have it structure with proper channel of communication but what I believe is going on is one trying to over take another and position themself for the long haul and add as much depth that they can so it can be wieghed in at the right time.

It is called the FOundation Master of Tae Kwon Do and is Part of the Pan American FMT, there website is www.tkdfmt.com. I would like to hear everybody views on this and please I love GM Parks and some of the members but I do not know if this is right for TKD.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I don't want to offend anyone, but this does look like a group of people positioning themselves politically because they know something is in the wind. Might be the case. Given the men involved, there is a very good chance that they might know about something that others do not.

 

[terryl965]

I don't want to offend anyone, but this does look like a group of people positioning themselves politically because they know something is in the wind. Might be the case. Given the men involved, there is a very good chance that they might know about something that others do not.

So would you think it would be wise to join there group right now or wait it out and see.

 

[Steel Tiger]

So would you think it would be wise to join there group right now or wait it out and see.

Regardless as to whether they are preparing for something political it looks like a good group of people with a clear and appropriate goal. I can't see a problem joining the group. As the TKD history we have been examining on another thread has shown groups come and go, splinter and are absorbed. You never know the FMT may become a prominent player in American TKD if not world TKD.

I think it is important for the growth of TKD as a worldwide phenomenon that organisations arise from places outside Korea.

 

[terryl965]

Regardless as to whether they are preparing for something political it looks like a good group of people with a clear and appropriate goal. I can't see a problem joining the group. As the TKD history we have been examining on another thread has shown groups come and go, splinter and are absorbed. You never know the FMT may become a prominent player in American TKD if not world TKD.

I think it is important for the growth of TKD as a worldwide phenomenon that organisations arise from places outside Korea.

Thanks I enjoy your opinion

 

[jim777]

I saw this site today, and didn't know what to think of it. Couldn't hurt, though it won't affect my training

jim

 

[Shaderon]

I am not sure if pushing the branches of TKD together will work, I'd like to see it happening without loosing anything but I really don't see that happening. Usually when two or more things merge, we loose some of he aspects of one or more of them, and to be honest I can see people raising objections to this and splintering off again. I can't see Sport people wanting to train in the same manner as non sport people and vice versa, everyone has thier own goals and to try and unify something that's been split for so long is going to cause more problems than it causes IMO. I can see things, if left the way they are, settling more and more and eventually becoming two different arts, but to shove two things together that have become so different in spite of all their simularities, will have repercussions.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I saw this site today, and didn't know what to think of it. Couldn't hurt, though it won't affect my training

jim

Just had a look at the site. The UTI says its been bringing TKD styles together since 1989, but if that's the case why are they presenting new forms? What it looked like was an ad for a Saskatoon TKD school.

 

[Kacey]

Just had a look at the site. The UTI says its been bringing TKD styles together since 1989, but if that's the case why are they presenting new forms? What it looked like was an ad for a Saskatoon TKD school.

I looked at it too... never heard of it. Now, I realize that I'm somewhat isolated in terms of international organizations (since I'm not in one), but still - I do try to keep up with major associations.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I looked at it too... never heard of it. Now, I realize that I'm somewhat isolated in terms of international organizations (since I'm not in one), but still - I do try to keep up with major associations.

This is a good example of how difficult it would be to bring the TKD world together. When people talk TKD they seem to think in terms of the large international organisations, but in this thread so far we have two small organisations which do not appear to be affiliated to any larger ones. It would be difficult to bring together the TKD world when there are so many different organisations.

These organisations have been created for various purposes. It may simply have been economic, it might be political, or it might be personality problems causing splintering. Whatever the reason, they may not wish to be subsumed into a single international body, even though everybody in TKD seems to want a worldwide unity of some description.

 

[Kacey]

This is a good example of how difficult it would be to bring the TKD world together. When people talk TKD they seem to think in terms of the large international organisations, but in this thread so far we have two small organisations which do not appear to be affiliated to any larger ones. It would be difficult to bring together the TKD world when there are so many different organisations.

These organisations have been created for various purposes. It may simply have been economic, it might be political, or it might be personality problems causing splintering. Whatever the reason, they may not wish to be subsumed into a single international body, even though everybody in TKD seems to want a worldwide unity of some description.

True - although is TKD that different from other arts that way? Is it any different in, for example, Karate?

 

[Steel Tiger]

True - although is TKD that different from other arts that way? Is it any different in, for example, Karate?

The only real difference I see between Karate and TKD is that there does not seem to be the same desperate drive to unify Karate. It is just my perception, perhaps it is there, but Karate is not so obvious as TKD (that feels really strange to say). I mean 20 or 30 years ago there were Karate schools everywhere, now they are TKD. There is a greater awareness of TKD than most other arts. Of course, this is all relative. Outside our little martial world nobody really cares, they have their own concerns, which is fare enough.

I realised an interesting comparison the other day. TKD unity is very simliar to the push by the Chinese government to create an international Wushu community. They are actually doing very well, but there are many schools of CMA outside the Wushu Association and the government doesn't seem to mind. If you wan to compete in their tournaments you need to follow their rules, that's all. There doesn't seem to be a national cultural drive in it like TKD has, even though Wushu is important both nationally and culturally. This may change. It is the Chinese government afterall.

 

[exile]

Again, the question is, what is the point of TKD `unity' from the point of view of the practitioner? I want to look at the word `unity' in particular, because it's one of those words that makes people feel so good and civic-minded and all-together-heave-ho. But what unity basically means is that where you have a number of different stories all being told at the same time, you shut down all of them except—at best—one. And maybe you shut down all of them, in favor of a single story different from any of them. In either case, you suppress a large number of separate possibilities... why??. To what good end?

Ask yourself this: if those different possibilities are fulfilling different needs, then replacing all of them with a single version is in effect saying that none of the needs that are being met by the stories that are being suppressed are important enough to preserve. Well, clearly the people who want ITF-style TKD, or WTF/KKW TKD, or the kind of independent TKD that Kacey teaches, or the hard-style street-combat version that I study, or etc., have a different opinion. So `unity' here translates into some kind of forced suppression of individual preferences. Is this a good thing? Faced with that sort of gun-at-the-head `choice'—an offer I couldn't refuse—I'd simply laugh in the face of whoever was trying to prevent my school from teaching the particular curriculum my school pursued, spit at their feet, and tell them, `So sue me!' in appropriate Anglo-Saxon.

The fact that TKD isn't `unified' is partly a result of its institutional history, but it's also a reflection of the unavoidable human impulse to diversification and experiment. Latin was bound to break up into individual Romance languages; the Protestant movement was bound to break up into a bewildering array of separate sects, denominations and evangelical movements, and every human enterprise that there has ever been has been the scene of fractionation, conflict and argument. And that's good. We're human beings, for heaven's sake, not social insects! We have all kinds of of different opinions and views and perspectives. Any `unity' that is imposed by the CEOs of major international organizations behind closed doors is fraudulent. The fact is, there are many different views of what TKD should be and could be, and no one alive, so far as I can see, possesses the wisdom to declare truthfully that only one of them is valid, and make the necessary case for that conclusion.

I've posted this in another thread, but I do wish people would read it and think about what Redmond is saying. He's addressing the question of whether karate needs top-down unity, and as you might expect, his answer is a loud, rude, raspberry—but a very well-reasoned one! To my way of thinking, change `karate' to `TKD' in his essay, `Japan' to `Korea' and a few other obvious appropriate shifts, and the result is exactly the right set of observations about what we're considering here.

http://www.24fightingchickens.com/2006/02/05/the-totalitarian-politics-of-karate/

The fact is, enforced top-down unity has been a feature of KMA from the very early postward period on. I have some ideas about why that's been the case so markedly in Korea (as vs. the situation in China, modulo the heavy-handed influence of the Chinese government, or in Japan or, from what I can see, the FMAs), but the question for us is, do we need to buy it?? What good will it do the invidual TKD practitioner on the dojang floor?

 

[Steel Tiger]

From my point of view (from the outside, so to speak), I think that diversity is really, really good. It is from diversity that new ideas grow. a practitioner can look at three or four ways of doing something and choose one or develop something else. If there is only one there is nothing to compare, unless you choose to go outside the art, which is not a bad thing either.

The only real benefit I can see from a full-blown worldwide unified organisation would be an easy to administer and coordinate ranking system. Everyone would use the same system, pay the same prices, and have the same recognition.

Ultimately the driving force for TKD unity is power. The top of the organisation wants control. They want to be the arbitors on who teaches what where, and who gets what rank, and, of course, they want to be paid for it. There is some impetus from the Korean government which wants TKD to be the international face of Korea, but perhaps they don't care what its internal mechanisms are as long as it is the most popular art in the world.

 

[exile]

From my point of view (from the outside, so to speak), I think that diversity is really, really good. It is from diversity that new ideas grow. a practitioner can look at three or four ways of doing something and choose one or develop something else. If there is only one there is nothing to compare, unless you choose to go outside the art, which is not a bad thing either.

Exactly—the whole evolutionary dynamic (bang ideas against each other and may the best one survive and flourish) is shut down in advance, by fiat.

The only real benefit I can see from a full-blown worldwide unified organisation would be an easy to administer and coordinate ranking system. Everyone would use the same system, pay the same prices, and have the same recognition.

Ultimately the driving force for TKD unity is power. The top of the organisation wants control. They want to be the arbitors on who teaches what where, and who gets what rank, and, of course, they want to be paid for it. There is some impetus from the Korean government which wants TKD to be the international face of Korea, but perhaps they don't care what its internal mechanisms are as long as it is the most popular art in the world.

I think this is the correct assessment. And I think the part of your comments bolded above reflects the most disturbing aspect of the whole business, and one that TKD people should be paying the most attention to: why should we assume that our interests and the ROK/WTF/KKW's interests coincide? Why should we assume that what international sports megaorganizations and the national government of Korea want will feed back in any kind of positive way into the training aspirations of individual dojang members?

 

[Steel Tiger]

Exactly—the whole evolutionary dynamic (bang ideas against each other and may the best one survive and flourish) is shut down in advance, by fiat.



I think this is the correct assessment. And I think the part of your comments bolded above reflects the most disturbing aspect of the whole business, and one that TKD people should be paying the most attention to: why should we assume that our interests and the ROK/WTF/KKW's interests coincide? Why should we assume that what international sports megaorganizations and the national government of Korea want will feed back in any kind of positive way into the training aspirations of individual dojang members?

I think what is happening is that there is an unconscious, possibly conscious, comparison with organisations like FIFA and the FIA. These organisations lay down the rules and laws governing their sports (football and motor racing) from on high and everyone accepts them. Why? Because they are starting from a position of commonality. Football (soccer, for you heathens) has rules which were codified and accepted at the end of the nineteenth century. No one argues about the basic rules. Motor racing involves cars which are all essentially the same. TKD, and other MAs, are thinking,"why can't we be like those organisations?"

The reason is that martial arts is not something that began life as a sport so it does not have rules on how to play. There is a lot of interpretation involved. Making a sport of TKD required making a lot of techniques unusable so that it would fit within the rules and nobody would get seriously hurt.

The ROK, and perhaps the WTF and KKW, want something like FIFA (I think they'd love to have a World Cup too), but its never going to happen.

 

[exile]

TKD, and other MAs, are thinking,"why can't we be like those organisations?"

The reason is that martial arts is not something that began life as a sport so it does not have rules on how to play....Making a sport of TKD required making a lot of techniques unusable so that it would fit within the rules and nobody would get seriously hurt.

Yes. This is the heart of it. And there are enough people around who value TKD and other MAs for the purpose that they did begin life as—self-defense in dangerous, lawless situations—that any effort to completely sportify these fighting systems is going to be bitterly challenged.

The ROK, and perhaps the WTF and KKW, want something like FIFA (I think they'd love to have a World Cup too), but its never going to happen.

I fervently hope that you're right about this, ST. I'm actually very strongly inclined to agree with you—it's just not on the cards!

 

[Steel Tiger]

Yes. This is the heart of it. And there are enough people around who value TKD and other MAs for the purpose that they did begin life as—self-defense in dangerous, lawless situations—that any effort to completely sportify these fighting systems is going to be bitterly challenged.



I fervently hope that you're right about this, ST. I'm actually very strongly inclined to agree with you—it's just not on the cards!

The mind boggles at the thought of the sought of hooliganism one might find at a TKD World Cup. Football fans are bad enough, imagine thousands of fired up fanatical TKD practitioners.