Differences in ITF

Discussion in 'Tae Kwon Do' started by LewisHolder, Dec 11, 2013.

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  1. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    Can you please be kind enough to share with us how it was "scientifically proven"?
     
  2. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    2 things:
    1st it should not be clumsy & slow doesn't matter when it is fundamental movements in isolation, as it is teaching basic concepts to students, as part of a larger syllabus
    2nd GM C.K. Choi is a great TKD Legend. A true Pioneer. He has contributed so much to TKD the world over. However one must consider that the politics of TKD & of the Koreas forced him to leave one of his teachers, Gen. Choi & the ITF. He left in the early 1980s when they were trying to get Gen. Choi to step aside, as they (GMs J.C. Kim & C.K. Choi) were working on the ITF Merger Committee with the WTF. GM Kim Jong-Chan was the Chairman & they actually negotiated a signed agreement with the WTF that Dr. Kim Un-yong did not implement. Since Gen. Choi refused to stop his vocal political opposition to the SK dictators, as he was a leading political dissident, & then refused to let the others focus on TKD so he could be free to continue his politics without hurting the ITF, they left the ITF. When they did, Gen. Choi apparently look to discredit them & when he coined the term SW & continued to develop his TKD without them, he wanted them to become obsolete, so no one would follow them.
    So naturally GM Choi would be vocal about the changes after his departure.
     
  3. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    Poland, when it was forced to be a member of the Soviet Bloc & Slovakia had NK instructors officially dispatched there to teach. Even President Choi Jung-wha lived there when hiding from Canadian authorities who were looking to arrest him for his part in the plot to kill the South Korean military dictator (which SK eventually sentenced to death that same dictator, for crimes against the Korean people & SK). While there, a young Master Choi taught TKD. The NK instructor who taught in Slovakia was a Pioneer in the USSR & other places. He also lived in Slovakia for years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, until his death. So the standard in Eastern Europe was high. Now the are several different outside influences today.
    Also in Slovakia today, GM Hwang, the 1st NK to reach 9th Dan lives in the Czech Republic, right next door to Slovakia. They were 1 country, artificially created after WW I ended & went through the "Velvet Divorce" after the Iron Curtain fell. So GM Hwang, who is also the Technical Committee Chairman for the ITF-NK, would oversee their higher Dan testings!
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2013
  4. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    Quote: Originally Posted by TKDstudent
    It also countered the loss of many loyal Korean masters that the SK KCIA forced to leave the ITF by replacing them with hundreds from NK over the years. .
    Nothing wrong with disagreeing, but I think we are actually more in agreement than not, even with respect to this issue. While Gen. Choi was in the ROK Army he took instructors with him to Vietnam & Taiwan in March of 1959. Technically all or almost all in the ROK Military or at least the Army were somehow connected to him or under his command. In December of 1962 the 1st batch of instructors were sent by the SK military to Vietnam. Gen. Choi was already in Malaysia as Ambassador. So while these were his students, led by then Major Nam Tae-hi, they were technically dispatched by the ROK Military.
    Of course when Gen. Choi formed the ITF on March 22, 1966 in Seoul South Korea, he continued to dispatch instructors around the world to teach his TKD. He began this when he was the 3rd president of the KTA in 1965. Technically the KTA was the org that should dispatch instructors abroad, but Gen. Choi relied on his personal connections with friends in the various Ministries of the ROK govt to send his guys. This caused a BIG problem with the KTA & the civilian sport TKD people. But by the end of 1971, Gen. Choi was ready to flee SK & live a life in exile. So I am not sure how many he actually dispatched abroad. Now some already living outside of Korea aligned themselves with the ITF, as it was the thing to do, as the WTF was not even thought of yet, never mind formed. One such prominent Korean was GM Jhoon Rhee, who was already in the USA for almost 9 years before he became a founding member of the ITF.

    But you are right, the NK instructors were mostly limited to the Soviet Bloc, Cuba, China (not limited to the border area, btw), other parts of communist Asia, Africa, Greenland, a couple of nations in South America. NK instructors living in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Africa & Asia travel around their regions giving seminars & testing students even today. But of course there are hundreds of instructors teaching millions in NK alone, as it is in their school systems. But yes, SK instructors, under the banner of the ITF did tremendous work spreading TKD around the world, GM Park Jong-Soo among the most influential, as he did many world tours, including the historic 1965 Kukki TKD goodwill tour financed by the SK govt. he then lived in many nations in Europe spreading, before settling in Canada. Even the WTF president said if not for the original TKD pioneers of the ITF, TKD would not be an Olympic sport.
     
  5. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    Well I am a TKD student & I am sure you know a lot of students of TKD.
    ;)
    I also luv TKD like you do & am proud to be an ITF TKD stylist & student.
     
  6. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    But useless how?
     
  7. Earl Weiss

    Earl Weiss Valued Member

    I have heard this theory about a change in SW being to discredit GM Park JT.

    General Choi was usualy not shy about criticising the way people learned from other instructors. I never ever heard him make a negative comment about Park JT, nor have I ever met anyone who heard him try to discredit what Park taught.
    There was an issue when General Choi taught, and it is the same with most instructors in that he did not critique every single nuance and detail when someone performed a pattern. (He addressed largest issues first.) So, people automaticlay assumed if he didn't correct something it must be correct.

    Plus there was the issue, "If some is good, more must be better."
     
  8. Earl Weiss

    Earl Weiss Valued Member

    I would guess that applies for factions that are with ITF NK, this Slovakian gentleman's group is aligned with ITF -V since that who Master Jedut is with. He was also familiar with the ITF V Triumverite technical committee.
     
  9. Earl Weiss

    Earl Weiss Valued Member

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by El Mitcho View Post
    I'd like to see the peer reviewed papers that provide the proof Mitch


    Heck, I'd like to see it for most any MA technique. In the late 1970's I saw a show about digitizing and analyzing movement for Olymoic athletes and others at the USA Olympic Training Center. It focused on Discus thrower Al Oerter and runner Frank Shorter. The improved Oerters thro through digital analysis and noted Shorter's stride was assymetric and were going to improve it by making it symmetric until they noticed his legs were not the same length and this was a needed compensation.

    I wrote them, a letter asking if they ever analyzed MA techniques like a "Side Kick" Their response was that they could do it if it were funded.

    We now see shows like "Fight Science" attempting some of this, but the big issues is that they measure results and ten analyze what the person did without any adjustment for individual differences. This could range from the simple like height and weight to nuances like relative limb lengths and proportion of slow and fast twitch muscle fibers.

    Trying to analyze the same person perform 2 different ways introduces issues of them being morre used to one way or another.

    In short. Great idea to have a good study. In reality, extremey difficult to do.
     
  10. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    Very much so :)

    Mitch
     
  11. Earl Weiss

    Earl Weiss Valued Member

    FWIW I consider all SK Instructors teaching the Chang Hon system prior to his departure from SK as having been dispatched by him (or converted by him) I think it was in 60+ countries by then. The numbers of NK instructors (outside NK) and countries they were in are miniscule in comparison.
     
  12. Matt F

    Matt F Valued Member

    I dont buy into sign wave either.
    There is no one way to produce power in real time as its too choatic and unpredictable. You have to be able to hit from all positions and situations.If you need a perfect stance and perfect situation then you are buggered because there is no perfect.

    Is there a clip of how sign wave is meant to be done in real fight time?
    I say that because the argument for sine wave seems to be its misunderstood and when done correctly its useable.
    Show it when done correctly.
     
  13. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    There is little doubt that Gen. Choi stated he (GM Park) made so many mistakes, now my job to hard to fix everything around the world. This coincided with the added verbal instruction to go down 1st, before rising up. This occurred as Gen. Choi now had to teach the IICs, as that was GM Park's responsibility. Of course Gen. Choi would often, if not always come into the IIC on the last weekend or last several days, depending on how long in duration the course was. This was also when the IICs were shortened to a weekend, from 2 weeks to 1 week under GM Park.
    While Gen. Choi may not have vocally & openly made negative comments about GM Park, as a strategy may have been to ignore & not give attention at all to him. We don't see the leadership of the different ITFs talking much about the other ITFs. It is getting so, that often students don't even know there are 3 ITFs & numerous other ITF like orgs.
    But in any event, the timeline & what occurred during it is clear. While we may never know exactly what Gen. Choi's thoughts were or why he maneuvered a certain way, apparently his own son confirmed the above at an IIC he conducted. So to me, it is pretty clear & fits in with other types of maneuvers that he deployed as laid out by people such as Alex Gillis.
     
  14. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    Me too! How come we don't hear the same types of criticism with respect to the flat or horizontal line wave that many karate styles use? What about the exaggerated hip twist! Doesn't that slow the technique down by 1st turning away from an opponent? Doesn't the twist in the opposite direction open you up to attack via your now exposed side? What about the chambers or previous positions that call for one to raise both arms up way past the solar plexus in the opposite direction before they are applying downward to the attack when one blocks in some styles?

    Again criticism of SW, is often the most vocal & almost always done by those with little to no experience with it, who also have no clue to have it is to interact with the other 6+ factors of the theory of power & the 9 parts of the training secret of TKD!
     
  15. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    Yes Sir with the above stated criteria I can't argue to the contrary.
    I would also add that the NK instructors also had a well developed system & widespread organization to work with & within. The earlier SK Pioneer instructors did not have that, they built it from the ground up. Since the NK instructors' home govt is so restrictive (to put it mildly), their influence is naturally very restrictive & has been limited not only geographically, but also by geo-politics as well.
    Good points Sir!
     
  16. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    I believe you are right & by george I think you got it!
    That is the whole point, as SW is for basics in isolation, as it is a only a part of a theory of how to produce more power, that must naturally coordinate with numerous other factors & concepts.

    This is the BIG mistake that so many make when it comes to SW! Again, SW is for fundamental movements & like any fundamental movements, they teach basics, as a way to illustrate certain ideas & points to students. Then these methods must be incorporated into an actual fight, street combat situation or tournament as is practical, given the reality or realism that is required in such circumstances.
    Look at any boxer, as boxers engage in full contact striking. The move, they dance, they parry, the jab, they throw a cross when able & deliver the haymaker roundhouse type knockout blow when they have their opponent in a position where they (attacker) can muster up more factors required to deliver more power. Of course, once the opponent is in a weakened state, they are not able to take advantage of any openings caused by the attacker delivering the more powerful blows.
    This is common sense, why don't people see this!?!?!?!?
    If you want to see SW & other factors of the ToP & training secret in action, watch how even yourself does power breaking........
     
  17. El Medico

    El Medico Valued Member

    ????

    Most boxers generally don't use "haymaker roundhouse type" blows because they are a)structurally slow,and b)less powerful than a hook or straight.

    Or are you just confusing terminology and meant overhands?
     
  18. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    Yes semantics & terminology is confusing an already complex issue that is harder to explain via a venue like this that lacks the ability to show & put hands on in actual instruction. Sorry!
    What I am trying to get at, is most boxers will not wind up a shot against a live, battling opponent, but will take the added luxury of adding more motion to whatever punch they are throwing to gain more power, once their opponent is "on the ropes", so to speak. Not sure if that helps.
     
  19. Asterix187

    Asterix187 Valued Member

    For myself sine wave is not so much about generating power but more about allowing the body to move in a more natural fluid movement when delivering techniques. This in turn will allow the practitioner to perform any learned response more naturally when forced to use it in a real world confrontation.

    If you look at someone walking down the road their head level goes up and down as they walk it doesn't stay flat.

    The two videos shown do indeed show different delivery of sine wave however in the first video natural sine wave is being used whereas in the second video a more pronounced sine wave is used. Suska's patterns have won many world gold medals but have been tailored to 'look' that way for competitions rather than to deliver power so its quite hard to compare them on effectiveness of technique alone.

    Mr Van Zandt, which I massively respect your Karate achievements and skill I do not know your qualifications to advise new potential TKD students as to which org would be good for them. If these are based on how associations have treated you as a world Karate champion when visiting them then I would expect these may not be the same experience that new students may have.

    For the OP. As others have said, my advice would be to try a few and see what one you prefer. In essence the majority of ITF style schools (both ITF affiliated and independent) teach the same syllabus with only small changes in style so its much more about the instructor at beginner level. GO along to a session or two and a few different clubs and look at the quality of the students at different grades. Its the students that show how good a club is not the instructor. (If the instructor is good but the student are not find who taught the instructor and go there :) )
     
  20. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    Unfortunately your assumption is totally wrong.

    I took up karate (and had whatever subsequent success I've had) after I left the TAGB. I started with TKD at age 4 and reached black belt level in WTF (with the USTU and BTCB) and ITF (with the TAGB and UKTA). So most of my experience in martial arts is actually in TKD. I've been to a lot of ITF style clubs, most of the time to expand my horizons and train with different people. I left the TAGB after a disagreement with my instructor (who was eventually kicked out of the TAGB), so the fact I am no longer a member but don't have a bad word to say about them speaks volumes about their quality.
     
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