A special congress meeting has been held in NK and Chang Ung has been elected as the President of the ITF.
Master Choi Jung Hwa was elected as the next president at a meeting held at last years world champs(I think). It was then overturned. General Choi's final wish was that Chang Ung would succeed him as president and that ITF would be centered in Korea. He had a dream that Taekwon do would unite the 2 Koreas. Master Choi, who has been leading the ITF Canada side for a while, and his following ,disagree with having ITF run by a North Korean politician and all the dictatorship and communism that that would entail. Looks like there's 3 camps at the moment - ITF Canada, ITF Vienna and ITF Korea. Vienna and Korea were more unified before General Choi's death.
"Has the ITF split then? Everything I have seen still lists Choi Jung Hwa as the ITF President." YES they have. there is the ITF which is the one that General Choi started that moved from Canada to Vienna then there is the ITF America the is run by Jung Hwa. Two orgs with almost the same ideas. "Master Choi Jung Hwa was elected as the next president at a meeting held at last years world champs(I think). " Yes you are right! "It was then overturned. General Choi's final wish was that Chang Ung would succeed him as president and that ITF would be centered in Korea." The General was wanting to move the ITF HQ to Vienna with the "help" of North Korea. ITF Korea and Vienna is one. They move the HQ of the ITF to Vienna was backed by North Korea. "He had a dream that Taekwon do would unite the 2 Koreas." There is also a lot of talk about that. The main way that the general was said to have tried to get Korea together is by uniting the ITF and the WTF taekwon do. BUT there are papers from the WTF saying that the general never contacted them like some people claim and that the WTF has never considered uniting with the ITF. SO theres a lot of crap there. The 2 main ITF sides and ITF (vienna) and ITF america. They are more a link than not. One wants to side with North Korea and the other wants nothing to do with them because they think it will bring politics into the ITF.
Chazz, Thanks for clarifying that. I think that General Choi really wanted ITF to be Korean based. He wanted Chang Ung to be his successor and I think he always did believe that taekwon do belonged in Korea. It's a shame politics has to come into it. How do you think this whole thing will affect your training? Desiree.
Chazz, Thanks for a clearing up. I have heard rumors about the ITF/WTF issue and personally I think he likely really did try. Most (not all) of the WTF people I have experienced since beginning training wouldn't go for it because it might cut into the money they are making. Sad, but all too true. Rob
"Chazz, Thanks for a clearing up" No prob. I try to stay on top of what is going on with all TKD and i try to do my homework on the subject. If i can ever help, ide love to. Desiree... I am not with the ITF per say. Im in the ITU. We do study and practice the same stuff that the general taught. The only thing that bothered my training was the day that he died. I didnt train for a few days in respect of him. With out him i would not have the love for the MA that i do through TKD WAYA..... I believe with all my heart that he wanted to unite TKD and bring it home to Korea. Being that he was from North Korea and had ideas of bringing TKD to the world is what got him removed from TKD in South Korea. That is also why it was easy for him to talk to NK about backing with him. I do think that if NK gets invloved with the ITF it will go down hill and never recover because there will be TOO much politics involved. (the NK gov.) I find it as well that the WTF will not want to side with the ITF. WAY TOO MANY DIFFERENCES.
Sadly I think this is a flaw in the arts that is thousands of years old. As far back as I have ever researched on anything, there have been issues with politics creating problems. I doubt we will ever see the end of it in our lifetimes, if anyone ever does. As long as there is money to be made, or ranks and "power" to be had, the same issues will exist. Rob
The only way i can see out of it is to stay with an org that does work its best to keep them out. From what i have seen, our org has kept politics out. I hope that it will stay that way. But like you said, i dont think any of us will be around to see the fall of it.
My first instructor tried to avoid it by not affiliating with any organizations at all. The only problem with this is that it hurt my training alot when he stopped teaching. I ended up in a worse position because of the politics than I would have been in had he been involved with one. Rob
Yeah thats the problem. A lot of that is going on. That is something that hurts the martial arts in general.
I've seen a few orgs proclaiming no politics, but really, it's there even if it isn't..... I guess there are a few good points to it, like not anyone can just declare themselves a 50th Dan and decide they are the next Kano or something, but there are a whole lot of bad points to it as well. Rob
Yeah too true. You just have to look around and talk to people because there are a lot of "money schools" out there and its so easy to get hooked up in one.
Well, here's some more politics for you. The Vienna crowd are claiming Russel McLellan to be president of the ITF as they claim the meeting in Korea was unconstitutional. TK Desiree.
I can see this thread hasn't been updated in a while (guess you all haven't heard!) Mr. Chang Uug is now the president of the ITF http://www.taekwondo-web.com./itf/itfeng/news/news/Nov 19 2002.htm
Recent claim in TKD & Korean Martial Arts was that there was no split in ITF, however some groups (particularly in England) have defencted to Choi Jung Hwa. Incidentally if you have the magazine take a look at page 52.
Things in the ITF's are still so up and down. Neither side will let down their guard and even try to work with the other side. Sad i think!
