The TAGB, the ITF and the WTF

Hi, I'm a new member and I've been training in TAGB tkd for a bit less than a year. I'm pretty happy with my training, and although I have no present motivation to change associations, I was wondering for future reference if its possible to change association from say the TAGB to the WTF or the ITF. I think I saw a video once, where Gen. Choi Hong Hi was addressing the issue, stating that any practitioner from another association will be recognised by the ITF as a member of the same rank, up until 3rd Dan Black Belt. In other words, a tkd practitioner from the WTF could hypothetically move straight into the ITF without much hassle, and as long as they were 3rd dan or below, they would not need to retrain. The conditions were that a higher ranked WTF practitioner would have to be retrained by an ITF Master from 3rd dan.

Now I have various reasons to be a bit sceptical of that because of the death of Gen. Choi Hong Hi in 2002, and I know that there were political divides in the various factions of ITF tkd. Also, I train TAGB. Does that mean I am able to transfer if I ever want to without changing my grade/dan up to 3rd dan?

 

If the association where you obtained your black belt is recognised by the British TaeKwon Do council then there should be no problem changing to another association. There is a bit more than that involved though as the head of the association you are moving to will probably talk to the head of the association you are moving from to try to find out their side of it (if they have one). Most of these guys have known each other for years and have probably trained together a lot in the past

I remember a story of an instructor of one association who wanted to move, after a talk to the association he wanted to leave it appeared he had been kicked out for assaulting children.

Needless to say they told him to get lost.

I'm not sure how it would work going from ITF to WTF or vice versa. Obviously they would recognise your grade but you cannot be a WTF blackbelt unless you know their syllabus, the same goes for ITF.

Hope this helps

Martin

 

k, thanks for quick reply! it was quite helpful

 

I've seen people go from ITF style groups that are no longer affiliated with the ITF and get immediately ranked by the WTF.

Our organization has also given people their equivalent rank from another style after being impressed by their skill and having them learn our hyungs.

Despite all the political BS skill is skill. You can't fake it. If you've got it any organization opens their arms wide and says, "Welcome to the family!!!!"

 

I believe that if your existing school and the school you wish to transfer to are both members of the BTC ie:TAGB to UKTA then it should not be a problem ,as long as you provide the relevant documentation.

As from WTF I wouldn't like to say as their patterns or poomse or very different. I might be wrong but I think their grading system may be different too.

 

Other then the pomsea being slightly different, why would you retrain? or need to, I would have thought you just needed to improve more on certain kicks.

I find associations and belt changing and rankinga big headache, I know ITF and WTF are different but they are the same just one is older then the other.

Tans

 

One of the pros and cons of WTF is that there is no set syllabus, it will change from club to club. As such changing from ITF/TAGB to WTF is really going to depend on what the club/sub-organisation requires their students to achieve for that belt level. I'd imagine (and in my experience) that the club would let you keep your belt (unless you obviously didn't deserve it), but you'd be required to follow their syllabus/pattern set for your next grading.

 

Going off subject slightly, bearing in mind that the club and its tutor can decide on whether you should keep your belt. Why are so many clubs ripping of people with gradings and so forth and no one check up on this but they do check on whether you can change from WTF to ITF.

Is there a place where there is a name and shame list to place bad teachers on...there should be grrrr

 

Bullshido.net?

Or maybe even here?

 

The link you gave me...I take it its full of rubbish schools or there is far too much to look at it it gives you a migraine. I'm thinking of posting up something warding of people from my last master but not sure that is sensible.

Tans

 

Do it, point out the pros and cons of the dojang, outline any claims he made, and if they can be backed up in anyway (But do it in a new thread rather than threadjacking this one). We can't have people going around claiming things they're not. We don't need more etakus in this world....

 

I have just set up the thread but I think its been taken of. Ah well.

Tans