We are all brothers and sisters in Taekwondo. We may perform our forms differently, or chamber here instead of there. Some of us bounce up and down when we perform our Tul. But in practice, we do embrace very different ideologies – and misconceptions.
WTF?
One of the biggest misconceptions is “WTF style Taekwondo”. WTF once stood for World Taekwondo Federation, but the acronym is the same as urban usage for “what the f**k”. Only English speakers would understand – and use – this phrase (which coincidentally is used more and more in non-English speaking parts of the world). As a result, the WTF made the bold move to change their name from WTF to WT. In other words, they dropped the “F” in their name. In a strange twist, they are still a federation, so, technically they’re called World Taekwondo, but we often refer to them as the World Taekwondo federation, rather than the World Taekwondo Federation. The “federation” was changed from a pronoun to a noun and adjective. So they really haven’t done much when they changed their name. Some of us still use WTF, but technically, their real name is World Taekwondo, and we should be using WT to abbreviate.
Ok, so what is WT, then?
WT is a lot of things. One thing they are not is a style of Taekwondo. It is improper – however common – for someone to indicate that the style of Taekwondo they practice is WT or WTF.
Top Of The Hierarchy – WT
WT is name of a federated organization of Taekwondo organizations, which are themselves federated organizations of organizations. WT is a hierarchically organized system of organizations. A federation, by the way, is a loosely self-governed organization making up a collection of other organizations. At the top of the federation is WT. They govern all that is competition and Olympics. If your aspirations are to compete, the WT is where you will get your resources from.
But as we know, Taekwondo is all over the world, and it has a lot of members. So many members, that a single organization can’t easily manage the day-to-day business of handling them and then deal with competition and Olympics on top.
Next Down The Hierarchy – Regions
Individuals do not become members of WT per se – only organizations can do that. The WT is thus divided into five regions. These regions are themselves federations. The regions are: Pan America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceana.
The Pan America region includes North, Central, and South America; Europe and Africa comprise the Europe and Africa continents, respectively. Oceans is comprised of Australia and New Zealand. And Asia is comprised of the Asian countries including Russia.
Next Down The Hierarchy – Member States
But individuals aren’t members of WT regions, either. Members of WT regions are called member states. Member states are individual countries. Individual people become members of their member state country. As an American, I am part of the USA member state.
The countries that make up the Pan America region are: Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Dominique, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and The Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, USA, Venezuela, Virgin Islands (British), and Virgin Islands (US).
WT Responsibilities
Some of the responsibilities of WT (delegated to their regions, which delegate to the member countries) include certifying coaches and referees. This is a bit different than certifying instructors and black belt dan holders. I mention this for a reason, and it will be clear when I explain what Kukkiwon is all about.
WT handles everything about competition. This includes setting up rules, advertising, insuring, delegation of responsibilities, publicity. And coaching and refereeing. If you want to be a coach, you go through your member state country, apply to become a coach, do all that they tell you to do, pay all that they tell you to pay, and fill out all the paperwork they tell you to fill out. Then you become a coach, because the WT tells you that you are a coach. They’ll have done a background check, they’ll ensure that you have the proper credentials and so on. But that’s the route you’ll take to become a coach. They’ll even demand that you take coaching courses, and they provide that as well. It is similar with becoming a referee. You apply via the WT member state, fill out paper, train, pay, and you’re a referee.
It is assumed (and required) that when you become a coach or a referee, that one of your qualifications is that you are ranked. Depending on the job and level of coaching or refereeing, you might need to be several dans (or degrees). So where do you get your dan from?
Kukkiwon Responsibilities
Hint: You don’t get it from WT, you get it from Kukkiwon. Kukkiwon governs all things about the style, including the poomsae you perform, the qualifications to black belt dans, instructor certification, and education.
In that role, it is proper to refer to Kukkiwon as the “style”. The style of Taekwondo is guided by the forms you do, the focus on the techniques, the culture, and all aspects of the kicks and punches we do – but not about the competition. If you want to become an instructor, you apply through Kukkiwon. If you want to apply for a dan grade, you apply through an instructor, who will apply on your behalf through Kukkiwon. As Kukkiwon is the style (and organization namesake), they govern exactly what it is that makes up the style. The rules for becoming a 1st dan are stipulated by Kukkiwon, because that’s the job of the style. Your dan grade has nothing to do with competition, which is why WT remains hands off in that regard.
By now, you should start to see the difference between Kukkiwon and WT. I’ll need to break away from both organizations for a moment so that I can mention one more thing that separates them.
The Olympics
In order to be in the Olympics, each athlete joins (guess what?) a member state. The hierarchy of the Olympics is very similar to that of World Taekwondo – and that is no coincidence. One of the rules set by the Olympics is that they generally do not deal with governments, per se. They deal with non-government bodies that are responsible for athlete liaison, drug testing, qualifications, rules, and so forth.
The problem is that Kukkiwon is a government-run organization which falls under the South Korean Ministry of Sports. It would be improper for the Olympic committee to be working directly with a government organization. This creates challenges for many countries, particularly the more socialist ones where the state controls everything. So, the IOC sets rules so that each region handles the manner of implementing the rules for the Olympics, so long as things are otherwise equitable with the rest of the world. To that end, Kukkiwon is not allowed to engage in official capacity with the IOC. Certainly, South Korean citizens are in positions of power in the government, and the government runs Kukkiwon. It would be uncomfortable, I think, for a French person to be running a government organization in South Korea.
WT…
The World Taekwondo is where this is handled. In the World Taekwondo organization, there is no country requirement or country bias. Leaders are elected through a democratic process which transcends the country of the running members. In this way, anyone from any country can hold a position in the World Taekwondo organization (or in any of its regions’ hierarchies). Thus, the IOC works directly with the World Taekwondo federation in matters of competition and Olympics, and it is not doing so directly with the South Korean government. OK, so Kukkiwon headquarters is based in Seoul. It turns out, so is the World Taekwondo. (And for those who need a primer, Seoul is the capital of South Korea). Whoops!
Alright, so now you know what WT, WTF, and Kukkiwon is. What about ITF?
ITF
As it turns out, Kukkiwon is not the only style of Taekwondo out there. There’s another style called International Taekwondo Federation, abbreviated ITF.
Hierarchy
ITF is fraught with their own politics, as there are at least four ITF organizations, all claiming to be the official style. (Yes, ITF is both a style and the namesake of the organization). And part of the confusion people have originates from the fact that there is (or was) a World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) and an International Taekwono Federation (ITF). WTF is not a style, whereas ITF is a style. Confused? Yeah, well so is everyone else. That, and the fact it’s easier to say and write WTF (and now WT) instead of Kukkiwon, which tends to be a mouthful to say. So, when you hear someone muttering about the WTF style, you know they really mean Kukkiwon.
Style or Organization?
ITF, then, is a style and an organization. Well, it’s “a style” and there are 4 “organizations” all claiming to be “the” official name and style. The four organizations are: ITF (headquartered in Pyongang, North Korea), ITF (headquartered in Benidorm, Spain), ITF (headquartered in Vienna, Austria), and ITF (headquartered in Sejong City, South Korea). Well, there is another tiny little outpost in Middlesex in the United Kingdom.
Vienna headquarters has a web domain “itf-tkd.org”.
Benedorm headquarters has a web domain “tkd-itf.org”, and redirects to “taekwondoitf.org”.
South Korea headquarters has a web domain of “itfofficial.org”.
Well, on it goes. There are a myriad ITF organizations, actually. But the one thing they all have in common is this: they practice the Chang Hon style of forms: the family of forms that General Choi, Hong-Hi, founder of ITF, himself invented. Collectively, they’re called the Chang Hon family of forms, but, some organizations (and indeed, schools) differ on how they perform them, and the difference is striking.
Terminology
Broadly speaking, those who refer to the Chang Hon family of forms as “tul”, sometimes spelled “teul”, (which is Korean, and means “pattern”, and this particular word derives from Chinese “taoulu”, which is what Kung Fu practitioners refer to their forms in China) perform their forms with a signature sine wave pattern. You’ll see them perform their movements in a deliberate up and down motion, with a strong hiss in their breath as the perform a movement – every movement. The other way the Chang Hon forms are called is “hyung” (sometimes spelled “hyeong”) which also means “pattern” in Korean. These schools tend to perform the same forms without the bouncing up and down.
Incidentally, the Kukkiwon/WT practitioners universally refer to their forms as “poomsae” (also means “pattern”), and they do NOT bounce up and down, either.
There you have it: poomsae, hyung, and tul. They all mean “form”, “shape”, or “pattern” – they’re synonymous.
Differences And Similarities
Chamber
Well, there are other differences and similarities, too. The tul folks will chamber their hands at the waist, just as the poomsae folks do. The hyung folks tend to chamber their fist at the chest.
Kihap
The hyung and poomsae folks breathe more or less silently when performing their forms, except at particular spots in their respective form that call for a shout, or “kihap”. The tul folks loudly and forcefully hiss at each movement, but don’t generally issue a kihap in the performance of their forms.
Applications
The tul folks tend to be very scientific and exact with their movements, and do tend to include a great deal of self-defense in their curriculum. The poomsae folks have no idea what self-defense is, and how poomsae applies to self-defense (okay, that was sarcasm…) And the hyung crowd tend to balance sport and self-defense more or less equitably.
Note, these are stereotypes, and schools within each type will vary. I’ve seen tul schools chamber at the chest, and I’ve seen Kukkiwon schools hiss. I’ve seen hyung schools chamber at the hip and teach self-defense.
Books
The “bible” for each style is different. For the Kukkiwon folks, they’ll always refer to the official Taekwondo textbook which Kukkiwon re-releases every few years. The ITF folks always refer to General Choi’s Encyclopedia of Taekwondo, which never changes.
Culture
Poomsae schools are open for change, and strive to improve through change. In other words, they evolve. Hence, you’ll see new sets of forms and new techniques used in those forms, as well as noting some techniques have been subtracted out. ITF folks always practice with preservation of history and legacy in mind. Change is non-existent. You strive to do better by improving on the technique, not by throwing it out or adding in new ones.
Conclusion
IMHO, there’s no one way better than the other. I bemoan the changes to Kukkiwon, as it is truly becoming only a young man’s sport with all of its jumping and flipping. But I also bemoan the ITF because they could use some changes, but they won’t because of the reverence to Gen Choi. They tend to preserve from a historical context, so change is non-existent.
One thing that is interesting to me is that in their respective tomes, there is virtually no mention of self-defense. The forms were not built from the perspective of self-defense, the way Karate’s forms were. For some reason, either the Japanese did not teach the Koreans the meaning of the forms, or the Koreans didn’t understand the applicability, or they rejected the idea altogether in an attempt to create their own style separate from the Japanese. There are debates on this topic as well, and so I won’t weigh in here, except to say that this is debated.
I did say that the tomes have “no mention of self-defense”. That’s not entirely true. Reading both tomes, you will come across one or two applications for each form’s most prominent or odd movement, and then there is a brief explanation of how it can be used for self-defense. The descriptions are laughable – so much so that it appears to be somewhat of an afterthought, rather than a purpose of the movement considered when the forms were made up. I completely reject nearly all of the self-defense principles, in both books, and I’ll go through them in greater deal in other blog posts, so you can agree with me or disagree.
