I visited an ITF School yesterday

[CTTKDKing]

I have been practicing WTF TKD for 3.5 years and am a 1st dan, and I wanted to check out the differences between the ITF and WTF systems. A friend that goes to my school suggested I come and do a trial class at his other school (which is ITF), so I did. Their form is so perfect at this other school and everything was so technical. I joined up TKD to get in shape and learn to spar. I was a little disappointed with myself because my form was not as good as the other students at this ITF school. In the last segment of class though the instructor had us put on some gear and spar. I was SHOCKED because these guys can't fight. They put me in the ring with a black belt of 5 years experience that was bragging about his tournament metals to me and stuff, and he couldn't hit me. I backed him into a corner and scored point after point on him with almost no retaliation. He just seemed to not know what to do. I'm used to Olympic style sparring and I think this guy is used to point fighting, but i was fighting with their school rules. Maybe it was just the guy i was fighting I don't know. I was a little curious though (and I'm not trying to get into a WTF vs. ITF debate) do ITF school not focus on sparring that much?

[DWx]

It would depend on school to school and also how the class is structured. Some ITF schools prefer to focus on the technical side of things with forms and then supplement that with step sparring and a bit of free sparring. Other schools will focus on the opposite. Then again you will get schools that have a balance between the two. Mostly it depends on intructor preference about what they think is the most valuable aspect of their training and what they think they should focus on passing on.

Also ITF have forms as a tournament event too alongside sparring. So whilst WTF may focus on sparring only for tournament, ITF focuses on both.

[CTTKDKing]

Actually I have been to 6 WTF only championships now, and they all have been 3 division tournys. The divisions are sparring, forms, and breaking. My instructor always says to us if we want to spar then we should be doing forms too, because it shows that we come from a well rounded foundation. I think it's a common misconception that WTF schools only focus on sparring. We also learn the ITF forms once we get out black belts in our school, to keep us well educated in the most major forums of TKD.

[DWx]

Actually I have been to 6 WTF only championships now, and they all have been 3 division tournys. The divisions are sparring, forms, and breaking. My instructor always says to us if we want to spar then we should be doing forms too, because it shows that we come from a well rounded foundation. I think it's a common misconception that WTF schools only focus on sparring. We also learn the ITF forms once we get out black belts in our school, to keep us well educated in the most major forums of TKD.

Ah ok, I change my statement then :

So whilst some WTF may focus on sparring only for tournament, ITF focuses on both.

I guess its because forms aren't in the olympics that I thought that.

I still say that it will depend from ITF school to ITF on how much they focus on certain aspects of training.

Just out of interest, do you do the ITF forms with or without the sine wave?

[CTTKDKing]

Ah the sine wave. I do them with the sine wave although it's not explained with that term in my school. They call it the bounce and snap. I heard the term sine wave for the first time while I was visiting the ITF school. The way my instructors do it though is correct based on what I saw at the ITF school and the way they show us how to do it in my school. Sine wave is an interesting explanation of how to do something in martial arts, because I'm an electronic technician and I use sine waves for measurements on my scope here at work. I actually chuckled when I heard them use this term.

[DWx]

They use the term because a "perfect" sine wave motion is supposed to reflect the curve that is shown when you plot sine angles onto a graph. Guess they couldn't think of a better name...

Just been looking at videos of WTF vs ITF on Youtube, most tend to be fairly biased to one style or the other. I don't think I've found a fair representation of both arts in one video yet...

[CTTKDKing]

I doubt you will. Most people that practice one or the other are biased toward one or the other. It's too bad really because they both have their good points. If the WTF schools put the ITF's precision and focus on the technical side into practice and the ITF schools put some more of the WTF like sparring drills into practice it could better both systems as a whole. I'm not saying that ITF has to spar like the people in the Olympics or anything, but it could be beneficial to practice more contact sparring. Don't take this the wrong way either, i know some ITF schools practice a lot of sparring. It's just that the only ITF experience I have is from the school I visited. It's a very well accredited school too. The grandmaster there is in his 70's now and he personally got to train under General Choi for 5 years. This is no McDojo. His son teaches a lot of the classes there and is very good himself. Check out their web site.

https://www.unified-ITF.com

[bushido_man96]

I think that most ITF schools do a lighter contact of sparring than WTF schools do. For WTF, you have to have body displacement to score a point (or a good slapping round kick that makes a lot of noise). I think the ITF uses lighter contact, although I do think there are some schools that are an exception. I think that some ITF schools actually allow hand contact to the head, as well.

I think that even though both arts may be presented as well-rounded between forms and sparring, I think that the WTF does, as a whole, put more emphasis on its sparring, due to that being their Olympic domain. Like you stated, though, there are those that focus well on the other aspects, too.

At the school I attend, we do the ITF forms (without sine wave), but do WTF style sparring.

[CTTKDKing]

That was one thing I did like about this school. My school is very strict on no punching to the head, and the ITF school did allow light contact to the head. I adapted to that very quickly.

[YoungMan]

CTTKDKing,

You mentioned your friend's other school, which is ITF. Is your friend going to an ITF school at the same time as a WTF school? If he is, does his Instructor know about this?

I have nothing against the ITF, but you cannot and should not take WTF and ITF at the same time, whether sparring or forms. The techniques and philosophies are too different. Either WTF curriculum or ITF curriculum.