What do you make of this?

[DWx]

ITF-C has announced that they are changing the pattern Juche back to Kodang in their forms set.

http://www.itf-administration.com/news.asp?nurn=1651

Please be advised that effective immediately, the tul of "Ju Che" will be known as it was originally created by our founder General Choi Hong Hi as "Kodang".

Kodang was originally replaced with Juche but are they changing their official forms set back to Kodang or are the just changing the name?

I'm not sure entirely but I always though that the reason Kodang was replaced in the first place was because it was not hard enough for prospective 3rd dans and it was too similar to the other 2nd dan patterns, Eui-Am and Choong-Jang. If they are just changing the name it seems a bit petty to me because although the whole Juche philosophy is politically grounded, IMO it is a good mindset to have and in any case most practitioners don't know the political side to it or if they do they don't pay attention.

Opinions on this?

[bushido_man96]

I would have to look to see which of these forms is which. I have never done either, so I don't know them apart from each other.

I think Ju-Che was originally done as a gesture towards South Korea, but I am not for sure. At any rate, with the talks of ITF/WTF merger, who knows what this means in the end. It may end up being insignificant.

[DWx]

Here's both:

Kodang:

and

Juche:

They are kinda similar as if you look there's bits and pieces the same in both. Juche is much more a leg form though and IMO harder because of the jumps.

Juche is a North Korean ideology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche

With regards to the ITF/WTF merger I doubt this will have much effect as this is the wrong ITF. This is ITF-C as opposed to ITF-NK which is involved in the talks… its kinda confusing. ITF-C is also the smallest out of the three and I doubt whether the other two would be changing. Still it would be interesting to see which forms as a whole a new ITF/WTF org would keep.

[bushido_man96]

Thanks for the vids, and the info, DWx. ITF-C kind of threw me at first; now I know why.

What was the front kick with the toes straight up in the air in Ko-Dang? Does it have a name, other than front kick? It just looked different to me.

As far as Ju-Che goes, it looks like an interesting form. Lots of interesting kicking techniques in it. Balancing and doing a slow turning hook kick would be tough for me.

For some reason, my organization doesn't do either of these forms. I am not sure why, but I do know that there is some funky history between the GM of my organization and the WTF. He was once a member of it, but has since moved on. Now, we do the ITF forms. But not these.

[DWx]

Yeah all the politics is really confusing if you don't know the history behind it all.

I'm not really familiar with Ko-Dang so I don't know. It could be just that that particular person does it differently?

The official moves list below says it is just a front snap kick. I can't get onto Youtube at the moment to view the form but you could also be referring to a hook kick in which the foot is vertical (I can't see whether it is that type of hook kick at the moment).

http://www.taekwondo-legacy.com/pattern-KoDang.php

What org are you part of at the moment?

Most ITF schools discarded Ko-Dang a few years ago in favour of Juche so its interesting to see why ITF-C want to revert this.

[bushido_man96]

I guess it must just be a front snap kick with the heel, as opposed to the ball of the foot.

I am a member of the Traditional Taekwondo Association (TTA). Our GM is the president and founder, Chae Sun Yi.

[DWx]

Just looking through some stuff and I can across this: http://www.ictf.info/juche.htm

Apparently ITF-C isn't the first to rename Juche in favour of something else non-politically related. The International Chang Hon Taekwon-Do Federation (ICTF) made the change in 2005. I've never heard of them though but I assume they are based upon ITF style TKD as they use that form set and photos on their website show a dobok very similar to ITF doboks.

... Also, in order to rectify a major technical flaw, pattern Ch'ang-Hon will start up on line G/H towards D, so that movements will flow in the "downwards" direction, towards the normal, permanent position of line E/F.

Does anyone know what they mean by "major technical flaw"? I'm assuming they mean the fact that to do Juche you have to start the pattern off with room for about 10 steps going backwards... but I wouldn't have called that a technical flaw.

[bushido_man96]

Again, this is a form that I don't learn in my school, but the changing of the name to Chang Hon seems odd to me. I would like to see the technical changes made by this organization of the form.

What does the "C" in ITF-C stand for?

[DWx]

The C stands for Canada. When the ITF split into 3 they all called themselves the "ITF" and the only real difference at the beginning was who was in it. Generally if you want to refer to a specific one you use where their headquarters are. Hence:

ITF-C, Canada under GM Choi Jung Hwa,

ITF-V, Vienna under M Trieu Tran Quan

ITF-NK, North Korea under Prof. Chang Ung.

All really confusing .

I think the only technical changes this ICTF made were to change where the form started at such. So instead of facing forward to something like a judging/examining panel, they've changed it so you are backwards (I think).

[tenshinka]

This change was only implemented by the ITF-C of Master Choi Jung Hwa (son of General Choi Hong-Hi)...The change is in name only...The physical pattern Kodang has been dropped, what they are doing is taking the name Kodang and applying it to the current form Juche.

General Choi wanted TKD to be universal, and for all people. For those who dont know, Juche is the "official" political ideology of the communist North Korean state. Thus, Juche has close ties with communist ideals...this is not OK with many people, and thus ITF-C wants to make the change, so that the form is more palatable to current TKD practicioners, avoiding political ties that could potentially cause riffs within TKD.

fwiw,

--josh