What do you make of this?

[DWx]

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.

Juche as a philosophy may have clear ties to NK but in reality does its name really affect the pattern? The definition given to ITF practitioners is Juche in its barest form minus the political applications and for the majority fo your average students a lot of them don't even know what Juche really means. For me the name is quite fitting if you use the definition given by the ITF. Its a tough pattern to do and requires a lot of work to get it right; i.e. it requires mastery over oneself in order to perform each and every move perfectly. You don't have to follow the political applications at all as long as you take away the general meaning of it.

[tenshinka]

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.

Juche as a philosophy may have clear ties to NK but in reality does its name really affect the pattern? The definition given to ITF practitioners is Juche in its barest form minus the political applications and for the majority fo your average students a lot of them don't even know what Juche really means. For me the name is quite fitting if you use the definition given by the ITF. Its a tough pattern to do and requires a lot of work to get it right; i.e. it requires mastery over oneself in order to perform each and every move perfectly. You don't have to follow the political applications at all as long as you take away the general meaning of it.

Hi DWx,

I know that the General created his tul very carefully. Even from the number of movements to what side of the body the final technique is executed on. So the name change does not really change the pattern (your dead on there)...But as stated before, it obviously must bother some people...ITF-C, as I understand it, has always been a bit drastic on changing things...But c'est la vie. If they have happy Tae Kwon-Do'in thats all that matters right?

[hammer]

Just had a clinic on Juche...our club actually does both forms, but Juche is designated as our highest BB form and Ko Dang is a required form for 3rd Dan.

I give any 2nd Dan a lot of credit for doing this form well...while it's certainly not the longest form I'd put it up near the top (along with Moon Moo) for physical difficulty.

[Aodhan]

That is a very nice form! I like the split between slow and fast techniques in parts of it, at least in the couple of videos I watched of it.

John

[DWx]

Heh funny reading my OP 5 years later...

To shed some light on what I said in my OP all them years ago, the ITF under GM Choi Jung Hwa do still practice what the rest of the world call Juche however they now call it Kodang. Still think they should have just done away with Juche completely if they didn't like the name and meaning behind it because now the meaning doesn't make much sense and doesn't match what the student is actually doing.

Either way it's great to watch it when it's performed well... sucks to have to perform it.