ITF WTF

[Bretty101]

a lot of people say in WTF there is no encouragement to use the hands and it is not very self defence orientated or realistic

 

QUESTIONS:

 

Does WTF have high section punchs in it's forms?

 

Is self defence taught in the syllabus separately to sparring? (it is in ITF)

 

Surelyl these areas (punching/Self defence) are covered in WTF but not when sparring!?

 

Bretty

 

[ This Message was edited by: Bretty101 on 2002-08-02 04:47 ]

[KickChick]

More info on WTF (sparring) can be accessed here: http://infoweb.magi.com/~tkdspar/

 

As I am only somewhat knowledgeable in ITF I thought this link was pretty thorough /

 

Our school was involved in an open tournament organized by the USTU (WTF) several months ago in which I backed out for the mere fact that most of the competitors were WTF and in order to compete they wanted you to join the USTU for (80.00) ..... "open tournament" .... $$$$$

 

So anyway, they did not care to recognize our forms in competition (only Taeguk) but we could perform ours but we would only be able to get minimal scoring (although our student were phenominal and blew all of them away with our "style"!)

 

Sparring was no use of hands ... ( I could never have competed as I would be thrown out immediately as I use my hands as I use my legs) .... and it was not "round robin" ... it was "knockdown" and I mean "knockdown" push your opponent, constant kicking with no show of technique or variety of kicking .... just score them points --- WIN!

 

 

[RF_Brown]

Uh, just a correction, Gen. Choi, created the ITF while still the President of the KTA in order to spread the art of Taekwon-Do around the world. After he decided to leave Korea (and taking the ITF with him), the KTA created the WTF as the international wing of their organization. The KTA, an arm of the South Korean government controls all Taekwondo in South Korea. The WTF is much much bigger and profoundly more influential than the ITF. Most all Korean masters are associated in some form or fashion, at least in name with the WTF. The KTA promotes Taekwondo as the official sport of South Korea. In South Korea, it is taught in almost all the schools but is thought of as a sport. Going to Korea to learn Taekwondo would be like a middle aged Korean coming to this country to learn to play football. The Koreans will accomodate you, but they think Americans who do so are very strange indeed. The Korean masters I have met in this country are usually very reluctant to let American business men learn how to spar the way sparring is taught to youngsters in Korea because they think it would be a strange thing to do, they do not want to be liable, and they do not think adult Americans have what it takes to excel in the sport. The ITF on the other hand has a very systematic form of teaching their art, and welcome people of all walks in life to participate in the art in order to better oneself and enjoy the benefits from the training.

 

The WTF by the way usually writes the name of their SPORT as Taekwondo. The ITF writes the name of their ART as Taekwon-Do, while many independent instrcutors and organizations write it as Tae Kwon Do. Many of these independent organizations have adopted the older Chang Hon Pattern Set of the ITF but practice them much different from how the ITF practices them now. In addition, very few of them practice the Sine Wave or teach the Theory of Power that is distinctive of ITF Taekwon-Do.

 

Taekwondo and Taekwon-Do have evolved in vastly different ways and do not even remotley resemble each other. They are two different animals.

 

And something else I just thought of, the ITF calls their patterns, Tuls, while the The WTF calls theirs Poomses, and most independents call theirs Hyungs.