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Tae Kwon-Do is a martial art developed
over 20 centuries ago in Korea. The earliest records of its practice
date back to 50BC where tomb paintings show men in fighting stances
practising forms known as Taek Kyon.
It is believed that the origins of Taek Kyon date
even further back and originated as self-defence against wild
animals whose defensive and offensive movements were also the
subject of much analysis. Taek Kyon, at the time was only one style
of fighting. Others had names such as Subak, Tak Kyon and so on.
By 57 BC Korea had three kingdoms (Koguryo, Paekje
and Silla) and, with a certain degree of inevitability, a strong
rivalry amongst them led to the focus on the development of very
effective fighting techniques. History, repeatedly, has shown that
it is the victor who writes the script and this case was no
exception. Silla won its wars against its two rivals and in 668 AD
it unified the three kingdoms. Instrumental in its victory were the
Hwa Rang Do, an elite group of young men who were devoted to
cultivating their bodies and minds and serving the kingdom.
Hwa Rang Do, quite literally, means flowering youth (Hwa=flower,
Rang=young man) and the young noblemen of the Hwa Rang Do practised
various forms of martial arts. The Hwa Rang Do also developed an
honour code and it is this which today forms the philosophical
background of Tae Kwon Do.
In 936AD the Silla dynasty came to an end and with
it the kingdom. In its place, Wang Kon founded the Koryo dynasty.
Koryo is an abbreviation of Koguryo which Wang Kon sought to revive.
The modern name Korea is derived directly from the word Koryo.
It was during the Koryo that a new sport was given form. It was
called Soo Bakh Do and it was used, principally, as a military
training method. Drawing from the many different forms of martial
arts which had preceded it Soo Bakh Do used bare hands and feet as a
weapon and its intensity was such that it was seen as a very good
way of maintaining one's strength and overall fitness. As a result
its popularity spread throughout the kingdom of Koryo.
This was the precursor to modern day Tae Kwon Do.
Despite its effectiveness as a means of training for warfare however
and its popularity with the peasants in the fields by 1492 it had
almost disappeared. What happened was that King Taejo, founder of
the Yi dynasty, replaced Buddhism with Confucianism as the state
religion. The teachings of Confucius, imported from the refined,
rarefied culture of China, dictated that the higher class of man
should read poetry and music and the practice of martial arts should
be something left to the less refined, even inferior, man. The Yi
dynasty lasted from 1392 to 1910 and during that time the practice
of martial arts and the code of honour of the Hwa Rang remained
alive in isolated, stubbornly traditional cultural backwaters of
Korea.
In 1910 however Korea was invaded by Japan who
dominated it until the end of World War II. The Japanese tried to
erase all of the Korean culture including its martial arts. As is
usual with such situations this brought a stubborn resurgence in the
practice of martial arts which now, once more, had a very practical
role to play against an invader who strictly controlled the supply
of weapons.
Along with occupation, the Japanese also brought
karate with them and indeed the quick, straight-line movements which
characterise many Tae Kwon Do moves today are a direct result of the
legacy left behind by the Japanese army of occupation. After the end
of World War II, when Korea became independent, several Kwans, or
fighting styles, arose. These were: Chung Do Kwan, Moo Duk Kwan, Yun
Moo Kwan, Chang Moo Kwan, Oh Do Kwan, Ji Do Kwan, Chi Do Kwan and
Song Moo Kwan. All these Kwans were united in 1955 under the name of
Tae Soo Do.
Korea's struggle to re-discover its identity and
many traditions was, with some degree of inevitability, reflected in
the subsequent development of its martial arts movement and by the
beginning of 1957 several Korean martial arts masters had adopted
the name Tae Kwon Do for their form of martial arts, because of its
similarity to Tae Kyon. The very first Tae Kwon Do students were
soldiers because General Choi Hong-Hi, who is credited as the father
of modern Tae Kwon Do, required his soldiers to train in it.
The police and air force had to train in Tae Kwon
Do as well. At the time Tae Kwon Do was still very heavily under the
influence of Japanese karate and, indeed, many of its moves and
style bore a very close resemblance to Shotokan Karate. In 1961,
however, the Korean Tae Kwon Do Union arose from the Soo Bakh Do
Association and the Tae Soo Do Association. In 1962 the Korean
Amateur Sports Association acknowledged the Korean Tae Kwon Do Union
and in 1965 the name was set to Korean Tae Kwon Do Association (KTA).
General Choi Hong-Hi was president of the KTA at
the time and he was asked to start the International Tae Kwon Do
Federation (ITF) as the international branch of the KTA. What
follows next is best described as the rise of the acronyms. In 1961,
following the overthrow of the southern government of Korea general
Choi left for the United States where he established the ITF as a
separate entity, in 1963.
Tae Kwon Do was introduced in the UK in 1967, just four years after
the foundation of ITF. Six years later the World Tae Kwon Do
Federation (WTF) was founded and in 1980 it was recognised by the
International Olympic Comite (IOC) which made it a demonstration
sport in the Olympic Games.
The Korea Tae Kwon Do Association (KTA) is the
National Governing Body (NGB) for Tae Kwon Do in the Republic of
Korea, just like the United States Tae Kwon Do Union (USTU) is the
NGB for Tae Kwon Do in the United States. The World Tae Kwon Do
Federation (WTF) is made up of Tae Kwon Do NGBs. These NGBs are
member organisations of the WTF. Individuals can be affiliated to
the WTF through their NGBs but cannot join the WTF directly! As the
popularity of Tae Kwon Do increased in the west several attempts
were made to unite the two Tae Kwon Do organisations but these were
unsuccessful. It was largely because of all this that in August 1983
it was decided to form, in the UK, an organisation that would be run
on principals far more democratic than were permitted by the two
governing bodies of the time (the ITF and WTF). This became the
basis of the Tae Kwon Do Association of Great Britain (TAGB).
Five years later, in April 1988, the TAGB became a
founding member of the British Tae Kwon Do Council (BTC). The BTC is
the only body recognised by the United Kingdom Sports Council and it
incorporates 11 different organisations. The birth of the TAGB and
the formation of the BTC represent a happy chapter in the tumultuous
history of Tae Kwon Do. With the power of hindsight it is easy to
make light of the differences of organisations which have more in
common than not. It would, however, be also proper to reflect that
the birth of Tae Kwon Do, its development and its propagation are as
much a mirror of its troubled origin and the practical needs which
made it possible as they are a telling remark on the apparent
inability of its many governing bodies to cast aside their
differences and find some common ground.
The TAGB, with over 25,000 members represents the
next stage in the development of Tae Kwon Do. With its grounding in
the ethos and tenets which were first espoused by the Hwa Rang over
2,000 years ago and its open acceptance and constant development of
forms, training techniques and ideas, it stands poised to take an
ancient fighting form into the 21st century, successfully linking
the distant past with an equally distant, and certainly no less
wondrous, future.
In view of this, in 1993, a new world body
was formed called Tae Kwon Do International. The new body
encompasses both ITF and WTF stylists, it is entirely non-political
in orientation and its sole aim is to promote the benefits of Tae
Kwon Do as a sport and as a martial art, worldwide. The TAGB is a
founding member of this new body.
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