Overview, Influences & History
Curriculum
Equipment & Facilities
Styles & Organisations
Patterns
Belts, Rank & Promotion
Philosophy
Competition
Terminology
Taekwondo, Tae Kwon Do or Taekwon-Do (Korean: 태권도) is a Korean form of martial art characterised by punching and kicking techniques emphasising head-height kicks, spinning jump kicks and fast kicking techniques. The literal translation for tae kwon do is “kick,” “punch,” and “the art or way.” The physical training undertaken in Taekwondo is purposeful and fosters strength of mind through mental armament.
Taekwondo practitioners wear a uniform, known as a dobok and was developed during the 1940s and 1950s by Korean martial artists with experience in other martial arts such as karate, Chinese martial arts and indigenous Korean martial arts traditions such as Taekkyon, Subak and Gwonbeop.
Brief History of Taekwondo
The oldest governing body for Taekwondo is the Korea Taekwondo Association (KTA) formed in 1959 through a collaborative effort by representatives from the nine original kwans, or martial arts schools in Korea. The main international organisational bodies for Taekwondo today are the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF), founded by Choi Hong Hi in 1966 and the partnership of the Kukkiwon and World Taekwondo (WT, formerly World Taekwondo Federation or WTF) founded in 1972 and 1973 respectively by the Korea Taekwondo Association.
Gyeorugi (kyorugi), a type of full-contact sparring, has been an Olympic event since 2000. The governing body for Taekwondo in the Olympics and Paralympics is World Taekwondo.
The oldest Korean martial arts were an amalgamation of unarmed combat styles developed by the three rival Korean Kingdoms of Goguryeo, Silla and Baekje, where young men were trained in unarmed combat techniques to develop strength, speed and survival skills. The most popular of these techniques were ssireum, subak and Taekkyon. The Northern Goguryeo kingdom was a dominant force in Northern Korea and North Eastern China prior to the 1st century CE and again from the 3rd century to the 6th century. Before the fall of the Goguryeo Dynasty in the 6th century, the Silla Kingdom asked for help in training its people for defence against pirate invasions. During this time a few select Silla warriors were given training in Taekkyon by the early masters from Goguryeo. These Silla warriors then became known as Hwarang or “blossoming knights.” The Hwarang set up a military academy for the sons of royalty in Silla called Hwarang-do (花郎徒), which means “flower-youth corps.” The Hwarang studied Taekkyon, history, Confucian philosophy, ethics, Buddhist morality, social skills and military tactics. The guiding principles of the Hwarang warriors were based on Won Gwang’s five codes of human conduct and included loyalty, filial duty, trustworthiness, valour and justice.
In spite of Korea’s rich history of ancient and martial arts, Korean martial arts faded during the late Joseon Dynasty. Korean society became highly centralised under Korean Confucianism and martial arts were poorly regarded in a society whose ideals were epitomised by its scholar-kings. Formal practices of traditional martial arts such as subak and Taekkyon were reserved for sanctioned military uses. However, Taekkyon persisted into the 19th century as a folk game during the May-Dano festival and was still taught as the formal military martial art throughout the Joseon Dynasty.
Early progenitors of Taekwondo, the founders of the nine original kwans (schools), who were able to study in Japan were exposed to Japanese martial arts, including karate, judo and kendo, while others were exposed to the martial arts of China and Manchuria, as well as to the indigenous Korean martial art of Taekkyon. Hwang Kee founder of Moo Duk Kwan, further incorporated elements of Korean Gwonbeop from the Muye Dobo Tongji into the style that eventually became Tang Soo Do.
The historical influences of Taekwondo is controversial with a split between two schools of thought: traditionalism and revisionism. Traditionalism holds that the origins of Taekwondo can be traced through Korean martial arts while revisionism, which has become the prevailing theory, argues that Taekwondo is rooted in Karate. Traditionalism has mainly been supported by the Korean government as a concerted effort to divorce Korean martial arts from their Japanese past to give Korean a “legitimate cultural past”.
Beginning in 1945, shortly after the end of World War II and Japanese Occupation, new martial arts schools called kwans opened in Seoul. These schools were established by Korean martial artists with backgrounds in Japanese and Chinese martial arts. At the time, indigenous disciplines (such as Taekkyeon) were all but forgotten, due to years of decline and repression by the Japanese colonial government. The umbrella term traditional Taekwondo typically refers to the martial arts practiced by the kwans during the 1940s and 1950s, though in reality the term “Taekwondo” had not yet been coined at that time and indeed each kwan (school) was practicing its own unique fighting style.
In 1952, South Korean president Syngman Rhee witnessed a martial arts demonstration by ROK Army officers Choi Hong-hi and Nam Tae-hi from the 29th Infantry Division. He misrecognised the technique on display as Taekkyeon and urged martial arts to be introduced to the army under a single system. Beginning in 1955, the leaders of the kwans began discussing in earnest the possibility of creating a unified Korean martial art. Until then, Tang Soo Do was used to name Korean Karate, using the Korean hanja pronunciation of the Japanese kanji (唐手道). The name Tae Soo Do (跆手道) was also used to describe a unified style Korean martial arts. This name consists of the hanja 跆 tae “to stomp, trample”, 手 su “hand” and 道 do “way, discipline”.
Choi Hong Hi advocated the use of the name Tae Kwon Do, i.e. replacing su “hand” by 拳 kwon (Revised Romanisation: gwon; kkwŏn) “fist”, the term also used for “martial arts” in Chinese (pinyin quán). The name was also the closest to the pronunciation of Taekkyeon, in accordance with the views of the president. The new name was initially slow to catch on among the leaders of the kwans. During this time Taekwondo was also adopted for use by the South Korean military, which increased its popularity among civilian martial arts schools.
In 1959 the Korea Taekwondo Association or KTA (then-Korea Tang Soo Do Association) was established to facilitate the unification of Korean martial arts. General Choi, of the Oh Do Kwan, wanted all the other member kwans of the KTA to adopt his own Chan Hon-style of Taekwondo, as a unified style. This was, however, met with resistance as the other kwans instead wanted a unified style to be created based on inputs from all the kwans, to serve as a way to bring on the heritage and characteristics of all of the styles, not just the style of a single kwan. As a response to this, along with disagreements about teaching Taekwondo in North Korea and unifying the whole Korean Peninsula, Choi broke with the KTA in 1966, in order to establish the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF)— a separate governing body devoted to institutionalising his own style of Taekwondo in Canada.
Initially, the South Korean president, having close ties to General Choi, gave General Choi’s ITF limited support. However, the South Korean government wished to avoid North Korean influence on the martial art. Conversely, ITF president Choi Hong Hi sought support for his style of Taekwondo from all quarters, including North Korea. In response, in 1972 South Korea withdrew its support for the ITF. The ITF continued to function as an independent federation, then headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Choi continued to develop the ITF-style, notably with the 1983 publication of his Encyclopedia of Taekwondo. After Choi’s retirement, the ITF split in 2001 and then again in 2002 to create three separate federations each of which continues to operate today under the same name.
In 1972 the KTA and the South Korean government’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism established the Kukkiwon as the new national academy for Taekwondo. Kukkiwon now serves many of the functions previously served by the KTA, in terms of defining a government-sponsored unified style of Taekwondo. In 1973 the KTA and Kukkiwon supported the establishment of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF, renamed to World Taekwondo in 2017 due to confusion with the initialism to promote the sportive side of Kukki-Taekwondo. WT competitions employ Kukkiwon-style Taekwondo. For this reason, Kukkiwon-style Taekwondo is often referred to as WT-style Taekwondo, sport-style Taekwondo or Olympic-style Taekwondo, though in reality the style is defined by the Kukkiwon, not the WT.
Taekwondo is one of three Asian martial arts (the others being judo and karate) and one of six total (the others being the previously mentioned plus greco-roman wrestling, freestyle wrestling and boxing) included in the Olympic Games. It started as a demonstration event at the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea, a year after becoming a medal event at the Pan Am Games and became an official medal event at the 2000 games in Sydney, Australia. In 2010, Taekwondo was accepted as a Commonwealth Games sport.
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