Festival seeks coexistence of 2 taekwondo styles

By Kang Shin-who

Staff reporter

Chung Cheong University will host ‘World Taekwondo Festival’ from June 30 to July 10

An international taekwondo festival will be held in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province in the center of South Korea, from June 30 to July 10, with the aim of harmonizing the two organizations representing the Korean traditional martial arts; the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) and the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF).

Oscar Oh, chairman of the event’s organizing committee said that the annual sporting festival, the 11th of its kind, will invite 2,000 participants from both home and abroad.

Under the slogan “‘WI’ are one,” the event will host the ITF World Championships, one of the biggest events for the organization, in an effort to unify the two governing bodies.

“‘WI’ is a combination of the initials of WTF and ITF. The event this year focuses on the importance of the need for the two organizations to form a harmonious sporting community for the development of taekwondo,” Oh told The Korea Times in an interview.

Oh, who is also the chairman of Chung Cheong University, initiated the festival in 1998 as a way to globalize his school. “I believe taekwondo, Korea’s iconic sport, could be a means to attract more and more foreigner students to our school,” he said.

“At that time, we didn’t have such an event and I thought we needed to create one in order to show that Korea is the motherland of the martial art and it is our responsibility for practitioners of taekwondo,” he added.

While the WTF style, which was incorporated into the Olympics in 2000, is footbased and focuses on sparring, the ITF version utilizes both hands and feet.

Taekwondo was originally run by one governing body, but General Choi Hong-hi, who was regarded as the father of taekwondo and the first president of the Korea Taekwondo Association, made a good-will trip to North Korea in 1966, causing him to resign the position over accusations of dishonesty.

After that, Gen. Choi went into exile in Canada and the ITF headquarters were established there, while the South Korean government formed the WTF in 1973. Many of the latter’s rules and procedures are different from those of the ITF.

Since the break-up, there have been many attempts to reunite the two organizations, but they all turned out to be in vain. Oh said. ”Taekwondo was originally one as the two types of the discipline had their roots in one and so they should be harmonized. I am not talking about unification of the two. I hope the two organizations accept their differences and work for co-existence.

“There is no need to combine the two different styles. In the Olympics, wrestling has both Greco-Roman style and freestyle.

Like this, I want taekwondo bouts in the Olympics to be of both types.” He added that if Korea wants the martial art to remain as an Olympic sport, the organizations should offer better match rules and put more effort into making them more exciting and dynamic.

“Introducing the ITF style in the games would be a solution as it focuses more on fighting, compared with the WTF style.” The festival founder also stressed that Korea should be more generous to other countries doing the sport. First of all, he pointed out that Korea dominated taekwondo medals too much, saying, “Medals in the Olympics and other world competitions should be given to more practitioners from other countries.” As for taekwondo licenses, he said their issuance is too dominated by Koreans, adding businesses delivering electronic scoring equipment for the martial art are also monopolized by Korean businessmen linked with taekwondo associations.

“Taekwondo is loved by people around the world and has been for a long time. Now, it’s time to give back what we received, as the motherland of the sport,” he said.

Oh also raised some other problems which deter development of the nation’s iconic sport. “We have very little written material on taekwondo. I guess there are less than 100 books and research papers on the sport. It would be better to create more products symbolizing the sport.” During the coming festival, participants will be able to experience the sport in a variety of competitions and such events as taekwondo aerobics, alongside free performances. Also, diverse cultural activities and a familiarization tour of Chungju, are awaiting taekwondo lovers from around the world.

The number of participants for the festival more than doubled over a decade to 1,432 from 53 countries in 2008 from 647 form 20 countries in 1998.

“Taekwondo is not a mere sport. We can learn through the sport how to respect our seniors and parents, hoping to protect their children in a dangerous situation,” he said. “Many taekwondo practitioners from around world come to the home of the martial art and witness the unification of 60 million WTF and 30 million ITF members. We hope they will take this opportunity to meet friends from both communities through our common language, taekwondo.” For more information about the event, visit its official website, www.tkdfamily.net or call 043-230-2453/2457.