The Non-Traditional History fo TaeKwonDo - Modern Times

To Summarize;

The overall impression that one gets from the traditional history of taekwondo (as presented by the currently dominant players in the game) is of a pragmatic art with far fewer philosophical overtones that many other martial arts. There's no mention of chi, not a large emphasis on enlightenment, true spirituality, taking care of your oponent, or directing energies. Some of this may inherent in the practice of taekwondo if you look for it and choose to find it but it's a less explicit and inherent part of the art than many others. It comes across as pragmatic. Even the code of the Hwarang is more nationalistic and militaristic then the philosophical/spiritual code you'll find in most other martial arts.

This pragmatism in some sense separates taekwondo from Gung Fu and Karate, leading it more in the direction of Muay Thai, Savate, or 'just' plain old Kickboxing

You'll note that these are all full contact arts but they differ in flavour from the more classical full contact arts of Shidokan Karate , Budokai-Do, Ashihara Karate, or Kyokushin Karate

In his excellent article Steven D. Capener relates how much of the current problems with Olympic Taekwondo relate back to the need on the part of the Koreans to separate their art from karate. The sparring style that we see today originated in Korea, yes, but as a game of agility, and not a martial art. This was essentially tacked on to the pre-existing martial arts in Korea which had largely been learned from the Japanese. Interestingly enough a lot of the resistance to this sparring style came from the early (late 1950's) masters who gave up the traditions of their art with great reluctance. Moving from a 'one blow, one death' philosophy to a sport philosophy - that is to say, a self-declared game was one big way to distance taekwondo from it's Japanese roots. This reluctance also prevented the sport form of taekwondo from developing its own underlying 'spiritual' referents. [I put 'spiritual' into quotations because it is not really clear whether the Western view of spirituality in regard to the martial arts in differnt from or the same as the same concept to the Eastern viewpoint or may be closer to the concept of 'culture'].

The other main theme presented here is the idea that the government of Korea both supports and pushes taekwondo as a national means of diplomacy and national recognition. The great diasporas of taekwondo in the early 60's and 70's came from a state sponsored system. The originators has clout and influence far beyond the reaches of sport. And in the case of General Choi, victory turned to ashes largely because of political backroom dealings that have never been adequately delineated or explained. Incidentally, when I say backroom dealings, that's not necessarily a dig against the Korean political system -- merely a recognition that that's the way politics works.

Similarly, it would naive to assume that political forces were not a work in shaping the current sport to reflect a more distinctly Korean flavour and background that was the case in the accurate historical past.

Now, how unusual is it to have strong national pride in your most popular sport, to invest that sport the virtues that you as a people think you have, know you have, would like to have, and/or think were important in shaping your nation? Not very.

So the main thrust in the WTF has been the sportification of taekwondo. Is this a bad thing? Probably not.