Histories Of Taekwondo
This link takes you to the
official history of Taekwondo according to the I.T.F. It is accurate insofar as the information is all true. However, it doesn’t include any part of the
W.T.F.’s role in the world of Taekwondo.
This site is rife with the official party-line. Like the entire I.T.F. site, it is strangely
zealous in its coverage and praise of General Choi Hong Hi, whose biography you can also find
at their site.
This link takes you to
the official history of Taekwondo according to the W.T.F. Like the site above, it is accurate but
fails to mention anything about the I.T.F. or General Choi’s participation in
the formation of Taekwondo. The only
pitfall of this site is that it covers the “history” of Taekwondo dating back
to ancient times. While this might be
indicative of a history of martial arts in Korea, it is not
Taekwondo. Taekwondo, as both a word or
a martial art, never existed until the 1950’s.
The following are three very well written
histories of Taekwondo. They were
originally personal emails, eventually posted to an email listserv named “dojang-digest”. They are much more “rounded” than the
official histories listed above, containing information on both the I.T.F.’s
and W.T.F.’s involvement.
A history of TKD by
Dave Steffen