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Some reject the premise that Taekwondo was influenced by Shotokan karate. Check out these photographs of Master Gichin Funakoshi, founder of Shotokan karate, performing the Pinan Shodan kata, which came decades before Taekwondo was founded. Compare it to the Won-hyo hyung of traditional Taekwondo. Notice any similarities? The pinan kata were introduced by Itosu, when karate started to be taught in the Okinawa schools. The name was changed into heian by Funakoshi when he came to Japan. Pinan Shodan is the first of these kata, it was renamed (and renumbered) into Heian Nidan.

General Choi, the disputed "founder" of Taekwondo, who originated the Changhon pattern set used by the ITF and many other Taekwondo organizations was originally a Shotokan karate black belt; for a time, he actually was a student of Gichin Funakoshi, the father of Japanese karate and founder of Shotokan. In a January 2000 issue of Taekwondo Times Magazine, Choi stated that he studied under Funakoshi while he was a student at Tokyo University. He also stated that upon receiving his 2nd Dan in Shotokan, he taught Shotokan Karate for a time at the YMCA in Tokyo.  Choi's original Taekwondo espoused many of the core beliefs, techniques, patterns, and procedures of Funakoshi's karate.

Taekwondo Pyong-an patterns are exactly the same as the Shotokan Heian patterns. For example, Taekwondo Bal-sek pattern is the same as Shotokan Bassai pattern, Chul-gi is the same as Tekki, and  Kong-san-koon is the same as Kanku. Palgwe Taekwondo patterns are also similar to Heian patterns.

Watch these classic Shotokan kata and look for similarities with traditional Taekwondo patterns.

Although the ITF, with its Shotokan influenced patterns, was popular around the world, the WTF gained control of Taekwondo within Korea.  In later years, when Korea won the bid to host the Olympics, the WTF was chosen to lead the effort to include Taekwondo an Olympic demonstration sport. Korea, through the WTF, wanted to purge Shotokan 's influence from Taekwondo so it would only reflect Korea's martial arts history. As a result of the effort, they developed a set of strictly Korean patterns they called Taegeuk (which is the name of South Korea's national flag).

The essence of Taekwondo is poorly reflected in any of the commonly recognized ITF or WTF Taekwondo forms patterns, whether they are Pinans, Chon-ji, Palgue, or Taegeuk. Their techniques are mostly an arbitrary series of movements that do not have many variations of kicking or punching techniques that do not reflect skill level of their assigned ranks. They are not particularly exciting to watch or perform, do not demonstrate any aspect of skill that is particular to Taekwondo, are nearly devoid of technical challenge, lack roots specific to Taekwondo, and are considered boring by most practitioners.

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