History of Patterns

The complete twenty-four patterns are used by the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF). Some or all of these patterns are used by various other Taekwondo organizations. A select group of these patterns are used by Taekwondo America.

In 1971, General Choi became embroiled in political disputes with the South Korean government and left Korea and formed the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF). His original patterns with their Shotokan influence are still used by the ITF. ITF patterns are known as hyung or tul. ITF patterns are known for their stepping motion (sine wave) while moving into techniques, which applies the force of the entire body at the movement of impact. After General Choi's departure from Korea, a younger generation of Koreans who had not trained under Japanese instructors gained control of Taekwondo development in Korea and formed the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), which uses patterns known as poomse.

In Korea, Taekwondo began to adopt a fighting style which was more fluid and dynamic and relied more on speed, timing, and strategic body movement. Continuous movement was encouraged, and ""point" scoring was eliminated. Taekwondo began to utilize competition effectively as an  integral part of training structure.

The taegeuk patterns were reformulated to incorporate more realistic natural stances. These patterns differed from karate forms or the ITF style of Taekwondo forms. They used stances more typically used for fighting or self-defense and their pattern of movements tended to follow a "trigram" pattern of movement, rather than the "H" pattern of ITF forms. However, these reformulated forms remained based, in both structure and theory, on karate forms.