Chapter 23: Traditional versus Sport

Choi's early Taekwondo was Taekwondo at its purest since it had all the characteristics of the style developed by the kwans. Over the years, Choi and his students added their own beliefs to the ITF style of Taekwondo, such as the sine wave movement, knee spring, different patterns, etc. Leaders in the WTF style of Taekwondo had their own political and ideological reasons for making their version of Taekwondo a mostly kicking type of sport. If you read Choi's original 1965 book Taekwon-do, The Art of Self-Defense (the first English book on Taekwondo) you will find Taekwondo in its purest form, before power, politics, and greed changed it. Some other early Taekwondo books are

• Korean Karate (1968) by Duk Sung Son who took over the Chung-do-kwan 1951. The Chung-do-kwan was the first kwan to teach a native Korean style of martial art.
• Korean Karate Free Fighting Techniques (1968) by Sihak Henry Cho.
• Promise and Fulfillment in the Art of Taekwondo (1974) by Sang Kyo Shim.
• The Techniques of Taekwono-do (1975) by M. S. Too.
• Taekwondo-do (1975) by B. S. Huan.
• Tae Kwon Do, The Korean Marital Art (1976) by Richard Chun, a Kukkiwon master before it changed to the sport version of Taekwondo.

Since the break-up of the WTF and ITF, there have been many attempts to reunite the two organizations, but they have all failed. They are still rivals and remain in conflict and the ITF has broken into many factions after Choi's death, so it does not appear they will unite or even cooperate any time soon. However, there is no reason that Taekwondo cannot exist in the world as both a sport and an art.

Once Taekwondo arrived in the United States, it underwent more changes and became Americanized.