Future of Taekwondo

The future of Taekwondo is based on a better development of the Martial Art

Those who practice Taekwondo often become technically deficient under the influence of competitions and especially Olympic competition.

They no longer know how to render a blow, nor block one, especially near the face. They have relatively little idea of “”Hoshinsul”, they don’t know how to fall nor how to execute or defend from an arm lock.

Taekwondo is a formidable martial art, but it has too often been an export product. This discipline found in 180 countries cannot develop quickly enough without losing quality.

When we see certain Taekwondo professors say that the poumses are no longer an important issue in training, they endanger the official procedure of kukkiwon and reduce Taekwondo to a technically poor combat sport. In addition, they try to attract people by weakening their art, by removing anything that might appear difficult. But this instruction is just a flash in the pan and will not stand. Students eventually realize that they are being short-changed and their numbers diminish as quickly as they arrived.

Indeed, this idea is false because the students with good technical basics are those who succeed in competition. The others stagnate.

Here in France, we are behind in comparison to other countries. Recently we were at a traditional martial arts level. Now, we are at the level of sports competition. This means simply being champion of the rules. One must be truly naïve to believe that competitive techniques work in a real-life confrontation.

It is somewhat like a brain-drain: the best Korean experts immigrated to the U.S. Many of the founding Korean masters are there. Many Korean experts in France have been put aside, viewed as not committed enough to produce competitors in combat. This has enormously weakened Taekwondo taught in France, certain clubs are only interested in training competitors, those students seeking the real martial art are sent away or discouraged when they can’t find it.

In our country, we are at a deadlock with the traditional martial art paralyzed and unrealistic, or a game of competition uninteresting for the martial art practitioner.

At any rate, the martial art and the combat sport are not the same thing: in the combat sport, one must be the best, in the martial art one must simply be the best one can be.

In competition, everyone else must be crushed in order to reach the podium. The gold medalist is ecstatic, the silver medalist disappointed. The bronze medalist is frustrated, all the others sad because these competitors rarely believe that “the most important thing is to participate.”

On the other hand, in the martial art, everyone “wins” and must constantly evaluate his performance and progress technically, physically and most importantly mentally, knowing that personal progress is essential.

The essence of the martial art is diminished in this race to be “champion” with the attendant subsidies and financial aid.

The clubs that don’t train champions feel justly left behind. Too often, the only thing attracting the federations and the minister is return on investment and prestige.

It is possible, I believe, to turn things around: we must join the training of champions (the elite section) with training for the individual, young or not, competitor or not.

Alongside competitions, we must organize targeted actions for different populations, keeping in mind the martial art in the individual training.

We must develop the martial art as a whole practice including, among others, the Kibonn, the poumses, conventional combat, free combat (kiorougui), self-defense (hoshinsoul) and fighting (kiopka).