United States of America Tae Kwon Do (USAT) the National Governing Body for
the Olympic sport of taekwondo, recently announced the formation of the new
Martial Arts Commission (MAC) in order to aid in the ongoing development of
the organization. Composed of high-ranking taekwondo master and pioneers, the
MAC was formed to honor the ancient traditions of taekwondo, develop all
aspects of taekwondo within the organization, and to enhance the USAT's
relationships with the international taekwondo community. The USAT named
lifelong taekwondo practitioners Joon Pyo Choi and Hong Kong Kim as MAC co-chairmen.
New Commission for a New Era
USA Tae Kwon Do (USAT, headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado is the U.S.
governing body for Olympic taekwondo. Though it's the only taekwondo organization
sanctioned by the U.S. Olympic Commitee, its chief executive officer, David Askina
realizes that taekwondo is much more than simply a sport-orientated endeavor. It
also embraces a self-defense component and methods of total physical and mental
development. In order to continue its ongoing service to the U.S. taekwondo
community, the USAT has establisheda new organizational body to encompass these
traditional methods and the traditionalists who teach them.It's called the Martial
Arts Commission (MAC) and it's composed of veteran masters who teach and / or espouse
traditional taekwondo.
Askinas explains the MAC in this way, "The Martial Arts Commission will serve both USA Taekwondo and its members.The membersof the Martial Arts Commission will bring their many years of martial arts expertise to the USAT and help USAT improve its member services in its new USAT black belt Program, its poomse programs and other traditional areas of martial arts.
"The USAT has placed most of its focus on the provision of high-level sparring competition and the development of National
Team and Olympic athletes. We recognized that it was necessary to strengthen its programming in the traditional martial
arts to better service the majority of taekwondo participants who do not participate in sparring competitions.
"In turn," Askinas adds, "the Martial Arts Commission is a way for USAT to connect to its historic roots and honor its
founding members. We have welcomed back so many grandmasters and masters who had grown apart from USAT over the years.
Many of these leaders had been looking for a way to give back to the sport and leave a legacy in the United States. Now
we have the opportunity to offer meaningful participartion in positions of leadership and development to these important
taekwondo leaders, so they can help grown and promote not only USAT but the sport of taekwondo."
In this article, we discuss the formation of the USAT's MAC and how it will aid in the ongoing development of taekwondo in the United States. For that information we went to MAC Co-Chairman Joon Pyo Choi of Columbus, Ohio and Los Angeles, California's David Lee, its public-relations representative.
Calling All Masters
"USAT is a member of the United States Olympic Committe," says MAC Co-Chairman Joon Pyo Choi. "It was previously known as the United States Tae Kwon Do Union. Therefore, the foundations of USAT can be traced back to 1974 when the puch began to have taekwondo included in Olympic competition. The advanced masters of taekwondo, who were active at that period of time, were the ones who succeeded in bringing taekwondo to the Olympics. This truly helped the taekwondo movement in this country and around the world."
David Lee adds, "The majority of the first-generation taekwondo masters who promoted taekwondo in the United States were of Korean heritage. Many of them felt that they lost their connection to the governing body of taekwondo here in the U.S., due to the previous management of USTU."
With the creation of the MAC, the USAT has been rejuvenated and now has the ability to offer these original masters true connectability to this National Governing Body for taekwondo. One of the first points on the MAC's agenda was to bring as manay taekwondo masters as possible into the organization.
"It is for this reason that we believe it's essential that all taekwondo teachers become part of this organization," Choi says. "In this way they can keep the spirit of taekwondo moving forward in the United States."
Choi believes that most of these people have devoted their lives to the development, evolution and training of taekwondo. Therefore, by joining the USAT, they can become essential elements in helping to shape the future of taekwondo in the U.S.
"Most of these people are over fifty years old," Choi adds. "They have studied the martial arts for over forty years. They are the pioneers of taekwondo. By bringing them into the USAT, we can obviously learn from their virtues."
Under One Umbrella
The MAC has experienced phenomenal growth since its recent inception in February 2007.
"It took only about six to eight weeks to recruit ninety-seven grandmasters into our commission," says Choi. "The first criteria that we used to recruit these instructors and grandmasters was to reach out to 8th - and 9th - dan taekwondo masters who were not already members of the USAT."
To achieve these rapid growth numbers, the MAC extended invitations to practitioners who did not initially feel that they wanted to be part of the USAT, members of various other taekwondo organizations, and to those practitioners who either moved away from thier parent organization or whose original Korean instructor had either passed away or retired from teaching due to age. This rapid influx of advance takwondo practitioners assures a refined degree of guidance to take the MAC into the future.
It is important to note that the USAT Martial Arts Commission accepts TKD practitioners who have been - or are - certified by other organizations not linked to the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), USAT's parent organization in Seoul, Korea. In fact, the USAT has made a conscious effort to bring members from other organizations into its fold , for the purpose of becoming a stronger federation.
"We are inviting all taekwondo practitioners inot the organization," Says MAC public- relations representative David Lee. "We have no problem with those people who were not trained in the same techniques utilized by the WTF. It is all about sharing ideas in order to come up with better ideas. I see this organization as growing by a compromise of ideas."
Choi explains that, though smaller TKD organizations may have benefits to offer its students, they cannot provide the taekwondo practitioner with the lineage to the ongoing historical development of the art.
"A private organization doesn't have continuance if the leader dies," he says. "But when a person joins a national governing organization like the USAT, then even if the teacher passes away or retires from the martial arts, the organization will continue. From this, all students and teachers will be recorded into taekwondo history.
Choi continues, "In order to connect with the motherland of taekwondo, and to all the other countries throughout the world that operate under the World Taekwondo Federation and participate in the Olympic games one needs to connect with the USAT."
With this as a framework, the USAT Martial Arts Commission has set about on a mission to bring practitioners, teachers, school owners and masters of taekwondo together.
One Curriculum
The plan of the USAT's MAC is to develop one primary curriculum. In order to achieve this, they offer practitioners from non - WTF systems the ability to present their martial art heritage, demonstrate their techniques, and then perform two WTF forms at a promotion seminar.
As taekwondo has one primary source, the learning and integration of different forms is understood to be easily masterable by taekwondo practitioners. Through this, the MAC hopes to help bring the various systems of taekwodo together, providing them with appropriate rank and instructors certification, and truly unify the various branches of taekwondo into one organization.
"We want people who have not been certified by the WTF to join our organization and to become certified by us at their current rank," Choi elaborates. "We will then help them become USAT - and WTF - certified. To do this, we will have a person present at all of the certifications. They will then write out who their teachers were, who are their juniors or students, and what competitions and training events they took part in. Our testing committee will then review their qualifications and have them demonstrate the techniques and two WTF forms at one of our certifications seminars. In this way we can bring about a unity of United States taekwondo practitioners."
Another of the key objectives set down by the newly formed USAT MAC is to enhance the instructional and business operational techniques of their teachers.
"One of the primary goals of the USAT Martial Arts Commission is to develop a systematic approach to providing taekwondo students with better instructors and a more established curriculum," David Lee explains.
In order to achieve this goal, the commission is designing a curriculum that can be readily integrated into all of the schools that become part of their organization.
In addition to formalizing an exacting taekwondo curriculum, the USAT MAC, in conjunction with the leading trade organization, the Martial Arts Industry Association (MAIA), has offered its members enhanced tools for instructors and business development.
"We will be offering weminars for the instructors," Choi states. "We want to help them enhance their curriculum and their business structure and development. We will be doing this so that they can have financial security."
The Virtues of Taekwondo
In association with bringin taekwondo students and masters together, another objective of the USAT MAC is to promote the virtues of taekwondo.
Lee explains, "Taekwondo is not only about competition it has many mental and spiritual aspects to it. I believe that this is what people today, especially the younger people truly need."
To bring about the understanding that taekwondo is more than simply a combative system of self-defense, the MAC is also enhancing its efforts to bring taekwondo to public attention.
"The Olympic movement is like the flower of taekwondo, but without the root, the flower does not grow," Choi explains. "So, we are now developing the poomse competition at the state, regional and national levels - and, ultimately, bringing it to the world championships."
The USAT has reasoned that less than ten percent of existing practitioners actually desire to take part in competitive sparring. But, since poomse is one of the primary training elements of taekwondo, 100% of them take part in forms training.
"So, the poomse is one element of taekwondo training that ever student of taekwondo can truly embrace," concludes Choi.
With its newly established Martial Arts Commission and its calling together of masters and students from all branches of the taekwondo community, the USAT is again establishing America as a dominant TKD force. With new masters joining the organization all the time, bringing with them their years of experience, the USAT will continue to offer the American taekwondo practitioner some of the best services available today under on umbrella.(End of article)
"The Martial Arts Commission is a way for USAT to connect to its historic roots and honor its founding members," explains USAT CEO David Askinas. "We have welcomed back so many grandmasters and masters who had grown apart from WSAT over the years. Many of these leaders had been looking for a way to give back to the sport and leave a legacy in the United States."
"We are inviting all taekwondo practitioners into the organization," says MAC public-relations representative David Lee. "We have no prblem with those people who were not trained in the same techniques utillized by the WTF. It is all about sharing ideas in order to come up with better ideas. I see this organization as growing by a compromise of ideas."
Joon Pyo Choi
"When Korean masters first immigrated to this country in the 1950's and 1960's, " Martial Arts Commission (MAC) Co-chairman Joon Pyo Choi explains, they came to teach taekwondo as a dynamic means to forge human character, especially for children in orderto make them strong and wise. They hoped their new country would embrace the virtues of the art. and they did.
"We are so proud that the USA has achieved prominence in Olympic taekwondo competition. The goal of this Martial Arts Commission is to make taekwondo stronger than ever as a healthy activity to nurture character development in our youth as a vehicle for our athletes to excel on the Olympic stage and as a common ground to build international relationships in the era of diversity."
Hong Kong Kim
States Martial Arts Commission Co-Chairman Hong Kong Kim. "The integration of taekwondo into mainstream American culture has spanned more than five decades and faced many challenges. Now is the time to reconcile the differences of the past and work together in the new millennium to preserve the history of taekwondo in the United States for the benefit of our children. We want to build bridges with in the national and international taekwondo communities that make it easier than ever for all to participate and contribute to our taekwondo initiative."
Source of Article: MA Success - November 2007 pages 53-57; Author Scott Shaw
