History of Taekwondo


Back then, time there were three kingdoms:

  1. Koguryo (37 B.C. - 668 A.D.)
  2. Paekje (18 B.C. - 600 A.D.)
  3. Silla (57 B.C. - 935 A.D.)








Demonstrations were given all over the world. It took a while before real progress was made, but eventually, in 1973, the World Taekwondo Federation (W.T.F.) was founded. In 1980, W.T.F. Taekwondo was recognized by the International Olympic Commitee (I.O.C.) and became a demonstration sport at the Olympics in 1988. In the year 2000 taekwondo made its debute as an official olympic sport. There were several attempts to unify I.T.F. and W.T.F. Taekwondo, but unfortunately, these failed.


In the year 2000 taekwondo made its debute as an official olympic sport. Taken from a post in the



Dr. Un Yong Kim became the 5th President of the KTA in 1971. Dr. Kim subsequently became the 1st and only President of the WTF in 1973 and around 1990 he gave up the post of KTA President.

Mr. Choi, Sae-Chang became the 6th KTA President after Dr. Kim stepped down due to his expanded responsibilities in the International Sports community. Mr. Choi was a former four star general in the ROK Army and also held the post of Defense Minister. Mr. Choi was replaced by Mr. Rhee, Pil Gon in 1996.

The KTA is alive and well and probably is the largest, most active NGB for Taekwondo in the world. For more information, you can write to the KTA at the following address:

The Korea Taekwondo Association
#607, Olympic Center
88 Oryoon-dong, Songpa-ku
Seoul, Korea
Telephone: 420-4271
Fax: 420-4274

I.T.F. vs W.T.F.

[Gen. Choi]

As mentioned earlier, Gen. Choi established ITF-Taekwondo (which practices a more traditional form of taekwondo) while WTF-Taekwondo (which has a strong emphasis on sparring) became an olympic sport in 2000.

A good-will trip to North-Korea in 1966 caused General Choi to fall in disgrace in the eyes of the South-Koreans. Choi resigned as president of the K.T.A. and founded the I.T.F. on March, the 22nd of that same year. The headquarters of ITF were established in Canada.

ITF started concentrating on the forms developed by General Choi, while the KTA (which later, on May 28, 1973, became the WTF) concentrated on the Palgwe's. Later the WTF abandoned the Palgwe's and started concentrating on Taeguks. Slowly, the WTF emphasis turned to sparring. This is also the reason why a lot of people rather call (WTF) Taekwondo a martial sport than a Martial Art.

The American Taekwondo Association (ATA) is a smaller organization, and has many similarities to the ITF. The ATA has a copyright on the forms of the organization, so these forms cannot be used on competitions by non-members. There are many organizations, but the three mentioned above have the most members.

ITF practices the so-called 'semi-contact' part of Taekwondo, while WTF practices the so-called 'full-contact' part. ITF focuses more on the traditional way of taekwondo. Since the break-up, there have been many attempts to reunite WTF and ITF, so-far without success. There probably will never be a union within Taekwondo.
