The International Taekwon-Do Federation
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The I.T.F is the organisation tasked with promoting the teaching of Taekwon-Do, its development and the maintenance of standards on a world-wide scale. It is legally registered in Austria and has its headquarters in Vienna.
The organisation was founded on March 22nd, 1966, by General Choi Hong Hi, the founder of Taekwon-Do and subsequentially the first president of the I.T.F. At that time, nine countries were involved: Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, West Germany, USA, Turkey, Italy, and Egypt. Taekwon-Do is now taught in almost every country in the world, and is represented in Europe by the A.E.T.F, which in turn is represented in Ireland by the I.N.T.A.
The importance of an international governing body cannot be over-emphasised. Instructors, being people too, naturally place their individual stamp and style onto the Taekwon-do they teach, and their students, in turn, will flavour these teachings with an element of their own interpretation when they become instructors. This is a natural sequence and is the main force behind the proliferation, not only of martial art styles, but of languages, fashions and philosophies. Unchecked, these snow-balling influences will culminate in an art completely and fundamentally changed from the original; it will be Taekwon-Do in name only.
General Choi spent a lifetime, from the age of 12 until his death at 84, studying, developing and teaching Taekwon-Do.
A student, we’ll call him Student A, can achieve a black belt rank in four years, begin teaching and produce another black belt, Student B, in another four years. Without a close connection to a national and international association and the wealth of experience and support that comes with it, a new student, Student C, learning Taekwon-Do from this line of instructors will learn, at best, most of what Student A absorbed in his four years studying General Choi’s teachings.
At worst, Student A and Student B together may easily have lost all but the most rudimentary elements of a life’s work. All this has happened, and happened in General Choi’s lifetime, as instructors left the I.T.F. to form their own associations, and in effect, their own styles, while for the most part keeping the name Taekwon-Do.
Chief amongst its fundamental values the I.T.F. website states that: The ITF and its affiliated organizations will strengthen and promote the legacy of General Choi as described in his Encyclopaedia of Taekwon-Do, notably the twenty-four patterns and the philosophy.
