Friday, 7 March 2025

Why does "ITF" forms feel so much more "advanced"?

This last year I have done a deep dive and really focused on


learning all ITF forms up to and including Gae-Baek Hyung. I say "ITF forms" but I should probably call them either Oh Do Kwan (that is where my "project" took me) or Chang Hon forms. I do not do Sine Wave (and I do not think I will ever do that), and the forms I have been learning is far too outdated to be called ITF forms, as the ITF have done a lot of changes. The standard I am keeping as close as possible to is the 1965 book by Choi Hong Hi. After that book was published a lot of things were changed, and over time Sine Wave which was possibly the biggest change was implemented in the 1980s. After he died the ITF splintered into an insane number of different ITFs and they in turn made their own changes. I am going off a tangent here:-P What I wanted to write about was the feeling I had when learning these forms when I had a firm Taegeuk and Judanja/Black Belt Poomsae background. I talked with a fellow Taekwondoin (Taekwondo person) about the feeling I had when learning the forms that every single one after Chon-Ji Hyung felt like learning a black belt poomsae.