The begining of the Kukkiwon

[terryl965]

Well Korea needed something to call there own and TKD was there way of claiming independents for itself and seperate itself from other Martial Arts. By the way I just got off the phone with G.M. Sung Kim out in California and he said that he remembers the day they formally meet and began the transformation and what his Master said this is a sad day and that the beginning of a new era was going to hurt the concept of what we call now TKD. He says he also remember his G.M. not liking the unification but it was not much any of them could really do because it was not them but for a country looking for something to call there own. I wish that I could have talked longer but when I go out there this summer I will get more info and pass it along.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

The purpose of KKW wasn't to elimate individual kwan identity,
or to homogenize them into a single style. It was to create
a common template for equivalence between the kwans. Sure,
some traditions were modified to conform to the shared guidelines
(moreso for some kwans, I'm sure, than others), but the intent
was not that identity would be sacrificed for it.

But that was the end result. Anytime the government takes control of anything, individual identities are lost. And I do believe that was their specifica intent to both "elimate individual kwan identity," and "to homogenize them into a single style."

A simple look at the treatment of the Kwans in the Kukkiwon's history section makes this pretty evident. The SK government wanted a single, marketable style and label for that style. They wanted that style to be disconnected from karate, and indeed, to compete with karate. The kwans represent a link between taekwondo and karate, as most of the kwan founders, from what I understand, had Shotokan rankings and early TKD was very Shotokan-ish.

Smaller entities which represent a link to Japan were not desireable, so they were united and the work began to distance taekwondo from karate. False histories were created that relegate the kwans to being just some schools that practiced a 2000-5000 year old art, the influence of karate never being mentioned. Never mind that it essentially is karate.

Daniel