The genesis

Many people practicing Taekwon-Do in the past were confused because of the fact that the guest instructor/master taught and explained the TKD techniques in a completely different way than the club coach.

Different masters were explaining the same aspects in different ways and the differences were a lot of times very significant.

In 1992 The Board of Directors of The Polish Taekwon-Do Association, noticing that these divergences in interpretation causes a lot of problems in teaching, judging at the exams and competitions, decided to standardize the performance of TKD techniques. The founder of Taekwon-Do, Gen. Choi Hong Hi, was at that time in his prime so he was the obvious choice to tackle this task.

In 1993 gen. Choi came to Poland for his first seminar, held from April 2 – 4 (Since 1987 the Technical Director for Poland was Master Choi Jung Hwa; from 1983 to 2003 instructors from North Korea taught Taekwon-Do in Poland.) I am not exaggerating when I say that Gen. Choi’s approach was a real shock for the participants. He discarded all the knowledge we had and started rebuilding the program from scratch. I remember how upset some of my friends were when gen. Choi showed us for the first time the sine wave or backward motion. But there was no point turning back. The seminar was recorded and then analyzed. The strenuous work on the standardization of all the techniques according to the pattern presented by gen. Choi in each Taekwon-Do Club in Poland was begun. Instructors received the footage from the seminar and began improving their skills at the Summer and Winter Central Camp.

To find out if we had assimilated gen. Choi’s way of performing all techniques, we organized another seminar. The seminar was held on from February 24-27, 1994 in Warsaw. There were 72 participants and an instructor from North Korea, Kim Jon Su. Gen Choi, noticing our enthusiastic and systematic approach to his teaching, began to focus on other details of techniques and patterns. I remember very well how we were correcting each other’s old habits. For us, it was a time of re-discovering Taekwon-Do. The third course was held March 17-19, 1995, and 94 people attended the seminar.

On October 25-27 1996, the fourth seminar was organized and there were 41 foreigners and 71 participants from Poland.

In 1997 gen. Choi came to Poland for the fifth time to conduct a seminar from December 15-17. There were 129 participants from 15 countries: Austria (2), Croatia (1), Czech (12), Finland (1), Latvia (2), Lithuania (1), Macedonia (1), Netherlands (3), Rep.of Serpska (4), Russia (3), Romania (3), Slovakia (2), Sweden (6), Uzbekistan (3), Yugoslavia (current Serbia, 1) and 84 from Poland.

The last seminar conducted by gen. Choi took place on October 1-3, 1999 and was totally international. After gen. Choi Hong Hi passed away, the ITF Technical Committee undertook the conducting of the IIC and continuing his work until through the present day. See report: http://www.tkd-itf.com/pub_web/pdf/2003-2008%20IIC%20bullettin.pdf.

The first IIC conducted by the ITF Technical Committee was held on October 7-9, 2005 in Lublin, Poland. In this seminar 75 trainers and instructors from Poland and 36 from abroad, in total 111 persons, representatives of 3 continents form 11 countries, took part (Argentina, Ukraine, Slovakia, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Poland). See report: http://www.itfeurope.org/NL2005-04-03.html For the next IIC in Poland we had to wait over four years.

49th IIC in Warsaw

The 49th IIC took place at the same time of the unfortunate and dramatic disappearance of our president Trân Triêu Quân during the earthquake in Haiti. All the participants were very worried about GM Tran, waiting for new information daily. At the beginning of the seminar GM Pablo Trajtenberg informed participants of the situation, and asked everyone to send prayers for the safe return home of our president.

The Seminar was organized by the Polish Taekwon-Do Association. Classes were held at the “Torwar” Sports Hall in Warsaw. The Taekwon-Do competitors are familiar with this sport hall since the XIII Senior European Championships also took place there.

The Association prepared the decoration (ceremony) suitable for this event. The big surprise was Mr. Janusz Wlizło’s exhibition, which was presented at the European Cup in Lublin for the first time.

The exhibition presents photos of gen. Choi Hong Hi, the best Polish Taekwon-Do competitors and the photos documenting the fame of Radzynska Akademia Taekwon-Do Club.

Although Taekwon-do practitioners are hardened, they will remember this seminar as a character-molding event. Warsaw welcomed everybody with 20-degree below zero severe frost, and over one meter of snow. Even though these freezing conditions were outside, for participants who do not normally experience that weather, it was a big shock taking breath away and painfully cooling down the body. It was their first experience with a real winter. One hundred twenty-three persons came to Warsaw to learn Taekwon-Do. There were representatives of 10 countries: Czech, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, and Poland. In the seminar 79 coaches and instructors from Poland took part. Fifty-three attendees had 4th degree and up, 8 persons held the title of master: Orello Ellis VIIIth Dan from England, Thomas Denis from England, Mark Hutton and George Dosoo from Scotland, Kenneth Weathley from Ireland, Tadeusz Loboda, Jerzy Jedut, Zbigniew Bujak from Poland, all VIIth Degree. All participants emphasised the high standards of the course.

The seminar ended with the exam. As a result six persons got promoted to higher degrees, two of which, Mr. Janusz Gutkowski from Poland and Mr. Swavek Dydiszko from Sweden joined the team of the ITF masters.

There is a tradition that the new promoted masters organize an official dinner, where they invite the examination board, masters participating in the seminar and their students and friends. This tradition was honored in Warsaw. More than 25 guests attended the banquet organized by Mr, and Mrs, Gutkowski and Mr, and Mrs, Dydiszko. Among them were participants of the IIC as well as the students of The Gutkowskis. The dinner was prepared by a student of Mr. Janusz Gutkowski from KS Taekwon Warszawa Club, Mr. Bayarkhuu Bayarsaikhan, who also attended the seminar. Mr. Bayarkhuu Bayarsaikhan is a chef in a Japanese restaurant in the big shopping center. He amazed everyone with the wide range of oriental dishes and astonishing flavours. The culinary curiosity was the dessert, ice cream wrapped in a hot rice cake. Some of the guests tried for the first time sushi, kimchi and other oriental delicacies.

Photos were taken by Ms. Katarzyna Rozwadowska and are available on the official website of the MKS Lewart Lubartow, see links below:

• http://lewart.pl/galeria.php?rok=2009&nazwa=dwac
• http://lewart.pl/galeria.php?rok=2009&nazwa=dwac2
• http://lewart.pl/galeria.php?rok=2009&nazwa=dwac3
• http://lewart.pl/galeria.php?rok=2009&nazwa=dwac4

Tadeusz Łoboda
Polish Taekwon-do Association President