Introduction

Tae kwon do (TKD), ‘a version of unarmed combat designed for the purpose of self-defence’ (Choi 2008, I: 23), is a young martial art emerging in the mid-twentieth century in Korea. Despite an emphasis on Korea in discussions of TKD's history, it shares with many martial arts a history that can be traced to the Chinese martial art of tang soo do, which dates back more than 2,000 years to warriors in the T'ang Dynasty (Lake Norman Tang Soo Do Academy 2001). The minimal recognition of non-Korean influence in the development of TKD has been discussed in relation to national identity. Presented as a Korean martial art, TKD encouraged a sense of nationalism that Koreans needed following the end of Japan's occupation in 1945 (Gillis 2008). However, the political and ideological split between North and South Korea filtered into historical accounts of TKD's beginnings and development with each laying claim to the art. Additionally, significant variations of TKD have developed; practitioners have divided into multiple groups all claiming greater authenticity than the others. The most well-known variants of TKD are the World TKD Federation (WTF) and the International TKD Federation (ITF). Although WTF is more popular (Gillis 2008), in this research I focus on ITF.