Ambassador Choi was the “principal founder” of Taekwondo as credited by the Encyclopedia Britannica. As a founding member of the south Korean Army, he taught martial arts to the soldiers assigned to him from 1946. He named Taekwondo and promoted it endlessly as the Korean Martial Art of Self Defense. He was the Vice President of a short-lived Taekwon-Do Association of Korea in 1957. He formed the Korean Taekwon-Do Association (KTA) in 1959 and served as the first President. Also, in 1959 he wrote the first book on Taekwondo and led the Military Taekwon-Do Demonstration Team to Vietnam and Taiwan, marking the first time ever Taekwondo was performed abroad.
General Choi would devise 26 Patterns or Tuls. These were the first Korean forms ever created. In 1962 he personally introduced Taekwondo to Malaysia when he was assigned there as the first Korean Ambassador. In 1965 he led a Korean government sponsored Kukki Taekwon-Do Goodwill tour around the world. The tour formed the base in 1966 for creating International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF), the world’s first global governing body for Taekwondo. This marked the first time ever that Korea was home to any international organization. The ITF would grow to have millions of members in well over a hundred countries and he would preside over 17 of their World Championships during his lifetime. General Choi traveled the world tirelessly to teach and promote the original Taekwondo. He authored 5 books on the subject, many of which had numerous editions and several reprints. His written works have been translated into at least 8 languages. He also oversaw the development of various sets of electronic recordings of what he created, making it the most documented Martial Art ever.
22 авг 2024
