Changes and School Goals

I was recently made aware of changes that the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) is making to the interpretation of forms.  What else is new?  Olympic Sparring rules or equipment changes almost yearly.  With the popularity of the Hanmadang forms competition, it appears forms will start changing yearly now.

With these changes, I have to decide whether I am going to implement the changes that the WTF is making in how they perform the forms or teach them the way that I interpret them from the way I was taught them.  After seeing the differences in stance, I am keeping them as  we currently do them.

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Kenneth’s and Caleb’s Black Belt Promotions

The goal of my instruction is to prepare students for self-defense.  The new changes to the forms do not make it more effective for self-defense, so I am not making the changes.

This thought process can be controversial within martial arts because tradition is such a strong community value.  We tend to teach things the way we were taught, whether there are better ways or not.  We also tend to make the changes that the major organization want, whether we agree with them or not.

If you are making the changes at the behest of your organization and they fit the goals of your school, great.  But if you are making the changes and they don’t fit the goals of your school, I would not make the change.  We have a duty to provide our students with what they signed on for not to just follow the ever changing philosophy of the governing body.

jigoro-kano-at-28

Jigoro Kano at Age 28

When I first started my school, I taught what had been taught to me in the way it was taught to me.  After a while, I started seeing some things worked with my students and some things didn’t.  I began to make changes but the biggest change was the way that I looked at aligning school goals with my curriculum.

I was teaching Taekwondo primarily as a system of self-defense, while I had learned it as a form of competition.  To teach it as a form of self-defense, the curriculum had to modified a little to meet this goal.  It was not a 180 degree modification but it is different in a number of respects.  I began to envision the system differently, which is why I refer to our program as Zimmerman Self-Defense System.

You can compare how these requirements match other schools criteria.  Remember thee requirements meet my school’s goals.  If your  goals are different, your curriculum needs to be different.

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