Please join me in welcoming Master Earl Weiss, 7th Dan in Chang Hon TKD with the USTF.If I am not mistaken, one of the last few to test for his Master rank under the late General Choi Hong Hi, founder of the ITF. I have had the privledge of training with him at his dojang in the Chicago area. Please pay attention, he is VERY knowledgable. Glad to see you posting here sir.

VDJ

Welcome, Earl. We look forward to your contributions.

Glad to have you as part of our forum. I look forward to reading your posts.

Scottie

A master in our midst!!!!!! Trained with the general himself you say!?!?!??!!! This really is a privilage

Who?

Welcome....rei

Many thanks for the warm reception.

Earl Weiss

Mr. Weiss,
I hope you will enjoy the site. As a bit of a warning there can be a bit of a "Dogpile on the new guy" experience when first posting. You will probably get to hear a litany of comment about the uselessness of tkd. Sorry. Be patient with the Chuckleheads. I hope you stay will be lenghty and enjoyable.

Welcome as well. It is always nice to have somebody that appreciates and understands the art Taekwondo. Of course like Oldman said, you will have to put up with a lot of nonsense but if you can filter past this then things can be okay.

I've found in the past that the Taekwondo forum has been a lot of the younger generation coming aboard and some of the questions are ... well you know. You can't blame them for their excitement though.

If I could suggest, don't limit yourself to just this Forum but stop in at Martial Art Talk where all arts are discussed. I think others could benefit from your knowledge ... and you may as well benefit from theirs.

Dereck

Welcome sir. I look forward to hearing your insights.

onb

As I am not familiar with the US-Taekwondo-scene and also not familiar with ITF, I would be curious to know what Mr. Weiss is thinking of the different approach of Taekwondo in USA, Europe and Asia.
Is there a basic difference in teaching and is there a difference in intensity or quality.
I am looking forward to an answer.
- I only know that amongst WTF schools in USa there are incredibles difference. On the one hand you have extraordinnaryly succesfull fihters (Lopez family) and on the other hand there are black belts who are only on European green-belt level.- Not to provoke, but out of expreriencde

Being near O'Hare airport I get many vsitors. I also get people on temporary job transfers and students at nearby universities who came from other locations. As Mr. DJ said on any given night I may have had students from Poland, The Czech Republic, Siberia, Canada, and of course the USA. If they all had up to date ITF instructors I could put them on the floor and have them do a pattern together with little or no prior experience of having them be together. For most people it would be difficult to see that they had practiced at Gyms many thousands of miles apart.

Having judged at 2 ITF Championships, Russia and Italy, and an International Championships in Orlando, I can confidently say 90% of the people had only nominal technical differences. Now, I will say that there are certainly individual differences. I have a gentlemen who tested for 1st Dan at age 70. I am not going to compare him to the International competitor age 30 from Canada. Also, I run a somewhat recreational club. 3 Classes a week for Adults. I would not compare my recreational student to someone training 5 hours a day.

Addittionaly, it seems that some schools are more hard core than others. I often wonder aloud if some countries jsut have fewer distrations than the USA which allows more time to dedicate to a single thing like TKD.

Thank you for answering my question.
I think there is only a lot of talking around certain exceptions some experienced or heard about. I did not meet too many athletes from the U.S. and of course those who go abroad for tournaments are not average. They have all been tough and skilled fighters.
I think the big difference is that in Europe one cannot understánd how some children at the age of 12or 13 can be blackbelts. And of course they aren´t on same level as older and more experienced black-belts. Also there is a lot of talking on McDojang in this board. So some of US-Americans also feel that there is some big ifference in education between different schools....but as I understand that are only exceptions and in general there is no big difference between European and US-American black-belt level.
Thank you so far