Taekwon-Do Became Korea’s Greatest Gift To The World Taekwon-Do came of age after a lengthy devastating occupation, a brutal civil war and the constant and continuing cold war standoff that was the result of an unfair division of its homeland by foreign powers. It was TaekwonDo that was South Korea’s first export. The internalization of Taekwon-Do began under General Choi’s visionary leadership in 1959, when others in Korea were still using the Karate based names. The rapid globalization mirrored the rise in the economic power of Korea. Taekwon-Do became Korea’s greatest gift to the world. This present was well received all over the planet. In 1980 two milestone events took place. One was the acceptance of the World Taekwondo Federation’s (WTF) combat sport by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as a sport, but not yet entering their official program. The other was General Choi’s diplomatic efforts to introduce Taekwon-Do to the northern half of Korea for the first time. This historic event was especially ironic, since the north would embrace the original Taekwon-Do that began in their enemy, the south’s ROK Army. General Choi’s purpose was to show that through Taekwon-Do, one could make friends with former enemies. In the United States, in a rural state called Iowa, back in 1980, as Taekwon-Do was firmly centered on the world stage, a Korean-American TaeKwon-Do Master launched a publication called TaeKwonDo Times. The Pioneer was named Kim Chung-Eun. This magazine began in the back of his DoJang in Davenport. About a year later other notable Korean Pioneer Grandmasters would join this effort, taking the nascent magazine from a small publication to one of national prominence. These Pioneers were Grandmasters Sang Kyu Shim, Jung Nam Lee and current CEO and Publisher Woo-Jin Jung. A friend of Grandmaster Jung’s Dr. Yang Ahn, a medical doctor, also financially supported this effort. 66 January 2021 / taekwondotimes.com
The new TaeKwonDo Times team ensured that the publication would grow rapidly. Not only was the expansion international, but TKD Times outlasted numerous other print magazines. For over 40 years, TKD Times survived as the only international publication. The success can be tied to the submissions of TaeKwonDo enthusiasts from around the world. As TaeKwon-Do progressed, so did TKD Times. In 2006 Grandmaster Jung Woo-Jin became CEO and Publisher. The international office for TKD Times was relocated to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. For over 15 years, under the leadership of Grandmaster Jung, TKD Times took a prominent role in uniting the world through Martial Arts. A long held dream of General Choi was to use his Taekwon-Do to reunite his beloved homeland of Korea. His final Pattern he named TONGIL, which denotes the reunification of Korea. Grandmaster Jung was handed the “baton” of General Choi’s Taekwon-Do Diplomacy, when the General passed away in 2002. The efforts of TKD Times to host a TaekwonDo team from North Korea since the early 1990’s proved successful when teams toured the USA both in 2007 and 2011, making history! Taekwon-Do and TKD Times made this possible, due to the perseverance and vision of Grandmaster Jung and his staff. These efforts led to an unprecedented level of cooperation between the two major TaeKwonDo organizations, the ITF and WTF. Many notable agreements of significance took
