|
||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
 |
||||||||||||||
|
ITFNZ HistoryFrom the book: Beginners' Training Manual by Paul McPhail For Key dates in ITFNZ history click here
Many martial arts were introduced into New Zealand by military servicemen returning home after receiving their training overseas. Judo (considered as more of a sport rather than a martial art), was the first to form a national organisation in Easter 1957. Karate was started in the early 60’s by pioneers such as Jack Simms (Auckland) and John Jarvis (Wellington). The first Korean art to start was Tang Soo Do, which began in a Petone garage in 1965. Al Powers and Frank Bauer had learnt Tang Soo Do in Korea as a part of their armed forces service. The art was originally known as Su Bak Do and was basically the same as Shotokan Karate. Al Powers moved the club to the Petone Junior School in 1967. The first groups of Taekwon-Do exponents got together in 1969. One group was at Palmerston North’s Massey University under a Malaysian, Raymond Yap who trained others on the campus being mainly his countrymen. The other group was in Auckland under John Jarrett, an Australian who was one of the early pioneers of Taekwon-Do in Australia. John Jarrett trained in both Malaysia and Vietnam while on a tour of duty with the R.A.A.F.
Between 1971 and 1974 Norman Ng and Willie Lim began to make contact and discuss the idea of getting together to conduct gradings. Norman Ng had been grading his own members until this time and Willie Lim had periodically invited overseas examiners for his gradings. They did get together occasionally, but in the main kept contact through correspondence only.
Evan Davidson had learnt Taekwon-Do in Singapore. He returned from his
army training and formed the Miramar Taekwon-Do club in 1974. He established
contact with the other instructors throughout the country and it was largely
due to his enthusiasm that clubs started getting together for trainings
and demonstrations.
(Click to enlarge) A Korean student, Lee Sung Yoon, was also instrumental in bringing many of the Taekwon-Do people into contact with each other. Lee, who later became the Vice President of Han Nam University in Korea, was a 3rd dan (Korean Taekwon-Do Association) who did not actually have a club but assisted local instructors in any way he could. It was he who rang Evan Davidson informing him that a Korean, Young Ku Yun, was coming to Hamilton.
Willie Lim had organised Young Ku Yun to come to Hamilton for a grading and students from Palmerston North and Wellington were invited to watch. At this time Norman Ng was looking for an examiner to grade his 1st gups, Ian McDonald and Robert Moar. Unfortunately an amicable arrangement was unable to be reached. However this opportunity provided a meeting between Young Ku Yun and Norman Ng, a meeting that would begin communication between Yun and the New Zealand instructors. 1975 also saw the arrival of World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) in New Zealand. The WTF was formed in 1973 as a rival organisation to General Choi’s International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF). Lee Jung Nam had been an examiner in Singapore (he graded Evan Davidson and Ben Mose as coloured belts), and he arrived in New Zealand to set up clubs under the WTF. The Korean Embassy contacted Evan Davidson and arranged a meeting with Lee Jung Nam and some other members. Lee wanted assistance to get established. However Evan Davidson did not want to be involved as it meant learning new patterns and changing to WTF. Lee’s influence on other members including Ben Mose, Sonny Ooi and the chairman of the New Zealand Martial Arts Council, Graham Dellow, meant he was eventually sponsored to live in New Zealand, thereby setting up WTF. In December, Young Ku Yun came to Wellington and apparently had quite a heated discussion with Lee Jung Nam at a Wellington hotel. Although no-one knows what was said, it was all in high volume Korean! By early 1976 all ITF clubs in New Zealand were unified under the Australian Taekwon-Do Academy (ATA). However Willie Lim and Charles Wee (Auckland University) then became independent. In a letter to Evan Davidson he explained that he was not happy with some of Young Ku Yun’s grading results, some of the politics, and that he would prefer to organise his own examiners as he needed them. On 26 May 1976 General Choi Hong Hi visited New Zealand to meet instructors. See newspaper clipping and Photos. Gradings continued throughout 1976 and some members attended training in Sydney. In 1977 most of the New Zealand instructors attended a week-long seminar in Sydney. See group photo. In 1977 demonstrations were planned to promote Taekwon-Do. Regional and national committees were set up to organise them. A team from Australia assisted with the demonstrations. They were held at venues such as the Palmerston North Opera House in January 1978. See photos In conjunction with the demonstrations, the first training camp was held at Massey University from January 9-14 1978. The first South Pacific Taekwon-Do Championships were held in Wellington on the 22nd January with competing teams from New Zealand, Australia and Fiji. General Choi Hong Hi was in attendance and promoted Young Ku Yun to 7th dan. Members at the Massey University
training camp attending lecture on etiquette.
Unfortunately the national headquarters was to close by the end of November 1978 and Bernie Korent returned to Australia. Between 1979 and 1981 some noted events took place. The first Regional Taekwon-Do tournament was held in Palmerston North on 16 June 1979 and later that year Young Ku Yun moved his Headquarters from Sydney to Brisbane. In January of 1981 New Zealand members travelled to Brisbane to attend the second South Pacific Taekwon-Do Championships in the presence of General Choi and Master C.K.Choi. The tournament was preceded with a week long seminar attended by members from New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Indonesia. A meeting was held and General Choi asked all instructors to return to their countries, form national bodies and register them as Incorporated Societies. See photos of the seminar and tournament. So on Saturday 28 March 1981 the following members attended a meeting at the Burma Lodge in Wellington to form the International Taekwon-Do Foundation (NZ) Inc.: Padre Tairea (Waiouru), John Moran (Stokes Valley), Mike Ratana (Upper Hutt), Tere Maorikava (Auckland), Wayne Joseph (Wellington), Harry Hemana (Upper Hutt), Francis Ting (Wellington), Mark Cotton (Upper Hutt), Nick Moke, (Upper Hutt), Russell McBride (Upper Hutt), Tufa Fau (Wellington), Ian Matheson (Wellington), Roy Tapuni (Upper Hutt), George Taylor (Wellington), Norman Ng (Palmerston North), Evan Davidson (Khandallah), Richard Hall (Palmerston North), Sonny Ooi (Wellington), Francis Karauti (Miramar), Peter Graham (Miramar), Paul McPhail (Palmerston North), Paul Meyrick (Miramar). For the name of the national body the following motions were put. They are in order of preference. • International Taekwon-Do Federation of New Zealand (Wayne
Joseph) The name ‘International Taekwon-Do Federation of New Zealand’ was not accepted by the Registrar of Incorporated Societies as it was too close to the name ‘New Zealand Taekwondo Federation’ already registered by the WTF. Evan Davidson came up with the idea of changing ‘Federation’ to ‘Foundation’ so the initials ITF could be retained, and this was accepted. The first executive committee of the Foundation were: President Bill McPhail
In the committee’s first year of office they undertook to, and successfully sent a black belt team to the Asian Championships in Indonesia, early 1982. All clubs were asked to donate money to finance the trip as there were no funds to draw on at this early stage. The tournament turned out to be a poorly run affair with some suspect judging. Things went from bad to worse when some of the team received death threats. This pressure on the Indonesians to win at all costs was something the New Zealand team had also witnessed in Brisbane in 1981. The Indonesians would borrow trophies from other countries to pose for their team photos! Wellington was by far the strongest region for Taekwon-Do at this time. Padre Tairea had moved from Waiuru and set up a huge club in Porirua. Evan Davidson opened a second branch, and clubs in Upper Hutt, Stokes Valley and Wellington Central enjoyed large memberships. In contrast, Auckland had only a few clubs mainly in the South, which would eventually become independent, leaving no clubs in Auckland by 1982. The man to turn this around was Graeme (Rocky) Rounthwaite. When the Otahuhu club withdrew from Young Ku Yun, he set up a club in Pakuranga. His larger-than-life personality and enthusiasm, coupled with new teaching ideas from his wife Trish met with instant success and the club had 100 members and a waiting list — unheard of at that time. The club was very innovative and was later to produce more black belts than any other, setting up the expansion of the Auckland region.
The next official trip away for New Zealanders was again to Brisbane, this time to a seminar conducted by Master Park Jung Tae, 8th dan in May 1984. At the completion of the seminar the Kiwis were asked to organise an international tournament in New Zealand to be held the following year. This was to be the Sharp International and instructors returned home to plan the event. See Newspaper clippings and photos. The tournament organiser was Charles Birch, a Miramar member who had experience organising international hockey tournaments. In many ways he helped to get things running well within New Zealand. As well as achieving national television coverage and a major sponsor for the tournament, he also established organisational systems which are still in place today such as the regional cells. Others who made exceptional contributions towards the tournament were Harry Hemana, Sonny Ooi and Steve Mulholland. Seven countries attended the tournament including Japan and the United States. The ITF Vice President, Chon Jin Shik, donated $10 000 to ITFNZ which really enabled the Foundation to make some headway.
Later in the year ITFNZ held its first national black belt championships in Auckland, followed by a black belt seminar at Massey University. Members of the ITFNZ Executive Committee - At Taupo, 1986: January 23rd 1988 saw the second national training camp at Massey University, which was then made an annual event. 1988 saw members travelling to Brisbane for seminars with Young Ku Yun. 1989 was a major turning point in the history of Taekwon-Do in New Zealand. ITFNZ, until now under the Young Ku Yun banner, was to become independent, and it would take another book to explain in detail the reasons for all this happening. The events that took place were to split the organisation apart. Each and every instructor had to decide which way they were to go. Young Ku Yun’s exit from the ITF, the inevitable introduction of new patterns, coupled with financial concerns, had caused an explosion of discontent within the ranks. A letter was composed by the executive committee to address the situation. Unfortunately this controversial letter was leaked to Young Ku Yun in its early draft form and he replied by expelling four of the executive committee members: Peter Graham, Steve Mulholland, Paul McPhail and Viv Holmes. The Foundation decided to hold a Special General Meeting with a motion put to disassociate ITFNZ from Young Ku Yun. The meeting turned out to be a valuable learning experience for the executive as far as tightening up voting procedures for the future. At this extraordinary meeting held at the Waipuna Lodge in Auckland, many heated arguments took place followed by a bizarre vote. The pro-Foundation instructors followed the rules and lodged votes according to their current active membership. The pro-Yun camp lodged their votes based on their life membership numbers supplied to them by Young Ku Yun via the Waipuna lodge foyer payphone 5 minutes before the meeting. The Yun camp had played a card the executive had no defence against so the votes were counted. Unbelievably the votes ended up dead even and the meeting disbanded with no firm outcome. The final result of all this was that the Foundation retained two thirds of the membership. The majority of instructors supported the executive and those who had been expelled. In the end, most opted for a New Zealand organisation run by New Zealanders rather than one controlled from overseas. A massive task lay ahead for the Foundation. A new logo had to be designed, badges, forms, membership cards, certificates and a mountain of new paperwork produced. New examiners and sub-committees were appointed. The Foundation launched into 1990 with a new enthusiasm which saw 125 members participate in the opening of the Commonwealth Games, and a national demonstration team touring throughout the country. The year concluded with a team travelling to the United States to train and meet with General Choi Hong Hi and re-establish links with the ITF. This was successful and General Choi and Master C.E.Sereff, President of the United States Taekwon-Do Federation (USTF), were invited to New Zealand to conduct a seminar in January of 1991. With the help and support of Master Sereff, ITFNZ was able to put in place systems for examining senior dans. In January of 1992 Palmerston North hosted a World Camp and senior dan grading with participants from Australia, USA and Holland. See photos New Zealand then had a third team attend the USTF camp in Colorado in July 1993 and in October hosted an ITF training course in Auckland conducted by General Choi and Master Sereff. 1994 saw ITFNZ send a team to the ITF World Champs held in Malaysia with Mark Rounthwaite bringing home a bronze medal in patterns. The Foundation, under the Presidency of Mr Peter Graham, continued with its philosophy of trying to have as many people as possible benefit from its endeavours by bringing guest instructors to New Zealand to teach, motivate and update skills. With this in mind Master Tom McCullum attended the national camp in Palmerston North in January 1995. The late 1990's saw more interaction between the various Taekwon-Do groups, in particular with the emergence of the Taekwondo Union - a break-away WTF group. The late 90's also saw a move to have teams sent to the ITF World Championships following our first exposure to competition at this level in 1994. Teams were sent to Russia in 1997 (Womens Team Bronze medal), Argentina in 1999 (Mens Power Breaking Bronze). In 1998 General Choi again visited New Zealand for a seminar, accompanied by his son Master Choi Jung Hwa and Master Tom MacCallum. Later that year a team travelled to Maui, Hawaii for an International Instructors course and senior grading conducted by Grand Master CE Sereff. We also had a junior team compete in Texas USA. The new Millennium got off to an exciting start with New Zealand Hosting a World Camp and the Junior Team competing in North Korea for the Junior World Champs. (Bronze in Individual Sparring). In 2001 there will be a team representing New Zealand at the 12th World Champs to be held in Italy, July 2001.
Front row: Back Row:
1970 1974 1975 26 May 1976 9 January 1978 22 January 1978 20 August 1978 16 June 1979 5 January 1981 28 March 1981 28 March 1981 21 August 1983 26 May 1984 10 October 1985 Hosted the Sharp International Tournament in Wellington, televised nationwide. Teams from USA and Japan in attendance plus Mr Chon Jin Shik. ITFNZ becomes Sister Organisation to USTF. 3 August 1986 20 September 1986 23 January 1988 1988 1989 January 1990 12 March 1990 January 1991 January 1992 October 1993 1994 1995 1996 July 1997 January 1998 June 1998 April 1999 September 1999 August 2000 July 2001 September 2001 March 2002 November 2002 |
|||||||||||||
|
 |
 |
||||||
Jarrett’s
group became the first public Taekwon-Do club with the arrival of three
Malaysian students, Lim, Mak & Yeoh. With encouragement and help from
John Jarrett they started a class in April of 1970 at the premises of
the then Auckland Judo Academy. They began with a membership of about
thirty people. Shortly after Charles Wee started another class at Selwyn
College in Auckland but the two clubs soon merged into one. The Malaysian
students were soon posted to different parts of the country. Mak &
Yeoh went to Wellington, Wee remained in Auckland and Willie Lim moved
to Hamilton and opened a club at Waikato University in April 1971.
The
first club in Palmerston North began in 1970. Norman Ng, a naturalised
New Zealand citizen, learnt Taekwon-Do from Low Koon Lim and Nam Tae Hi
(8th dan) when he was lecturing at the University of Malaysia in Kuala
Lumpar. In December 1969, after three years training, he was awarded the
1st degree black belt, returned home and settled in Palmerston North.
Raymond Yap made contact with him and invited him to take some trainings
at Massey in March 1970. At one of these sessions he met with Jack Simms
who was visiting from Auckland and conducting Karate classes. In March
1970 a group of local Chinese approached him to take them for lessons.
In August 1970 the club was opened to members of the public and the Palmerston
North Taekwon-Do club was born.
Young
Ku Yun was a 6th dan international instructor who had set up in Sydney
in 1971. He had learnt Tae Su Do in Korea and came to know of General
Choi Hong Hi while serving his National Army Service. He learnt the Taekwon-Do
patterns and became a member of a demonstration team touring Indonesia,
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong. He had planned to move to
the United States but was unable to get a visa so decided to settle in
Australia.
By
this time Young Ku Yun had established good contact with local instructors
and had arranged to come to conduct gradings in Wellington and Palmerston
North and also run a seminar at Victoria University. Instructors then
began teaching Young Ku Yun’s style of Taekwon-Do.
In
1978, an Australian, Bernie Korent moved to Auckland to establish a national
headquarters for Taekwon-Do. It was officially opened on 17 August 1978
and located on the first floor of the Eden Buildings, 117 Albert Street,
Auckland. The first goal was to run a National tournament and on 19 August
members from all over New Zealand gathered for this event which was held
at the Auckland Y.M.C.A.
In
August 1986 members attended "
In
February 2001 the NZ TKD Academy, headed by Mr Harry Hemana, merged with
ITFNZ, bringing together the two major ITF Taekwon-Do organisations in
New Zealand. Pictured are the group who attended this historic meeting,
including Executive and senior members from both organisations.
