Good Luck in Moscow

Returning to my hometown brought back many memories but my work in bringing Taekwondo to the world was not done. I delivered two ten-hour seminars over two days in Pyong-yang before heading to Moscow.

I sat thinking on the plan, realizing that I had been flying on North Korean airplanes for eleven years. It was expensive – a ticket from Toronto to Beijing was cheaper than from Pyong-Yang to Moscow. It also had to be purchased in American dollars.

While in Moscow, I dropped in on Colonel Jung-Chan Kim, the North Korean military attaché. He had good news for me. “My sources tell me that the Soviets are willing to implement ITF Taekwondo teaching into their training program,” he said. “They chose your version because you are the founder. It will be taught to the entire army.”

There was an element of pride in the decision. The military was an incubator for Olympic medalists in the country and they realized that civilian practitioners were far more advanced than their military counterparts at that stage.

Very pleased, I told them how I managed to build Taekwondo in the South Korean military and suggested that an instructor-training course could be scheduled for that very summer.

I returned to my travels, heading to Greece and the Netherlands for more seminars. While in transit, I was informed that I had a meeting scheduled with the Soviet Union’s Minister of Defense. I had a scheduling conflict, so I could not meet him at the appointed time.

In that case, I was lucky. A week later, he was fired for trying to kidnap Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. ITF Taekwondo would probably not be as prosperous in Russia today if it was associated with kidnappers.