It always surprises me that there is more Olympic Style Taekwondo clubs outside the control of their national federations than inside.
While the national federations enjoy the luxury of state funding for the minority of people who will actually become Olympic athletes, the rest of us struggle week by week to buy second hand and out of date equipment.
But what makes us non-federation clubs different? We are happy. We don't have some self appointed black belts telling us we need to pay huge fees to join their organisation.
At a recent non federated taekwondo Tournment in Portugal, I watched as clubs from around the world battled it out in an amazing display of taekwondo as it should be.
Coaches, one by one hugged their students as they entered and exited the rings, regardless of whether they won or lost.
At first I was surprised as I have attend federation Competions and rarely see this display of friendlyness. Then I got it. The athletes in the Portugal competion were the actual students of the coaches. Whereas, in federation competitons, the athletes are not the students of the coach and in many cases the coach has very little background information on the student.
The federation athlete is part of a system. Succeed and they will keep you, fail and you are dropped.
Non federation athletes, your instructor wants what is best for you only. It is always great to get a win but if you don't, never mind, there is always next time.
So are ferderations bad ? Absolutely not. They do a good job but are are often controlled by people who have one agenda, to be in CONTROL.
My wish is, we will host an all inclusive world championships for federated and non federated students. This would be a true world championships not a federated only world championships. Why would I bother to include the federated students? Students will only ever do what the believe is right. It's not a students fault they are federated. Time usually makes them leave.