The April 2026 issue (Issue 206) of Totally Tae Kwon Do features an article by three members of the OITF Germany leadership.
In their article “The Pattern Beneath the Pattern”, Pavel Tyan, Iurii Golovin and Alexander Hauptfleisch propose reading the ITF tuls on two levels. If the 24 tuls are ordered by the historical era of their namesakes instead of by belt rank, they form an arc through Korean history: from Chon-Ji and Dan-Gun at the start to Tong-Il, the tul for reunification.
A single tul can also be read as a narrative. Using Chon-Ji and Dan-Gun as the example, the authors show how name, movement sequence and position in the curriculum reflect the Korean triad of Heaven, Earth and Human.
For the dojang, they suggest telling the historical background of a tul’s name when introducing it and asking students for their own interpretation. In this way the tradition stays alive.
Pavel Tyan, Iurii Golovin, Alexander Hauptfleisch: The Pattern Beneath the Pattern – Reading ITF Tuls as Personal and Historical Narrative. Totally Tae Kwon Do, Issue 206, April 2026, p. 5. Information about the issue: totallytkd.com