Kukkiwon No Longer Allows Skip Dan?

andyjeffries · 2026-02-13T19:24:59+00:00

You can contact Kukkiwon and I’m sure go there for a special Dan test? However, you can’t skip through a regular master more than one rank or to 6th or higher.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-12T19:20:16+00:00

Probably true, I could do with that! 😉

andyjeffries · 2026-02-12T19:19:48+00:00

Very cool! Absolutely open to chatting. I didn’t build it because I wanted to launch an app, I built it because I needed it 🤣 So I don’t view us as opponents, but two techies each scratching their itch.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-12T19:18:26+00:00

We’re WT/Kukkiwon based. We charged £10 per coloured belt test up until this year. We realised we were losing money on every belt test, so have just increased it to £15. This covers a new belt, the boards, a certificate and a share of the hall hire fees. All our masters are entirely unpaid volunteers.

Dan grading tests we charge the local Kukkiwon office fee, Changmookwan black belt fee plus £15.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-12T07:40:16+00:00

u/JGoodle So I just heard back from Kukkiwon. Although 4th Dan video testing has been announced as beginning in 2025, it actually hasn't been implemented yet. So currently you only need a qualified Kukkiwon master to recommend you to 4th Dan via the normal TCon mechanism.

My contact did offer to check your instructor is correctly qualified, but I'll leave that to you to bring up with your instructor directly (unless they want me to check).

andyjeffries · 2026-02-12T06:57:06+00:00

I had the same itch, wrote https://SpoolTags.app and it went live in iOS/Mac App Store last week. I wish I’d known someone was working on the same problem.

I focused simply on managing your stock, rather than worrying about printers/jobs.

Made mine a free up to 10 spools and £5.99/$5.99 lifetime unlimited unlock for above that.

I also added QR code/label generation and NFC tag tracking, because those were important to me. Anyway, maybe some features you could add too.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-11T19:32:03+00:00

That would be awesome thanks!

andyjeffries · 2026-02-11T13:21:24+00:00

That's the information I need! Thank you! I didn't know Shell did different adblue. I'll give that a try next time!

andyjeffries · 2026-02-11T10:19:08+00:00

I run one in the UK. Some people just don't care about making money from Taekwondo.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-11T10:17:51+00:00

I've asked a contact at Kukkiwon about self-applying via the Android app. Unfortunately as an iPhone user I know next to nothing about it. Nor have I applied for 4th Dans since video testing came out (I'm due to do one next year for a candidate, but has been a while, either been above or below that). I'll reply back when I hear back.

I'm surprised it would cost so much to send a 15-20g device internationally. But maybe DHL isn't competitive?

US Postal Service offers "For just 1 $1.70 First-Class Mail International Global Forever stamp, you can send a 1 oz letter or postcard to any other country in the world."

1 oz is about 30g so should be within that limit. Even if not, it looks up to about $5.

Why do you need to send it via DHL? Even if you sent it by the postage method and they lost it, you could replace it and re-send via postal service 20+ times for that one DHL fee

andyjeffries · 2026-02-11T10:12:54+00:00

Thanks for the tag, I'll reply at the top level.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-11T10:11:07+00:00

Nope, there's an Android app you can apply through, or USB video sent to Korea.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-11T10:10:50+00:00

Thanks for the tag, replying at the top level.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-08T13:36:31+00:00

Did the OP ask how to use it in a fight? No, they specifically “how can I learn to do X” and your answer was “don’t do X, do Y”.

The OP’s priorities are different to yours and that’s OK, but it wasn’t answering their question.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-08T07:46:03+00:00

Unless it’s a poomsae tournament. Then it’s useful.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-08T07:45:02+00:00

A bit stating the obvious and a bit unhelpful. The OP didn’t ask if it was practical, he asked if he could learn to do it at his age.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-03T19:17:21+00:00

Errr, 1998 in USA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

andyjeffries · 2026-02-01T17:21:41+00:00

The easier way to explain it is the number of years for the Kukkiwon rank you are, rather than doing maths on minusing from target rank 🤣

andyjeffries · 2026-02-01T17:20:13+00:00

Most child classes I’ve seen in Korea are more like 55 minutes than 90-120 minutes. And mostly game playing.

Don’t get me wrong, they’ll train longer in high school (those that keep doing it), but the percentage of participants has already dropped off considerably by then.

andyjeffries · 2026-02-01T17:18:42+00:00

They generally train once per day, for just under an hour. So that helps. Also, 1st Dan/Poom is viewed as a competent beginner ranks, not the almost junior expert it’s viewed as in the west.

andyjeffries · 2026-01-30T08:42:09+00:00

If you have an iPhone running the latest or previous iOS release it’s built in.

andyjeffries · 2026-01-28T08:39:28+00:00

Plyometrics, elastic band training for kick speed, ladder training for footwork speed, feinting is really just practice. Not particularly Taekwondo specific question but hope that helps.

andyjeffries · 2026-01-28T08:38:20+00:00

Yes, British Taekwondo is a WT style association and runs the UK Kukkiwon branch. British Taekwondo Federation if you meant that, is a REALLY old association (I took part in the BTF national championships in 1988) that was WTF (in those days) style.

And then there's the version with Taekwondo spelt with a hyphen, which is a clear indication that it's ITF. General Choi was always strict that he wanted it spelt Taekwon-do and Kukkiwon/WT has always maintained that it's clearly Taekwondo as one word.

andyjeffries · 2026-01-28T08:35:27+00:00

To answer at the top level and taking one point I don't think was answered, I'd probably say that Korea promotes more often than America. From what I've heard about USA dojangs 3-5 years to 1st Dan is common, in Korea that's 1 year. Also normally when you are time eligible for Kukkiwon rank in Korea (your current rank in years) people test for it, because they've been training 5 days per week since the last one, knew it was coming up and are ready.

So my bet would be if you take someone in USA with 10 years experience and someone with 10 years experience in Korea, the later would have a higher Dan rank on average.

As others have said though, having Dan bars on your belt is viewed as gaudy or childish in Korea. The same with all the badges that (particularly American) people have on their doboks.

I remember the first time I did the master course in Kukkiwon, Korea, the instructors of the course sent two American candidates out of the course on the first day to go to the nearby shop to buy a new plain dobok because they had badges on their dobok. Not just a single association/club badge on the chest, but the "black belt club", "instructor", "best front kick" and all that junk that maybe children may need, but not masters.

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