Here is some major news. o­n September 23, 2003 the WTF is adopting
new competition rules and o­n September 24, 2003 they go into effect.
This is also the first day of competition for the World
Championships. The changes are thirteen pages long, so this is not a
minor change. I asked Chairman Lee for his comments regarding the
changes, but he hadn't seen them. I made him a copy of the new rules
which I will send to you as soon as I come back from the Games. You
can bet that the Korean Team is already practicing with the new rules
and the IRs from Korean are already proficient in applying the new
rules. This doesn't bode well for teams from other countries in the
World Championships. Also, look for a lot of mistakes by the IRs at
the World Championships which could result in lots of protests. Here
are a few highlights:
¨ Four deduction points before being disqualified
¨ Gamjeom for crossing the boundary line
¨ Crossing the boundary line with two feet out instead of o­ne
¨ One hand signal for everything
¨ Ties decided by the judges
¨ Changes to the Kyongo and Gamjeom categories

Bottom line is that we all have to be retrained and recertified.
There isn't a lot of time to get everybody trained before all of the
major competitions coming up. We need to setup a training course for
the US Team including the coaches so that we are prepared to do well
at the World Championships. I talked with the US coaches here
including Jean Lopez and asked how they planned to get educated but
they also weren't aware of the changes. If the USTU doesn't do this
training, it should be done independently. Hopefully, they will.
Should be fun!