Gen. Choi established ITF-Taekwondo, which practices a more traditional form of taekwondo, on March 22nd, 1966. WTF-Taekwondo has a strong emphasis on sparring and became an olympic sport in 2000. Although similar, ITF is a way of life and a true martial art. WTF is much more a martial sport due its singular focus on sparring.

A good-will trip to North-Korea in 1966 caused General Choi to fall in disgrace in the eyes of the South-Koreans. Choi resigned as president of the K.T.A. and founded the I.T.F. on March, the 22nd of that same year. The headquarters of ITF were established in Canada.

ITF started concentrating on the forms developed by General Choi, while the KTA (which later, on May 28, 1973, became the WTF) concentrated on the Palgwe's. Later the WTF abandoned the Palgwe's and started concentrating on Taeguks. Slowly, the WTF emphasis turned to sparring. This is also the reason why a lot of people rather call (WTF) Taekwondo a martial sport than a Martial Art.

The American Taekwondo Association (ATA) is a smaller organization, and has many similarities to the ITF. The ATA has a copyright on the forms of the organization, so these forms cannot be used on competitions by non-members. There are many organizations, but the three mentioned above have the most members.

ITF focuses more on the traditional way of taekwondo. ITF practices the so-called 'semi-contact' part of Taekwondo focusing on control. WTF practices the so-called 'full-contact' part. In practice both styles value vigorous sparring with full contact but while WTF awards points for a knock outs ITF competition rules explicitly prohibit them. Since the break-up of the two styles, there have been many attempts to reunite WTF and ITF, so-far without success.