If you've ever tried to answer the question of how many forms there are in Taekwondo, you've probably discovered that the answer changes depending on who you ask. An ITF practitioner will talk about 24 tul. A WT practitioner will mention Taegeuk and nine advanced forms. A veteran from the nineties might insist on Palgwe. This guide organizes that landscape so you know what forms exist, which ones are competed today, and which are worth learning even if they don't appear in your belt curriculum.
01Why the question doesn't have a single answer
Taekwondo is not a single organization, and that explains the initial confusion. The ITF branch, founded by Choi Hong Hi in 1966, codified its own form repertoire, called tul (틀). The Kukkiwon-WT branch, which is the Olympic federation, developed a parallel system with the Taegeuk poomsae (품새) and a group of advanced forms. Before the Taegeuk, moreover, there were the Palgwe, which many dojangs continue to teach by tradition.
Answering how many forms there are in Taekwondo therefore requires adding up three catalogs that exist in parallel. They don't compete to be the correct one: each responds to a different technical philosophy and a different era in the art's development. A practitioner can spend their entire career within just one and never touch the other two.
The common mistake is assuming that one system replaces the other. In practice, the Palgwe were never formally abolished entirely, the Taegeuk have been the WT competition standard since 1971, and the tul remain the technical heart of any serious ITF school.
02The WT branch forms: Taegeuk and the nine advanced forms
The current World Taekwondo system consists of eight Taegeuk for kup grades (color belts) and nine poomsae for dan grades (black belts). The Taegeuk, introduced in 1971 by the Kukkiwon, are named after each of the eight trigrams from the I Ching. They are as follows:
- Taegeuk Il Jang (1), Yi Jang (2), Sam Jang (3), Sa Jang (4)
- Taegeuk Oh Jang (5), Yuk Jang (6), Chil Jang (7), Pal Jang (8)
From first dan onward, the WT practitioner learns the advanced poomsae, one for each black belt degree, up to ninth dan:
- Koryo (고려), Keumgang (금강), Taebaek (태백), Pyongwon (평원), Sipjin (십진), Jitae (지태), Cheonkwon (천권), Hansu (한수), and Ilyo (일여)
In total, the WT manages 17 official forms. To this are added the new generation poomsae designed for competition, such as Bigak, Han Ryu, Saebyeok, or Nameu, developed in the last decade to bring more spectacle and technicality to the world circuit. Not all dojangs teach them, and they are not belt requirements, but they already form part of the international competitive landscape.
03The Palgwe: the system that preceded Taegeuk
Before 1971, the kup grades of the future WT studied the Palgwe (팔괘). They are also eight forms, one for each color belt, and share the same trigram symbolism. Their technical design is closer to the karate from which Taekwondo had emerged just years before, with lower stances, more open-hand techniques, and an aesthetic less linear than that of the Taegeuk.
When the Kukkiwon published the Taegeuk, many schools did not abandon the Palgwe immediately. Today they remain alive in two contexts: traditional dojangs that teach them as a complement, and advanced practitioners who study them to understand the technical evolution of the art. They are not competed in official WT circuits, but appear occasionally in demonstrations.
If you add Palgwe and Taegeuk as color belt blocks, you'll see that a practitioner with encyclopedic ambitions can manage 16 forms just for color belts, before touching the advanced ones.
The Palgwe are not an old version of the Taegeuk: they are an independent system with its own technical logic. Studying them changes the way you read modern poomsae.
04The ITF's 24 tul: General Choi's choice
The ITF branch has a more definitive answer: 24 tul, no more and no less. Choi Hong Hi explained this number with an image repeated in every manual: a man's life is like a day, and 24 hours is what fits within it. Each tul represents a figure, event, or concept from Korean history. Here is the complete list:
- Chon-Ji, Dan-Gun, Do-San, Won-Hyo, Yul-Gok, Joong-Gun, Toi-Gye, Hwa-Rang, Choong-Moo (color belts through first dan)
- Kwang-Gae, Po-Eun, Gae-Baek (second and third dan)
- Eui-Am, Choong-Jang, Juche (fourth dan; in some schools Ko-Dang is maintained instead of Juche)
- Sam-Il, Yoo-Sin, Choi-Yong (fifth dan)
- Yon-Gae, Ul-Ji, Moon-Moo (sixth dan)
- So-San, Se-Jong (seventh dan)
- Tong-Il (eighth dan)
Unlike the WT system, in the ITF the practitioner learns multiple tul per black belt degree, not just one. The progression is dense and requires memorizing movements and historical symbolism in parallel. An active fourth dan ITF practitioner knows at minimum 15 tul. A sixth dan, more than twenty.
05Which ones compete and which ones are learned
At the competitive level, the catalogs shrink considerably. In the WT, world poomsae championships use the Taegeuk and the nine advanced forms, with divisions that assign mandatory forms according to age and grade. The new generation poomsae enter into specific categories such as freestyle or mixed.
In the ITF, tul competition requires each participant to perform one form from their grade and another drawn from lower grades. The 24 tul are all in play depending on the competitor's level. This forces practitioners to maintain a broad repertoire even after achieving their grade.
The practical question for a student is not therefore how many forms there are in Taekwondo, but how many they truly need to master. The reasonable answer: the ones from your organization, in depth, before exploring the others out of technical curiosity.
06Adding up the total: a surprising number
If we make a global count, the picture is as follows:
- WT: 8 Taegeuk + 9 advanced = 17 official forms, plus new generation poomsae
- Palgwe: 8 forms, today outside the official program but alive in many schools
- ITF: 24 tul
The total reaches around 49 codified forms if we count all three systems, not including new generation poomsae or local variants. It's a number that no individual practitioner studies in its entirety, but it defines the technical universe of contemporary Taekwondo.
Knowing this map is the first step. The next is choosing a system and deepening your knowledge of it until every movement makes sense. If you train in the WT branch, the Taegeuk are your foundation; if you do in the ITF, the first nine tul are your basis. The rest of the catalog will be there when you're ready.