u/ZeroPotato

Background:

Last year I moved pretty far and had to find a new Dojo because I come from Karate Goju-Ryu which I absolutely loved and I wanted to continue because I just reached first Dan.
Sadly in my range there is no school that is available, 1h drive away. As a family father 4 hours in the week away is hard when 2 hours are just driving.

I looked around, I found a local Taekwondo school with a 4th Degree Master. They do traditional TKD and are not part of a big paid federation in Germany but part of the independent Taekwondo organisation. Learning it was fun. New language, helped me with my hip problems incredibly fast and I just liked it.

Now:
Because I came from Karate, my master was okay with me using the same belt. So I am sitting there with a black belt in a relatively low degree belt school (1 other 3rd dan) and can't even do advanced kicks. This didn't quite fit with my mental image of being a black belt so I took it seriously and trained at home a lot of times. Learning Hyungs is insanely mind-taxing because they are so closely related sometimes that I mix moves in between a lot. Trying to learn the Korean syntax to understand my master better. Just learning and living the martial art and the appreciate the history.

But here also comes the frustrating part.
It seems my school is a fraction of some other school. Using the old teachings from General Choi. But also not really. Well... here's a list.

1. The whole history of TKD and the tons of unlisted styles that exist: I understand the idea that Korea wanted to move away from Japanese TKD at some point given the history. But this created such distinct styles that also seem not completely distinct. Karate makes this a bit easier. Each style has a unique name, with unique techniques. Shotokan, Kyokushin, Budo, Goju Ryu. It makes it simple to differentiate. Hyong, Tul, Poomsae, ITF, Kukkiwon, WT. Hard to differentiate because the schools here mostly don't say which style they train unless you are in and even between these schools it could be that your ITF, KKW or WT varies from the other. Though I don't know if that is just a germany thing.
2. Lack of online high-level martial arts videos: If you look at TKD videos you find tons of them online. High class. But at the core they are always about fighting. You can find some older/newer videos about technique, Hyongs, Tul, Poomsae. I can find 8th Dan Karate Kata videos from 70-year Japanese masters. But try to find some old Korean masters. It's impossible. The best I found was Joel Denis but this is Tul. Finding some Hyongs with the same style is actually impossible. Each video has variations in some parts ( I can look for 1 Hyong and find 15 variation of it, mostly in the Art how they move or even other stances)
3. Overall glossary: This is also a mess online. There is a standardization from Kukkiwon but General Choi used a different table. Which wouldn't be a problem if there were just simple changes like Baro - Paro, Kwon - Gwon. (It should be Taegwondo if you look at the table) but there are also complete differences like Chongul Sogi - Ap Gubi and so on.

This just makes it so frustrating to try and learn by yourself because you can't validate any source. Could be another style, other stuff. So I am quite unsure how to pursue my goal faster/better.

Edit: I am amused at how this turned into a "oh no he wears our holy black belt" when this was not even the point. You got a new guy here, who is seriously into learning this art because it's incredibly cool and u insult him because his belt color, which was accepted by a 4th Dan WT master is your problem. Nice.

2 Edit: Maybe I have to tone back a bit. I was getting annoyed by the talk against my school and got defensive because I respect my master and her school. Though that is not a reason to be mean, so sorry for that.

Another thing is I would like to thank you for the feedback I have received. It cleared up my mind a bit.