Kwan Heon - A closer look at Kwan creeds of early Taekwondo part 1.2: Chung Do Kwan

 

This post is "Part 1.2" so not part 2 :-) You see I already wrote about the Kwan Heon (Kwan or school creed) of Chung Do Kwan back in 2025. This post is both a continuation of that post and a revisit. So please read part 1 by clicking here before you read part 1.2. In that post I go briefly through the history of Chung Do Kwan which I have taken from my book (click here to buy) where I also share the history of several more Kwan (and you can read those on the blog as well). Anyway, here is the kicker: I provided my own translation of the Korean text and it was (slightly) flawed as pointed out by a brilliant commenter who took the time to comment on this outdated blogging format. Thanks to him I had to reevaluate my translation and saw where I had gone wrong. It does change the sentiment a little, but overall the meaning is in my opinion the same. And my original translation is way better than the other ones circulating the web. So here goes, part 1.2 Chung Do Kwan Creed revisited:

New Year, Traditional Taekwondo Ramblings Reflections

We now write 2026, and as we say in Norway: New year - New opportunities :-) I used to be good at these kinds of posts, looking back at the old year and write about the upcoming plans. I have failed to do this for several years now :-P You got to go back to 2019 for a similar January post. 

A.I. and the future of Traditional Taekwondo Ramblings

The A.I wave has hit us hard in 2025, to the point that even in martial arts media we are drowning in a.i slop, both in video, articles, blogs and I guess it is just a matter of time, books. Google has started trying to answer searches not with links going to blogs like mine, but first A.I, then sponsored pages, then "trusted pages" such as reddit and then perhaps you might find my posts. This is the current trend now, and I found myself thinking, what can Traditional Taekwondo Ramblings possibly offer people in 2025 and forward? I can not in any way shape or form compete with a.i driven blogs, and I KNOW for a FACT that there are several martial artists out there using A.I to publish articles which reads like they have written a prompt and published whatever Chatgtp had written as their own work. I make at most a few posts a month, someone using A.I can churn out 10+ articles every single day. 

I confess to have used Chatgtp in a purely editiorial fashion for a few posts in 2025 and I have used A.I to make a few thumbnails, but whenever I have used chatgtp for writing I first write myself the whole text, then I ask chatgtp to clean up the language, flow and spelling errors. I then work through each paragraph going back and forth to make it just right. The end result is that I do not actually save as much time using a.i, but I do get a text that reads as an actual human being has written it. 

Then it hit me: I can not compete with A.I, but I have something that A.I and A.I-heavy users do not have: Authenticity :-) 

What I want for Christmas 😇

 If you have purchased my book and enjoyed it. I would be incredibly grateful if you left a review on amazon🙇🏻🙇🏻😇🙏

https://a.co/d/56y7rvy

If you haven't purchased it yet, what's stopping you? 😉

Previously untranslated material from the 1959 Taekwondo textbook soon available

(Post written by actual human, no A.I💻🚫)

🤷‍♂️ Did you know there were 24 patterns in the original Taekwondo Textbook from 1959?

😀Below is appendix 1 for my upcoming Patreon booklet (instant access for taekwondo nerd tier or 3usd if you don’t want to become a Patreon) coming December 24th.

📚This appendix simply lists the forms contained in the 1959 Taekwondo Textbook in order of appearance.

The booklet consists of:

✅ Full translation of Choi Hong Hi’s naming and lineages of Taekwondo forms with original text so you can check my work 

✅ Choi Hong Hi’s thoughts on the strength and differences between the different schools or lineages and how we should approach them

✅ Translation of each of the background/information on the forms in all 3 lineages or schools (Sorim-Ryu, Soryeong-Ryu, Changhon-Ryu 

✅ Look at first ever writings on the original Chang Hon patterns (Hwarang, Chungmu, Samil, Ulji, Unam),

These are different from later writings.

✅ Extensive commentaries and background information by yours truly on all of the text and all of the forms covered in the 1959 book.

All in all around 50(!) pages.

You can visit my Patreon and sign up as a Patreon (support me with 3usd a month and get access to everything I give out there, there’s already exclusive video tutorials and another booklet also based on the 1959 book available) or visit my Patreon shop on December 24th :-) 

https://www.patreon.com/TraditionalTaekwondoRamblings?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

Kwan Heon - A closer look at Kwan creeds of early Taekwondo part 1: Chung Do Kwan

My original teacher (Gm Cho Woon Sup) wrote some of the earliest Norwegian language Taekwondo

books out there. He also included some things that I have come to understand are very rare things in Taekwondo litterature. One of those things is the explanation of Taekwondo philosophy from the point of view of Ji Do Kwan (Wisdom Way School) which is the Kwan he hails from. In the text he explains that Kwan could be translated as School and that Heon could be translated as Life-directive. He went on explaining that there were many different Kwan and each had their own Heon, but they had the same underlying principles. That section in his book is one of the reasons I started looking into the different Kwan all those years ago, and in this series I want to explore the different Kwan Heon that the different Kwan has. If you saw the last post on this blog I can tell you that this post was started in 2016, and is a great example of me starting way too big and never finishing it. This time I am confident and know that I can tackle it piece by piece. So first Kwan out of the gate is Chung Do Kwan.

Seminar Report Bojeon Taekwondojang in Moss

I never actually got around to post this, but once upon a time, in what might be considered one of my highlights in my Taekwondo career; little old me was contacted by a Dojang at the other side of Norway and I (a nobody who happened to have a blog) was hired for a weekend seminar :-) It was one of the most fun and rewarding taekwondo weekends I have had :-) Covid and the lock down happened soon thereafter so I never pursued doing more seminars. In fact I wrote this back in 2020 after the seminar, but never posted it. I just found it going through my "drafts" in blogger to see if there is something I started on that I could finish (sometimes I go a little too big on things and do not get around to actually finish and post it. Anyway, if you want to know how a seminar focusing on practical poomsae applications with me might look, you can read on :-) Just remember I am still a student of Taekwondo so I am sure there would be things done differently if someone where to hire me today.

Taekwondo Kwan history part 7: Choi Hong Hi and the Oh Do Kwan (and Book project revealed)

At long last, here is the revelation I have been dying to reveal: 

My (first ever) Book is LIVE :-D 

Click here for amazon

I have not seen it myself yet, but Kindle and Paperback version of The Lost Forms of Oh Do Kwan Taekwondo Volume 1: Taegeuk 1-3 Hyeong is live. The series on Kwan history has all been from the introduction section of the book, with the meat of the book being the Taegeuk forms as practised in Oh Do Kwan and Chung Do Kwan (they practiced the same versions).

In 1959 Choi Hong Hi published the first ever book on Taekwondo called Taekwondo Kyobon or Textbook, where he among other things presents a lot of old Hyeong later phased out. Some he also included in the 1965 English language book, the Taegeuk forms did not make it into that one though meaning that for most people their practice was unknown. 

I translated the forms for my own research, and wanted to share their story and make the material more available for English speaking people who might not even know that a 1959 Taekwondo Textbook even existed. 

This is just Volume 1, and I seriously contemplated starting directly at the Pyeongahn or Heian forms instead. The Taegeuk are not flashy, or "exciting". They are fundamental movements taught to beginners. In the 1959 book appendix we find a grading diagram revealing all 3 Taegeuk was required at a students first belt promotion test. I do see the value of the basics and fundamentals however and since its not really a commercial project I decided to make it from the beginning anyway :-) 

The "Oh Do Kwan" in the title is there because the main source material I am framing this series on is the 1959 Taekwondo Textbook, but it is not a Kukkiwon Taekwondo book, nor is it an ITF or Chang Hon Ryu Taekwon-Do book, it is for people interested in Taekwondo history and nerds like myself. In that spirit I have included Kwan variations that I could find documentation from:

• Ji Do Kwan (Sihak Henry Cho 1970)
• Mu Duk Kwan (Hwang Kee 1958)
• Kang Duk Won (Park Chul Hee 1957)

And since I used Choi's book: Oh Do Kwan, and since Chung Do Kwan practiced the same version move for move Chung Do Kwan. In short most of the older Kwan are represented, the ones missing (like Song Mu Kwan) is not missing out of disrespect but because I could not find era-appropriate documentation in either English or Korean. 

Below you can read the final excerpt from my book focusing on Choi Hong Hi and the Oh Do Kwan. Together in these 7 blog post series I have given away most of the introduction chapter, but there are a few goodies for those who buys the book itself: deep dive into the name Oh Do Kwan, as well as a discussion of the different Kwan variations and a deep dive into the alternative names for the same Taikyoku based foundation forms.