Taekwondo Kwan history part 5: Lee Won Kuk and Chung Do Kwan

This is part 5 of a blog post series that is based on the introduction section in a book project which focuses on one Kwan, but it is relevant to know something of all the other major Kwan as well :-) I have therefore been forced to keep it brief for the Kwan that I am not focusing on, so the Kwan I am focusing on can be more indepth. I have been a little coy on what I am working on because it is very very niche and I am having such a fun time making you all guess. Its easier now that we have covered 5 though, it is not Yun Mu Kwan, Ji Do Kwan, Chang Mu Kwan, Mu Duk Kwan or Chung Do Kwan. So which is it? I will still not tell you :-P But I want to share the essiential points on Lee Won Kuk and the Kwan he founded; The Chung Do Kwan. Lee is as all the other Kwan founders a very interesting and special individual, but a few things makes him stand out: He is the first Korean to open up a "Karate Kwan" in Korea (Chung Do Kwan was opened in 1944), he is credited of being the first to add the "Do"-suffix to Tang Su, creating the full term Tang Su Do, and under his leadership the Chung Do Kwan became one of the biggest martial arts schools in korea before the Korean war. He was also among the absolutely first ones to study Karate in Japan, meaning even by Japanese standards he was an early Karate student...  I hope you enjoy reading about him and his school :-)

Taekwondo Kwan history part 4: Hwang Kee and Mu Duk Kwan

This is part four of my blog series on Taekwondo Kwan history based on the introduction section of my super secret book project, which will focus on one Kwan, but knowing about the major Kwan is still important. So far we have covered Chun Sang Sup and Yun Mu Kwan, Yun Kwae Byung and Ji Do Kwan and Yun Byung In and YMCA Kwon Bop Bu. All three individuals never had any ties to Shotokan Karate it seems, and they are all kinda related in that they all worked together at Yun Mu Kwan at various points and quite possibly they trained and studied together in Japan. Hwang Kee which we will focus on today is a very unique individual in that he never studied Karate in Japan. He said he learned Taekyon by observation and copying in his youth, he then learned martial arts in China before going back to Korea and picking up Karate forms from various sources there. One auther called Hwang Kee a grandmaster in reverse, which I kinda liked. He did not seem to have much formal martial arts education when he first founded his Kwan around 1945, but he learned a lot from many different sources over time. It is difficult to keep posts about the Kwan founders short as there is so much I want to include, but then again challenging myself to be brief is a good way to test and see what is essential to keep in. I do hope you get some value from this series :-) If you want to learn more on Hwang Kee and Mu Duk Kwan feel free to click read more and read on ;-)

Taekwondo Kwan history part 3: Yun Byung In and YMCA Kwon Bup Bu

This is part 3 of a blog post series that is based on a secret book project I am working on. In this series I have quoted from my introduction section of the book and I am looking BRIEFLY into the major schools that were founded between 1944-1955, their founders and their roots. This time we are looking into Yun Byung In, whose lineages include Chang Mu Kwan and Kang Duk Won, Pasa Ryu and Chayon Ryu among others. The man who has done perhaps the most to preserve his teachings in modern time is GM Kim Soo in his Chayon Ryu, and it is also thanks to him that we even know what happened to Yun Byung In after the Korean war. The blog post is brief, there is a lot of stuff that could have been said but did not make the cut when you try to be economical with words, something I struggle a lot with and it was a fun challenge to try to boil the story of a Kwan founder down to rougly 1/2 a page. If I publish the stuff I have written on the Kwan that I am focusing on I think you will forgive my brief handling of the other Kwan. For now you can guess which Kwan is the mysterious Kwan I am focusing my super secret book project on. It will be easier to guess the more blog posts I publish I guess :-P Spoiler: It is not Yun Mu Kwan, Ji Do Kwan, or Yun Byung In lineage Kwan ;-) For now, sit down, relax with a good cup of tea and read a brief (but as accurate to my abilities I could get it) summary of Yun Byung In, his roots and his legacy.

Taekwondo Kwan history part 2: Yun Kwae Byung and the Ji Do Kwan

This is the second blog post that is based upon a history part of  the introduction in my mysterious book project. I challenged myself to keep each Kwan history brief because while a little relevant, the focus on the book lies within a single Kwan, so I wanted to give a general overview and then in a seperate section go deep and wide into that particular Kwan´s history. Since we starte part 1 with Chun Sang Sup and his Yun Mu Kwan Kong Su Do Bu, I feel that it is only right to continue with Yun Kwae Byung and his Ji Do Kwan which came from the Yun Mu Kwan. When Chun Sang Sup dissapeared during the Korean war (1950-53) it was Yun Kwae Byung who picked up the pieces and reopened the school under the new name Ji Do Kwan. Like Chun, Yun Kwae Byung is also often overlooked in modern Taekwondo history, which I feel is a shame because he is a very interesting figure to research. I think some of the reason for his absence in modern taekwondo history is due to his work along with Hwang Kee in the Su Bahk Do Association, an association which gave the early Korean Taekwondo Association (KTA) strong competition for several years. The blog post might be brief, but the information within it is hopefully great :-) 

Taekwondo Kwan history part 1; Chun Sang Sup and Yun Mu Kwan

While waiting for an oppertunity to retake photos and take new photos for new material for my upcoming ABCs of Practical Poomsae applications I kinda started with a smaller book project which is also coming along nicely. I will keep the cards tight to my chest for the time being, but I am working a different way on this one, writing it from scratch and trying to format it and polish it as I go rather than the way I did with the ABCs of Practical Poomsae applications which has grown to about 125 pages manuscript but has yet to be formatted. Anyhow, as part of this smaller book project which is veeeeeeeery niche and I doubt it will see much, I decided that for the introduction part I needed to mention and give a brief overview on each of the major Kwan or schools that opened up from 1944-1950s. It was grueling work because I needed to re-evaluate what I know, new sources has been made available and in some cases I really had to change what I believed. This post which focuses on Chun Sang Sup is a very good example of this since I was told and read that he trained in Shotokan Karate under Gichin Funakoshi, that he taught Shotokan Kata, and that Yun Kwae Byung when he reopened it as Ji Do Kwan continued teaching the Shotokan forms despite him not being of Shotokan lineage. Modern Ji Do Kwan schools do in some cases teach Shotokan Kata as their heirloom forms, but the few people I that I reached out to who actually answered admitted that they read the same as I did, and went out and learned Shotokan Kata and taught them as Ji Do Kwan Hyeong. This is what happens when we make assumptions about history, and I am betting that all this info about Chun practising Shotokan comes from one work which has influenced writers all over the place.

The other thing that made this difficult was that I decided to keep each Kwan history brief, and if you know anything about me, making me write or talk about Taekwondo history is to open up the flood gates. I never shut up or stop writing:-P So if this has intrigued you click the read more button to read a short summary of Chun Sang Sup´s history and the founding of the Yun Mu Kwan Kong Su Do Bu. 

Enjoy my work and blog? You’ll love my Patreon

 

If you enjoy the work I’m doing here at Traditional Taekwondo Ramblings — the historical deep dives, translations, and practical applications — and you’d like to support it, I’ve now created a Patreon page.

This isn’t a pitch or a hard ask. The blog will always remain free and open. But if you find value in the material I’m sharing, and feel it’s worth supporting, it would mean a lot.

Your support helps cover the costs involved in doing this work — including research equipment, computer upkeep, licenses, access to books and historical documents, and of course the many hours spent reading, translating, editing, and writing. It’s a quiet but steady effort — and if it’s helping you in your training or teaching, then I’m grateful.

I’ll also try to give back through Patreon by offering quality content for supporters. Currently available are:

• A 14-page translation and commentary on a previously untranslated paragraph from Choi Hong Hi’s 1959 Taekwondo textbook
• A 42-page early draft of my upcoming book The ABCs of Practical Poomsae Application
• And more to come.

If you’d like to take part in that journey and help keep it going, you can visit the Patreon page here:

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Thank you for reading — and for being part of this journey and community 🙏🙇🏻

Chon-Ji Tul/Hyung's Karate roots

In modern ITF Taekwon-Do the karate roots of Taekwondo is often overlooked, or downplayed. I think this is also true for most schools of Taekwondo, and I think that is a mistake, because we need to have a good grasp of where we came from to see where we should continue to go. Without a proper setting off point, how can we determine the route or destination? Some "Taekwon-Do rebels" such as Paul O'Leary has written for many years on the Karate roots of different Chang Hon Ryu forms, noting how Won-Hyo Hyung is a composite of two different Pinan/Heian Karate Kata. There are several forms in Chang Hon Ryu who lifts whole sequences of Karate Kata move for move or with very small tweaks. There is nothing wrong with that, and I truly enjoy practising them, because Choi and his team really has in my opinion taken their Karate roots and infused them with a Korean identity by repackeging them, lifting sequences from Karate kata, but also expanding upon them and so on. I find great value in them in other words. One form that few people if any have noticed is also largely a repackaged Karate Kata is Chon-Ji Hyung or Tul. In this post I want to shed some light on the roots of Chon-Ji Hyung, and how it is repackaged. I have previously written about how the technical makeup of Chon-Ji Hyung is brilliant, and closely linked to philosophy, I will try to do it justice here as well. If however you want to check out a deep dive into Chon-Ji Hyung as a philosophical-Physical link you can click here for that. For the Karate roots of Chon-Ji Hyung please click to read on on this post :-)

Keeping up with the Taegeuks (Oh Do Kwan versions and not Taegeuk poomsae)

Not sure if the headline makes sense. I have worked on Taegeuk 1-3 as documented in "Better Karate for Boys" by Sihak Henry Cho in 1970 and published them little by little over May 2025. I thought it was important to get them out there because I was sitting on what might be the only verifiable Ji Do Kwan Hyung as practised in Ji Do Kwan in the Kwan era. I was actually afraid something would happen to me so I could not finish and then the forms would have died out. Now I know at least two people will keep training and teaching them :-) But working with the Taegeuk Hyung of Ji Do Kwan made me very curious about the Oh Do Kwan variations. 

You see in the 1965 book on Taekwondo which Choi Hong Hi published they are not mentioned nor included in the text, despite many of the Karate Kata still being included at that point. When looking at the older forms of the Oh Do Kwan most people gravitate toward the 1965 book simply because it is easy to get, and because it is written in english. The 1959 book which Choi Hong Hi also wrote but in Korean is also a great resource, but since it is in Korean most people who get to it look at the pictures but dont really take a deep dive into it. It might come as a surprise to those reading the 65 book that the 59 book does contain instructions (and illustrations) on the three taegeuk forms, but this time it is obviously the Oh Do Kwan versions of the forms. Were they copied directly from Shotokan? Did Choi Hong Hi and his team at Oh Do Kwan change them in any way? Read on if you want to learn the Oh Do Kwan versions or simply get an idea of how Taegeuk Hyung 1-3 were practised in different Kwan. 

Part 3: The lost Ji Do Kwan Taegeuk Hyung (not the modern taegeuk poomsae)

This is a series on the original taegeuk forms or Taikyouku Kata that were practised in the Kwan era. More specifically the version practised in Ji Do Kwan. I strongly suggest you click here for part 1 and start the series there as I will asume you already have the knowledge shared within part 1 and 2 :-)

Part 2: The lost Ji Do Kwan Taegeuk Hyung (not the modern taegeuk poomsae)

 This is Part 2 of a series. I strongly suggest you click here for part 1 and start there, as I will assume you know the information contained within that part. 

In part 2 I will continue documenting the original tae keuk hyung of Ji Do Kwan, not to be confused with the modern taegeuk poomsae series. Tae Keuk Hyung is a series of three forms, all following the same floor pattern (an inverted "H-shape") and all consisting of fairly basic stances and attacks. The first form in the series which we covered in part 1 is identical to Shotokan's Taikyoku Shodan (1) Kata, move for move, and even the Kihap points. Its when we come to the 2nd and 3rd form we see differences. When I first stumbled across these I looked at the first form which was illustrated (the 2nd and 3rd were text only) and I recognised the form as Shotokan's Taikyoku Kata 1. I therefore assumed given Chun Sang Sup's background in Shotokan that the Tae Keuk forms were simply shotokan copies. Years later when revisiting them since I thought it was a tragedy that the Ji Do Kwan forms were lost (or at least it does seem like they were) I was hoping that there might be something different about them and it was. So without further adu let us look at how the 2nd form of the Tae Keuk Hyung were performed. 

Part 1: The lost Ji Do Kwan Taegeuk Hyung (not the modern taegeuk poomsae)

 In my last post I walked you through a short history of the Ji Do Kwan and the issues we have when it comes to lineage, which is why I believe that we have lost all the original Ji Do Kwan Hyung as they were practised in the Kwan-era (in Ji Do Kwan's case 1946-1966 since they adopted Palgwae and then Taegeuk forms). The students focused very much on the practical applications of the basic techniques as used in sparring and the school became legendary for its fierce fighters. Later they joined the Korean Taekwondo movement fullheartedly in 1966, and got to have their own representatives in the poomse comitte who made the Taegeuk poomse series of 8 forms and the new Koryo poomse which replaced the older Koryo Hyung made by the orignal comitte. Why they left the rest of the Judanja poomse largely in peace I do not know. This focus on the sparring applications, and then the fullhearted joining of what was to become modern Kukki-Taekwondo unfortunatly came at a steep (in my opinion) price; The loss of the original Ji Do Kwan Hyung as practised in the Kwan-era. The school originally had instructors comming with dan ranks from Shotokan (most possibly), Shudokan Karate and Shito-Ryu Karate, or in other words their knowledgepool flowed from Gichin Funakoshi, Kenwa Mabuni and Toyama Kanken. All Karate legends, and this wide array of "knowledge rivers" is rather unique in Kwan terms. Therefore the loss of their forms is truly a tragedy. When going over some of the more obscure books in my collection I revisited Sihak Henry Cho's book called Better Karate for Boys". It is a short and simple book covering some stances and basic techniques and basic facts like what to expect from a class, how to fold your training uniform, how to tie your belt etc. One of the things that he also covered were three "Tae Keuk Hyung" or taegeuk hyung which is how we would have spelled it today. 

The tragedy of Ji Do Kwan

I have often written about the roots of Ji Do Kwan, and I have "talked them up" because I am biased when it comes to Ji Do Kwan coming fra a Ji Do Kwan background myself through one of my first primary teachers in Taekwondo; Grandmaster Cho Woon Sup. In this post I will try to give a more balanced view and talk a little about the link in the lineage problem. I might do another post where I discuss this more thouroughly because this is not only a Ji Do Kwan problem, but I am going to gift Ji Do Kwan practisioners with a small treasure (in my view) that I happened to come across in my research, but before gifting it, I want to give a little perspective so people can appreciate what I am giving. 

Part 3: The evolution of Hwarang Hyung/Tul/Poomsae 1950s onward

If you are reading this series on another webpage other than the traditional taekwondo ramblings blog it has been stolen without my permission. This has happened a lot lately. 

I started a little blogpost on Taekwondo's birthday (11th April) looking at the evolution of Hwarang Hyung seeing as this was the first Korean Taekwondo form created. I meant to cover movement 1 and possibly movement 4 within the form, but once I got started and realized that the version I am practising (which I dubbed the 1965 version after Choi Hong Hi's 1965 book) was different from the modern ITF rendition of Hwarang Hyung (or Tul which is ITF's preferred term for form/pattern). I have kept saying this but I will say it again; there is no "best version" unless you define in what context you would measure against. They are simply different, and different lineages and Dojang will have different versions of it. ITF has done a great job curating the creators final versions of his forms (although some ITF orgs has tempered with them after his death), my personal interest in Choi's Chang Hon Ryu forms is as they were done in the Oh Do Kwan before he left South Korea, so my personal "best version" would not be the "latest version", and that is OK for me and should be for anyone else :-) Now with that caveat out of the way, let us look at Hwarang Hyung movement 5 through our sources which in this blog post would be Choi Hong Hi's 1959 book (Korean language only), Choi Hong Hi's 1965 book, an instructional video made under the supervision of Choi Hong Hi in 1968 and Choi Hong Hi's 15 volume Encyclopedia (volume X or 10) from the 1980s.

Part 2: The evolution of Hwarang Hyung/Tul/Poomsae 1950s onward

On Taekwondo's birthday (11th April) I posted a blogpost discussing the evolution of the very first movement in the very first Korean martial arts form/pattern; Hwarang Hyung. I teased that therewere more changes from the original version which the oldest documentation we have is from 1959, and that a few of these changes might surprise some. Well in this part we will jump ahead to movement 4 in Hwarang Hyung, what was in the 1965 version called the twin forearm block, or in Kukki Taekwondo terminology a momtong keumgang makki (double diamond block perhaps in english?). In the version of Hwarang that I learned this technique is done roughly the same as in Taebaek Poomsae but with the middle block portion of the technique turned outward, so the palm of your blocking hand is turned away from you, not pointed towards you like in Taebaek Poomsae. Was this the original way to do it? How is it done in modern ITF Chang Hon Ryu? I'll make use of the same sources as in Part 1, and I advice you to read that part first if you have not done so :-) Click here to read it

Part 1: The evolution of Hwarang Hyung/Tul/Poomsae 1950s onward

Happy birthday Taekwondo (11th April 1955) I was careful to post at this day :-)

I recently got my certificate from the Oh Do Kwan and I am now a proud 3rd dan :-) Oh Do Kwan was one of the Kwan who merged to lay the foundations of Kukki Taekwondo, so I still do Taegeuk and Judanja Poomsae and use Kukkiwon movement standard, but I also picked up Chang Hon Ryu as I was told to do Gaebaek as well as Taebaek Poomsae as part of my grading. Being the kind of man that I am I did not want to pick up a single form without understanding it in context so I started with Chon-Ji Hyung and worked my way up. Hwarang Hyung however I did not need to study much to pick up because I already knew the framework so to speak. You see I am a history nerd (if you have read more than one post of this blog you should not be surprised by that) and Hwarang Hyung was THE FIRST Korean pattern made closely followed by Chung-Mu Hyung, U-Nam Hyung (a form discontinued before the 1965 book by Choi Hong Hi), Ul-Ji Hyung and Sam-Il Hyung (all presented in the very first taekwondo book published in 1959. 

Let's remove the Shaolin Temple and Bodhidharma from Taekwondo history

Every so often I see the Shaolin temple and Bodhidharma

mentioned in Taekwondo history. I once held a lecture on taekwondo history where I was approached after it was finished and told that the lecture was good, but I had completly neglected to mention how martial arts were invented in China in the Shaolin temple by Bodhidharma and then spread to the rest of Asia. I could not take that critisism seriously but kept a straight face and told him politely that I did not subscribe to that myth, and quickly departed. I was recently reminded of this tie in with Taekwondo history when I was asked to consult on a taekwondo organisations history on their web page. The first draft contained the Bodhidharma myth in it, and I adviced it to be removed which it was. I therefore thought that a post tackling how the Shaolin/Bodhidharma myth has no place in Taekwondo (and should not even be considered "canon" in Chinese martial arts) could be useful for some. Before starting the actual post however I have to credit the book "Chinese Martial Arts Training Manuals; A Historical Survey" written by Brian Kennedy and Elizabeth Guo which has shaped much of my thinking on this subject and especially page 69-72. The author credits Chinese Martial Arts Historian Tang Hao and Stanley E. Henning. I found and read a few articles by Henning in preperation to this post but in the end I found page 69-72 in the aforementioned book to be a great sumary and I did not find much written by Tang Hao. 

Why does "ITF" forms feel so much more "advanced"?

This last year I have done a deep dive and really focused on

learning all ITF forms up to and including Gae-Baek Hyung. I say "ITF forms" but I should probably call them either Oh Do Kwan (that is where my "project" took me) or Chang Hon forms. I do not do Sine Wave (and I do not think I will ever do that), and the forms I have been learning is far too outdated to be called ITF forms, as the ITF have done a lot of changes. The standard I am keeping as close as possible to is the 1965 book by Choi Hong Hi. After that book was published a lot of things were changed, and over time Sine Wave which was possibly the biggest change was implemented in the 1980s. After he died the ITF splintered into an insane number of different ITFs and they in turn made their own changes. I am going off a tangent here:-P What I wanted to write about was the feeling I had when learning these forms when I had a firm Taegeuk and Judanja/Black Belt Poomsae background. I talked with a fellow Taekwondoin (Taekwondo person) about the feeling I had when learning the forms that every single one after Chon-Ji Hyung felt like learning a black belt poomsae. 

Kyeongdang Yedo 24 Se part 2; Point Sword Posture

Way back in March 2024 we looked at the first posture, the Keonjeongse (Lifting the cauldron posture), we looked at two different translations, one by Jack Chen who translated the source material for the Yedo chapter in Muyedobotongji, and one from Sang H. Kim's translation of the Muyedobotongji. I shared the illustration from both sources, and a video of how it was performed and practised in modern Kyeongdang (in the group I work with). In addition to this I shared a few thoughts on application in text only. This is also pretty much what we will be doing with the second "posture" in the system, and that is the "Jumkumse" as it is transcribed in Sang H. Kim's work. The "Jum" part of the name means "period", or "dot" in Korean, the "Kum" part of the name is Geom, Keum, Kum meaning "sword" and the "Se" part can loosely be translated as "posture. Together we get the loose translation of "Point sword posture", but the translation I was first given was inspecting the sword posture, as the initial posture seems like your holding the sword in a manner that you might take to inspect a sword. 

Let's make 2025 the year you crush your fitness goals

It’s the beginning of a glorious new year and many have probably set themselves a few fitness goals and seeing as this post will be published at the very end of January I wouldn’t be surprised if many have started training and then took a deep dive off the fitness wagon. It happens to most people in January everyone flocks to the Doran’s and training studios and once February show up they are relegated to support members. In this post we will look at a good number of tips on how you can make 2025 count and how you can get really fit this year :) Click the read more to read on :-)