«All Kwan generally has the same Heon, but they express it in different ways»
-Cho Woon Sup (Quote from «Taekwondo» page 12)
Seeing as how we looked at Kang Duk Won in Part 3 (the last post in this series) I only find it natural to stay within Yun Byung In´s lineage and therefore I will look to the other school that resulted from his teachings; The Chang Mu Kwan. In Part 3 we learned that the Chang Mu Kwan was the first Kwan established after the YMCA Kwonbeopbu, and the disappearance of Yun Byung In in the Korean war. Usually I have accompanied each of these posts with a history of the Kwan founder taken from my first book (available here by the way), but I will not repeat the same information on both parts, so if you have not yet read Post 3 I strongly recommend you do that before this one. In fact you might consider going back to Part 1, Part 1.2, Part 2, Part 3 in that order :-)
Chang Mu Kwan History and Background
After WW2 Yun Byung In taught in several locations around Seoul, perhaps best known for his helping Chun Sang Sup teaching in the Yeon Mu Kwan KongSuDoBu before he at the urging of several students and friends established a kwonbeop Division at the Central Christian Youth Hall (YMCA) located in Jongno, Seoul, in September 1946. Because it was not a privately established dojang, Yun Byung In did not use the title kwanjang (headmaster), but instead used the title sabeom (instructor). On the early certificates issued by the kwonbeop division, he is listed as “Instructor Yun Byung In.”
At the start, some say as many as 500 students were recruited through advertisements, but because Yun Byung In taught with high intensity, the number reportedly decreased to 180 after around three months.
According to the “(2015-07-30) Taekwondo Grand Masters Invitational Commemorative Project - Historical Source Collection” Yun Byung In established Taekwondo Chang Mu Kwan within the YMCA kwonbeop Division, and appointed Lee Nam Seok as the first instructor. So it would seem that the name of the school; Chang Mu Kwan came from the founder Yun Byung In. This is also supported by the 1948 Chang Mu Kwan Examination records that shows the name Chang Mu Kwan Kwonbeop in the text.
There are a couple of different theories as to where the name Chang Mu Kwan came from. One theory proposes that the "Chang" part is taken from the Youngchang High School combined with "Mu", but another theory proposed by Park Cheol Hee states that Yun Byung In believed it was preferable to write Chang Mu Kwan using the character “chang” meaning “to shine” (彰) together with “mu", making the Kwan-name to mean "Shining Martial (arts) School".
As all other schools the Chang Mu Kwan had their training closed down due to the Korean War (1950-1953) but the school was reopened on October 5, 1953. Due to Yun Byung In´s disappearance the one who reopened the school was Lee Nam Seok with Kim Sun Bae as his number two. Lee Nam Seok used the title Kwanjang so you could perhaps argue that he was the first Kwanjang of Chang Mu Kwan, but that would just be a technicality as most if not all consider the founder Yun Byung In to be the first Kwanjang. I just found that information to be an interesting tidbit. Another interesting tidbit is that one the day before the Korean War started Chang Mu Kwan held a demonstration where both sword and staff were demonstrated, and at that very demonstration several high ranking people from the Chung Do Kwan made a guest appearance and demonstrated their skills. That tidbit shows how abruptly the war started, as well as that the different Kwan had contact with each other.
Chang Mu Kwan Heon
The Chang Mu Kwan had three expressed virtues in their core Kwan Creed (Kwan Heon):
- 충효 (忠孝) Chung-Hyo
- 성실 (誠實) Seong-Sil
- 인내 (忍耐) In-Nae
The last one you also see in the more well known ITF Taekwon-Do Tenets (not tenants) again demonstrating that the different schools had different creeds but they also expressed the same underlying principles.
The first part of the creed is 충효 (忠孝) Chung-Hyo and consists of two Hanja characters Chung and Hyo. The pairing of the two is often seen in Confucial litterature and is there taken to mean "Loyalty to the state" (Chung) and "Filial Piety toward one´s parents" (Hyo) (or seniors in general. Note that it’s not “loyalty to the collective” plus “filial piety” as separate bullets; it’s the Confucian idea that a properly cultivated person fulfills duty upward (nation/authority) and duty inward (family/parents) as one ethical spine. If we want to keep the phrasing short and to the point a good translation in keeping with the creed as it stands would be: “Loyalty & Filial Piety”.
The second part of the creed is 성실 (誠實) Seong-Sil and it too consists of two Hanja Characters, Seong and Sil. The first character 誠 (성, seong) can be read as: "sincerity", "genuineness", "truthfulness of intention", or "moral authenticity" (very Confucian / Neo-Confucian). The second character 實 (실, sil) can be read as "substance", "reality", "solidity" or "something made real, not empty or merely spoken". Together: 誠 and 實 성실 does not mean just “being honest” or “trying hard”. Rather it means something along the lines of "inner sincerity made real through concrete action(s)". If we want to keep the phrasing short and to the point like in the creed itself one could end up with: "Sincerity and integrity"
The third part of the creed which is the same as seen in the ITF Taekwon-Do Tenets (not tenants). I will cover the Student Oath and Tenets that Choi Hong Hi made in a future post in this series, but for now let us treat this the same way we have treated the first and second part of the creed. It again consists of two Hanja characters read as "In" and "Nae", where the first character "In" 인 (忍) can be read as: "To endure emotional pain", to restrain oneself under pressure" or perhaps "to bear suffering without losing moral control". In classical usage 忍 implies something like "enduring something difficult while consciously restraining impulse, anger, fear or despair". The second character 내 (耐) "Nae" can be read as: "to withstand", "to bear physically", or perhaps "to tolerate something over time". So pairing these two together you could say that the first one is talking about the "inner" part of you, while the second one is more outward (inner and outer, emotional endurance and physical endurance). Perseverance is a perfectly reasonable and acepted translation, but it kinda looses a little nuance from the original concept of In-Nae. Perhaps "Enduring self-restraint" or something like that would capture the nuance better, but "Perserverance" is short and to the point and as I have said both accepted and reasonable translation.
Quick recap of the School Creed:
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충효 (忠孝) - loyalty to the nation and filial devotion to parents
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성실 (誠實) - sincere intent realized through honest action
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인내 (忍耐) - restrained endurance through prolonged hardship
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