Kwan Heon - A closer look at Kwan creeds of early Taekwondo part 5: Mu Duk Kwan

We continue this series, looking at each Kwan (school) philosophy by zooming in on their creed, known in Korean as "Kwan Heon"  where "Heon" can be read as "Creed", but it can also be read as "guiding principles", "law code", "statute", "governing principles". In part(s) 1 (and 1.2) we focused on the Chung Do Kwan, then we visited the Song Mu Kwan in part 2, before moving on to Kang Duk Won in part 3 and then it was only natural to go to the Chang Mu Kwan in part 4. 

This time we will go to Hwang Kee´s Mu Duk Kwan and look at their Creed, or perhaps I should say revisit Mu Duk Kwan and their creed. You see, I have written about Taekwondo and Taekwondo-related material a long time now (on this blog in this language since 2011 (gasp!)) which will make this the 15th year of writing :-) Back in the end of 2015 and early 2016 I wrote a few posts on Hwang Kee and his 1958 textbook, and in one post in particular I deed a rather deep dive to the best of my ability on the 10 precepts and important points of physical and mental training (Translation of precepts 2016 post ). I am hopefully better at this now than back then 10 years ago), but I wanted to link back to the original post since there are some great comments on it (from people who are not me) and to show that this kind of work is something I have done for many many years now. 

Projecting modern training experience backwards in time is a real problem...

One of the major things holding a good understanding of our modern Taekwondo system back is a lack of understanding of its foundations. There are many reasons for this, some are born out of the national need of a newly liberated Korea to differentiate themselves from Japan, and tweak the history of a largely Japanese shaped practice into something Korean. This is something we can understand, appreciate and show empathy towards, if we look into newer Korean history and the Japanese Occupation. 

Another big problem is people projecting modern training experiences and assumptions based upon modern martial arts backwards through time and applying that to earlier less standardized systems. This goes both for people projecting modern experience within Taekwondo or Korean MA and modern experiences in related systems, i.e Karate and project that back into the 1940s. 

The first group gives rise to people saying stuff like: 

• "I was never taught any grappling in Taekwondo, so it does not exist"
• "All Kwan were the same"
• "There was no vital point knowledge in Korean MA"

The second group likewise give rise to myths and misconceptions.

• "Modern JKA Karate has no Bunkai, so there was no Bunkai in the 1930s and 40s"
• "Modern JKA Karate has no grappling, at least I never learned any, so Koreans did not learn any from Funakoshi".
• "I trained Karate and I learned how to use my hip when blocking in a different way than how modern Taekwondo does it, so Koreans must have changed it."

and the list goes on. 

Kwan-era Taekwondo grappling, was that a thing?

This year has been almost a complete Kwan-era bubble for me both on this blog, patreon and facebook. It has been a lot of fun, and lately I seem to have gained a little speed on facebook growth, which has me getting a lot of comments that I try to answer, but I have to do so briefly. Here there are no rules and I can go on as long as I like. So this time I will be talking a little on grappling in Kwan-era Taekwondo.

First, what is Kwan-era Taekwondo? To keep it brief, when I talk about Kwan-era Taekwondo I talk about all Kwan (schools) that would eventually take up the Taekwondo name, so I am talking about 1945-1970ish. Like the end of the Viking age (which many draw the line exactly at 1066), the Kwan era in practical terms continued after 1970. The unification happened in 1978, yet here we are in 2026 and people are still practicing Kwan specific Taekwondo and gaining Kwan dan grades. The unification and abolishment of Kwan and the Kwan existing only as social clubs will get their own posts down the line, don´t you worry. But for now let us return to grappling in the Kwan-era.