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Korean text and it was (slightly) flawed as pointed out by a brilliant commenter who took the time to comment on this outdated blogging format.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:

Originator of the Chung Do Kwan Creed, or was it Oh Do Kwan?

There has been a little discussion on who the originator of the Kwan Heon (Kwan Creed) of Chung Do Kwan was. As far as I can tell sifting through Korean articles that mentions this (they are few and far between) they all point to an origin within Chung Do Kwan, but I could not find a source that specifically said Lee Won Kuk made it. The debate that I sometimes see is that the Oh Do Kwan which we all know were founded by Choi Hong Hi initially used the Chung Do Kwan Creed too. Since some therefore present the Chung Do Kwan as the Oh Do Kwan creed and this also happens in Korean language articles so it is not a "western" thing many believe Choi Hong Hi made the creed. That last part I have only found in "western" forums and SOME, and is not as far as I know something people believe in Korea. To present the Chung Do Kwan Creed as the original Oh Do Kwan Creed is actually historically accurate as there are enough sources saying Oh Do Kwan initially used this as their creed, but the creed was imported from Chung Do Kwan and did not have its origin in Oh Do Kwan if that makes sense. 

The reason for the Chung Do Kwan Creed being used in Oh Do Kwan is simple: Choi Hong Hi surrounded himself with talented and well trained instructors which he head hunted from one of the more well established and biggest Kwan there was at the time when he got the order to start implementing Martial Arts training to soldiers; the Chung Do Kwan, Nam Tae Hi being in the forefront of these initial instructors. Seeing as they were from the Chung Do Kwan, and the importance Chung Do Kwan put on their creed, there is nothing strange of them importing the creed over until they found something they could use themselves (tenets and student oath). 

So to recap: Chung Do Kwan Creed was made within Chung Do Kwan, most likely by the Kwanjangnim Lee Won Kuk, and it predates the Oh Do Kwan. Choi Hong Hi picked it up and ran with it initially in the Oh Do Kwan before implementing their own creed later on, making the Chung Do Kwan Creed the original Oh Do Kwan creed. Some internet sources (even Korean ones) presents the Chung Do Kwan Creed as the original Oh Do Kwan creed giving no historical context. But now that you have read all this you know :-)

The Chung Do Kwan Creed original text:

So to break it down a little we have three sentences all starting with the same phrase "우리들 관원은" which sounds clunky when we translate it into English. We as members, we as students, we, the members of the kwan etc are all valid in this context. The most popular by far translation circulating says: "We, as members...." in all three sentences. The term kwanwon 관원 (館員) does not mean student however, if you look it up you´ll see that Kwan can mean School, and Won in this case means "Member" or "Personell". The Creed therefore is for anyone associated with the Kwan, that being student, senior, instructor or headmaster. So perhaps best way to translate it would be: "We the members of the Kwan...", but I am nitpicking here. The sentiment should be that as a member of the Kwan you were expected to.... (insert stuff here) ..... 

The Chung Do Kwan Creed as I translated it in part 1:

We, as members, train our spirits and bodies according to Mudo (무도).”

“We, as members, are united in mutual friendship.”

“We, as members, will comply with regulations and obey instructors.”

The error I made (The horror)

I have made several remarks over the years that I am not fluent in Korean, this is not actually that big of a problem when translating because it forces me to really check my self, be humble and double check again. The problem is that I do know some Korean (I did live there for a year and had maaaaany trips there lasting 2-4 weeks at a time) when I would learn more and practise what Korean I could. This time I read the original text and I thought I understood everything so I just translated almost without looking anything up. And this made me miss a crucial part of the first sentence. It does not only say mudo, it says mudo-jungshin. Jungshin is a term on its own that is frequently used in martial arts texts, so it was just an oversight but luckily "World Chung Do Kwan Federation certificate number 5-5544" (I do not know his name) commented on my post and made me aware of my mistake. So the first line should be:

"1: We, the members of the Kwan, discipline our mind and body, based on the martial spirit." (or mudo-spirit).

The second line can then be:

"2: We, the members of the Kwan, trust and care for one another and firmly strengthen our unity.”

And the third line can be:

“3: We, the members of the Kwan, strictly observe the Kwan’s rules and obey the orders of the instructor.”

So having redone this one I stand by my first post and my conclusions there so I will not write much more about what this means in this post. I want to add one thing though: the commenter who commented did a great job, and I salute him for taking his time to comment. This post would not exist if not for him. Another thing I want to add is: where mudojungshin appears in sentence 1 there are many different translations. The most popular being "strict code", the commenter had seen "hwarangdo" and I have seen "Taekwondo". None of those appear in the original text and is an inference done by the translator, and in "strict code" I wonder if it is google translate. 

Anyway, now there exists a faithful translation on the Chung Do Kwan Creed in English :-) So if you enjoyed this post please comment or share it. If you come across any other translations that deviate from this one, share this post and ask if I am very incorrect or if the translation in question might be very loose in parts.