This has proven to have been one of my most challenging series in what I can remember... But it is so worth it :-) Many many many years ago I started writing about the different schools of early taekwondo´s philosophies by looking at their kwan heon or school creeds. I abandoned the whole project for years, it was sitting in the "draft" folder of blogger.com. I then got the bright idea to start finishing stuff that I had started in 2025, and that served me well. I decided that the original concept of one long blogpost covering all of the Kwan was unfeasable, and so I divided the project up in smaller chunks and started with Chung Do Kwan in August 2025. Unfortunately I did manage to make a mistake in that one, so the whole project was sidelined until January 2026, and now we have covered Chung Do Kwan (part 1, and part 1.2), Song Mu Kwan (Part 2), Kang Duk Won (Part 3), Chang Mu Kwan (Part 4), Mu Duk Kwan (Part 6) and today we will be looking at possibly the most overlooked Kwan of them all; The Han Mu Kwan.
Han Mu Kwan is sometimes said in western Taekwondo literature to be a administrative Kwan, not a real one, and that is if it discussed at all. I think the reason for this is that Han Mu Kwan and especially its founder played a key role in the KTA and later when the merging of the different Kwan happened, plus Han Mu Kwan is overshadowed by its much better known "sister school"; the Ji Do Kwan. To make the story very short: Yeon Mu Kwan came first. Its Tang Su Do/ Kong Su Do/ Kwon Beop department was founded by Chun Sang Sup. After the Korean war ended in the armistice and the Kwanjang Chun Sang Sup had disappeared, the school was reopened. Some sources say it was reopened as Ji Do Kwan first, by Lee Chung Woo and Yun Kwae Byung, and then Han Mu Kwan was founded shortly after because of disagreements. Other sources say that Han Mu Kwan and Ji Do Kwan reopened around the same time, no matter the source the Han Mu Kwan founder always claimed a direct lineage back to Yeon Mu Kwan, not Ji Do Kwan. So in a sense we can say that Han Mu Kwan and Ji Do Kwan are sister schools, Ji Do Kwan being the much more well known of the two.
Yeon Mu Kwan and Chun Sang Sup
Below is a quote from my book: The Lost Forms of Oh Do Kwan Taekwondo Volume 1; Taegeuk 1-3 Hyeong" (available for purchase here) page 18:
"Chun Sang Sup and Yun Mu Kwan
Chun Sang Sup (c. 1920–c. 1950) was born into an affluent Korean family. As a young man, he studied Judo in Korea, a martial art formally introduced alongside Kendo in 1922 during the Japanese occupation. Seeking to further his education, he traveled to Japan in ca 1930 and enrolled at Takushoku University.
There is scholarly disagreement over which Karate style Chun studied. According to Park Chul Hee and Lee Chong Woo, he trained in Shito-Ryu under Kenwa Mabuni. However, Lee Ho Sung (author of Korean Martial Arts Conquer the American Continent), Kim Young Seon, and Yi Gyo Yun assert that he studied Shudokan and Goju-Ryu under Toyama Kanken and Chojun Miyagi. While Miyagi is not known to have resided permanently in mainland Japan, he did travel there periodically to teach, including at universities in the region where Chun studied.
Chun returned to Korea near the end of World War II and began practicing Judo at Yun Mu Kwan. In 1946, he was invited to teach Karate at the school and established the Chosun Yun Mu Kwan Kong Su Do Bu (조선연무관 공수도부 (朝鮮硏武館 空手道部)), meaning “Karate division of Yun Mu Kwan.” Tragically, Chun disappeared during the Korean War (1950–1953) and was never heard from again.
Despite his disappearance, Yun Mu Kwan played a pivotal role in the development of Taekwondo. It later gave rise to two influential Kwans: Ji Do Kwan and Han Mu Kwan." End quote.
Han Mu Kwan History
In my book I continue with several other Kwan, including Ji Do Kwan and Yun Kwae Byung, but I did not write anything about the Han Mu Kwan. I guess I will need to rectify that in Volume 2, seeing as in Volume 1 I had access to a book by Sihak Henry Cho, a Ji Do Kwan master, while in Volume 2 I will try to use the Tae Su Do Textbook written by the Han Mu Kwan founder as one of the sources for Kwan variations. The main source for Volume 2 will still be Choi Hong Hi´s 1959 Taekwondo Textbook though.
(The history of Han Mu Kwan draws heavily on the 2015 historical compilation document I have been working out of and mentioned earlier in this series. The translation and retelling is done by me. The interview snippets are from that document and translated/ quoted as is.)
Lee Kyo Yun started practicing Kong Su Do at the Yeon Mu Kwan in 1947. In an interview he revealed the strict hierarchy between the seniors and juniors at the Dojang:
“At that time, great importance was placed on proper conduct between master and disciple, and between seniors and juniors. Therefore, one could not dare smoke in front of a senior, and even when washing after training, one had to wash in the order of admission. Especially, newly admitted trainees had to clean the dojo floor every day until they earned their first dan.”
He continues by describing some interesting details regarding training in the Yeon Mu Kwan:
“In the early period, our training mainly involved practicing hyeong (poomsae). That was because we emphasized the Martial Way. During summer and winter, we used school vacations to conduct heat training and cold weather training. We deliberately chose the hottest times and the coldest times.”
In 1950 he obtained a comunications operator license and taught police officers in various precincts in the mornings, before working as a communications officer at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Information Office. The police officers who trained in Taekwondo would at times also hold demonstration tournaments at the Sigong-gwan (theater) located in Myeongdong. When the Korean War broke out he did not get drafted like most of the other students at the Yeon Mu Kwan due to his key job as a Communications Operator.
After the Korean war Lee Chung Woo and Yun Kwae Byung reorganised the Yeon Mu Kwan and reopened it. In 1954 after a disagreement between Lee Chung Woo and Lee Kyo Yun (a senior student at the original Yeon Mu Kwan, the latter set up a temporary tent in Changsin-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul and founded the Han Mu Kwan (Korean Martial School).
In the summer of 1960 Han Mu Kwan carried out independent activities such as the 1960 Yeon-Mu Tournament, and by September 1961 a central Dojang was established in Sangwangsimni, Seongdong-gu in Seoul. This Dojang was operational until they relocated to Changsin-dong in 1969.
Lee Kyo Yun was the author of the early Korean Martial Arts manual "Tae Su Do for the masses", the only book using the name Tae Su Do as a name for the martial art. The book came out in 1965 in Korean language. The same year General Choi Hong Hi would return to the Korean Tae Su Do Association and make them retake the Taekwondo name, and also in 1965 Choi published his own book using the name Taekwondo for the art in English language.
I found a mention that in 1971 Han Mu Kwan started practising their own Hyeong (poomsae), but all mentions of this is brief and seems to trace back to the 2015 historical collection document I am working on. I could not find any details on Han Mu Kwan Hyeong or Poomsae, and seeing as Lee Kyo Yun worked very closely with the KTA I am speculating that this mention in passing might mean that Han Mu Kwan adopted the Taegeuk Poomsae before the rest of the Kwan followed suit. I repeat: I am speculating here due to limited sources.
Han Mu Kwan Creed
자신을 위해 근면한다.
관을 위해 헌신한다.
사회를 위해 봉사한다.
국가를 위해 충성한다.
관을 위해 헌신한다.
사회를 위해 봉사한다.
국가를 위해 충성한다.
(Remember I am not fluent in Korean, nor am I a professional translator. Any mistake here is mine and mine alone).
Practice diligence for oneself.
Devote oneself for the Kwan.
Serve society.
Be loyal to the nation.
This creed is in spirit very closely aligned with the core creed of Ji Do Kwan; "For Me, For my Kwan, For the Nation." I will deal specifically with Ji Do Kwan in a separate post but I felt that due to their close lineage I should highlight that. It is also interesting to note that they are not identical.
Let us look closely at the Han Mu Kwan Creed:
We have 4 sentences, each ending with "-handa/ 한다." implying "to do something".
The first line reads: 자신을 위해 근면한다. Let us break this down, look at key words and put it together again. 자신(自身) can be translated as "oneself", "the self", or "ones own person". In the context of this Creed this is not to be taken as something "selfish", but that you are responsible. 을 = object particle, 위하다 / 위해 can mean "for the sake of", "on behalf of". 근면하다 (勤勉하다) is 근면 = diligence, industriousness, assiduous effort, and 하다 is the verb "to do", or "to practice". This is a core Confucian value of steadfast dilligence or work over time, it is daily diligence. A student of Confucian philosophy might hear echoes of "cultivating the self through diligence". I am saying this so that hopefully the neuance of the original first sentence of the Creed can come over to the English translation "Practice diligence for oneself." which I think is natural English, matches the "Creed-style" (short and to the point) while hopefully getting the original meaning across.
The second line is: 관을 위해 헌신한다. The first word (and object as marked by "을") is Kwan which we know as a common word for "School", but it also implies (but does not translate into) "Dojang," "lineage", and perhaps especially for Korean Martial Arts; A community sharing common training and goals. If you read first hand accounts you will see that everything from cleaning the Dojang to watching out and protecting fellow students from bullies, to even financial help was seen as a natural thing within the Kwan. "위해" can be translated as "for the sake of" or "on the behalf of".
헌신(獻身) can be read as 헌 (獻): "to offer", "to present", "to dedicate" and 신 (身): "body", or "self". Together we can get "devote" as I chose but you could also read it as: "dedication" or "self-offering".
Together as a whole sentence I chose "Devote oneself for the Kwan." My personal interpretation is that this does not mean that you should sacrifice yourself or give up all your belongings or anything like that. I interpret it more like this sentence is underlining the communal sense of helping each other and the Kwan as a community, like I discussed the very term "Kwan" implies.
In the third sentence we read: 사회를 위해 봉사한다. Again we will break this up and put it all together again. 사회를 is the key object in this sentence, and as you can see from my translation I chose "Society" here. The original language term 사회 represents a larger community, but not as large as national or nation. We are talking about the larger group than the immediate one you would find in "family" or in "kwan", like "a whole, or several neighborhood(s)", "City" or as I chose: "Society".
Skipping a little ahead so as to not repeat earlier explanations we see the term 봉사(奉仕) where the "bong" (봉奉) can be read as "to respectfully offer", "to serve". "Sa" (사 仕)) on the other hand can be read as: "to work in service", "to perform duties". Together as a term it implies something you do voluntary to benefit others, and in modern Korean it is often associated with "civic virtue". I chose "Serve society." to capture the brief Creed-style language and hopefully I got the essence or neuance to carry over to English.
Last but absolutely not last we arrive at the fourth and final sentence: "국가를 위해 충성한다." First we have 국가를 which sets "The Nation", "State" or "Country" as the object in the sentence. Again skipping a little ahead to save on repetition we have 충성(忠誠), where 충(忠) can be read as "loyalty, faithfulness, wholehearted devotion", which you migh remember having seen in earlier posts in this series. It is a classical Confucian virtue. Secondly we have 성 (誠) which can mean "sincerity, truthfulness, genuine intent", another word we have seen before earlier in this series, and also appears frequently in Confucian philosophy. Together the term can be read as "loyal devotion grounded in sincerity". We are not talking blind obedience to the Nation, but a kind of "moral loyalty" if you forgive my sligthly clumsy English. Like I wrote in the Mu Duk Kwan post, the relationships is never a blind, one sided thing, you will devote yourself to the nation, but the nation also has to provide opportunities and rights for you, in other words it goes both ways.
So overall I chose the brief "Be loyal to the nation", but I could possibly have delved more into other aspects of the original language. It seemed though as no matter which route I chose some nuance would be lost. Therefore I chose "be loyal to the nation", because it supports the overall theme of the Creed as I see it, when you look at the Creed in totality and not just 4 isolated sentences.
Conclusion
The creed on the whole the complete Creed does give us a very Confucian idea of how relationships should work. As I wrote in an earlier post the key to achieve harmony and peace overall the relationships has to grow "outward". In the Creed we start with ourselves, we then expand it outward to our school or Kwan. Then we expand it outward once again to mean we are doing all of this to benefit society. The next natural leap is then put forth in the fourth sentence where we arrive at the "Nation" or "National level". In Confucian classic writings a master might teach 4 things and let the student naturally come to the conclusion themselves. In this case we see: Self -> Kwan -> Society -> Nation, and then perhaps one can naturally come to the conclusion that the next implied level would be "The World". This closely mirrors the Ji Do Kwan philosophy as I was taught by my original teacher; Gm Cho Woon Sup (who comes from a Ji Do Kwan lineage). We see the same thing implied in the core creed of that Kwan: For me -> for my Kwan -> for the Nation (We will examine Gm Cho Woon Sup in the upcoming Ji Do Kwan post).
I should add that I am not saying that the Creed of Han Mu Kwan was built upon a conscious effort to "be Confucian", but traditional Korean culture is so soaked in Confucian Philosophy that once you start looking you will see it everywhere. In Mu Duk Kwan´s 10 precepts there is so much overlap between Confucianism and the 10 Precepts that I as a reader would think he adopted Confucian Philosophy into Mu Duk Kwan philosophy, just like Hwang Kee adopted the Hyeong he got from different sources into something unique to Mu Duk Kwan. In Han Mu Kwan creed´s case we have 4 sentences that are using some words and phrases important in Confucian philosophy, but wether that is done on purpose or if we are looking at a Confucian cultural baggage into the Korean way of thinking we can not say without asking whoever came up with the Creed originally. Given the close structure between the Han Mu Kwan Creed and the Ji Do Kwan Creed I think it is not unreasonable to trace this part of the Kwan philosophy back to the Yeon Mu Kwan, and therefore perhaps Chun Sang Sup as the originator of the Creed. I will say that this is merely my speculation based upon what we have. The thing is that since Chun Sang Sup disappeared in the Korean war we can not ask him, and so we have to look at what we have and analyze it as best we can on its own merit.
I will explain my reasoning for my Yeon Mu Kwan origin speculations in more depth in the next post which perhaps naturally will be on the Ji Do Kwan.
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