This is a part of perhaps the longest blog series I have ever made. If you are here for Oh Do Kwan specifically I really recommend you start with the previous post in this series where I covered Oh Do Kwan from founding until the Vietnam War (Army manual 1966). Through 2026 we have gradually covered what is usually called the 9 original Kwan of Taekwondo. Here is a quick overview, click on the one you want to read:
Part 1 Chung Do Kwan
Part 1.2 Chung Do Kwan
Part 2: Song Mu Kwan
Part 3 Kang Duk Won
Part 4 Chang Mu Kwan
Part 5 Mu Duk Kwan
Part 6 Han Mu Kwan
Part 6.1 Ji Do Kwan
Part 6.2 Ji Do Kwan
Part 7 Jung Do Kwan
Part 8.1 Oh Do Kwan (the previous post).
It is A LOT, and together as a whole body of work I hope I have provided the most thorough look at the Kwan-era philosophy with a focus on Kwan Creeds freely available in English online. At least that is what I set out to do when I started. I am in the process of reworking the material into a book, which depending on how fast I am working might even be out already (if not expect it within 6 months). Anyway, this time we are going to take a deep dive into the present day 5 Tenets of Taekwon-Do and the Student Oath.
Present day Tenets of Taekwon-Do and the Student Oath
I do not possess any early 1970s writings from Choi, neither in books nor scans. Therefore I do not dare say exactly when the present day 5 tenets of Taekwon-Do and the Student Oath appear for the first time. In fact I have no idea if they were specifically taught within the Oh Do Kwan in their final form either. What we do know is that Choi Hong Hi acted as the Kwanjang of the Oh Do Kwan, and even after stepping back from daily instruction, continued to exercise authority behind the scenes until he left Korea in 1972. The student Oath and 5 tenets do appear in the 15 Volume Encyclopedia.
In my article on Kwan Heon from 2016 I write: "I have learned that the "modern" tenets and student oath as we know them today was published in Choi Hong Hi`s book from 1972. So it dates back to sometime between 1965-1972." in an edit.
I can not find the notes from that article though, so take it with a slight grain of salt. 1983 however they both appear fully formed in the 15 volume Encyclopedia. If 1972 is correct and I suspect it is, I think we can say that the oath and tenets were likely introduced in the Oh Do Kwan, seeing as already in the 1966 Army manual all the tenets are present and accounted for. Taking into account that teaching often precedes publications I hope I am not too far fetched in linking even the final form of the Tenets and Student Oath to the Oh Do Kwan as well.
Funny aside(?), these are the ones I was taught and grew up with, in my old Dojang :-) They are so important to "my" Taekwondo and I mentally link them closely to both Choi and Oh Do Kwan so I included them in the first page of my first book :-) (Available here wink wink)
The 5 Tenets of Taekwon-Do
- courtesy (ye-ui, 예의, 禮儀)
- integrity (yeomchi, 염치, 廉恥)
- perseverance (innae, 인내, 忍耐)
- self-control (geukgi, 극기, 克己)
- Indomitable spirit (baekjeol bulgul, 백절불굴, 百折不屈)
I have treated all of these tenets as virtues elsewhere except for "integrity"(yeomchi, 염치, 廉恥), and courtesy (ye-ui, 예의, 禮儀), so I hope that readers of this post will forgive me for skipping a deep dive into each and every one. 2 of them have been treated in-depth in the previous post (Click here) and perseverance (innae, 인내, 忍耐) can be read about in the Chang Mu Kwan post (click here).
So let us first look at integrity"(yeomchi, 염치, 廉恥). It consists of two Hanja characters which means that we need to look at 廉 and 恥 separately and together if we are going to treat this as serious as this blog series warrants.
廉 (염 yeom) Core meanings: clean, honest, incorrubtible, free from excess or corruption
恥 (치 chi) Core meanings: shame, sense of shame, moral embarrassment, awareness of disgrace.
I need to add that this is not shame as in "guilt" in a Christian sense, but that it is relational and social instead. It can be internal, but it is not only internal. Remember that Confucianism places a great deal on the individual existing through the relations and bonds with others. This 恥 (치 chi) presupposes a moral order and one´s place within it. To feel shame is evidence of moral awareness, not moral failure in Confucian thought. When combined, the two characters form a single ethical concept, not just “廉 + 恥”. It is difficult to capture this in English, so I do believe that "integrity" is a good translation that covers a lot, but if I were to try to put it into words, not being restricted to shorthand I would go with something along the lines of:
Yeomchi (염치, 廉恥): A cultivated sense of moral restraint grounded in shame-awareness and incorruptibility.
But like I said, Integrity works much better as a single tenet :-)
As with a number of previous instances in this series, courtesy (ye-ui, 예의, 禮儀) consists of two Hanja as well; 禮 (ye) and 儀 (ui). If we take a closer look at ye (禮), we find that it is sometimes referred to as ‘ritual’ in books on Confucianism. In fact, most regard ye as one of the core Confucian virtues. So what does this have to do with courtesy? Bear with me, we will get there.
Ye is, according to Confucius, the external expression and regulation of moral virtue. By this I mean that moral judgment is internal; one must decide how to act according to the situation, taking into account social context such as relationships, obligations, and place within hierarchy. Depending on the situation, there are correct, role-appropriate ways to behave and operate. This correct formal behavior within a given context is considered ye.
My original teacher once tried explaining it to me simply as ‘the correct way of doing something.’ These expressions can range from the act of bowing to your superior (hierarchical ritual), opening the door for someone (social courtesy), or reciting a dojang creed before and after training (institutional ritual).
Ui (儀 의) can be read as: appearance, form, demeanor, ceremony, proper bearing, prescribed manner. I have intentionally not spent a lot of time looking at Hanja radicals (the component parts used to construct a character and suggest its meaning). The reason is many of these are contested, but in this case I will make an exception. The Hanja 儀 contains 2 radicals, on the left you have 亻(person radical) and on the right you have 義 (righteousness, moral rightness). Together these two radicals make up Ui (儀) and refer to the proper outward form of a person acting in accordance with righteousness.
So what happens when you put Ye and Ui together to form a complete term? I hope people reading this will understand that "courtesy" is a useful shorthand in English but a lot of nuance is gone. Ye 禮 establishes the moral and social norm, and Ui 儀 governs the correct outward expression of that norm. If I am not constrained by a shorthand translation (which the Tenets list are) I could try to translate Ye-Ui as: "The disciplined alignment of conduct, form, and demeanor with moral and social order." While this take on a definition/ translation of Ye-Ui tries to maintain the nuance of the original language, "Courtesy", perhaps a little shallow in meaning compared to the original language is a useful shorthand. Where I find it a little lacking is the inherent moral within the original term. A traditional Taekwondo bow can be done with a sincere internal intention of showing proper respect and honor to the recipient, but it can also be done in a sarcastic, shallow or even passive-aggressive way. The outward form could be mimicked enough that it would be considered an act of courtesy in English, but it would fail the original Ye-Ui by a mile. Like my original teacher would have said; the intention to express ye-ui must come from your heart.
So now that we have looked at all the tenets, broken them down, and then put them back together again, what is the point of them?
Personally, the way I was taught to think about the tenets is that they are not meant to be slogans, nor something to be mechanically recited during training. Rather, they are meant to be gradually internalized through Taekwondo practice and carried into daily life.
The real strength of the tenets, taken as a collective set of values and virtues, is that they remain relevant far beyond the dojang. Want to become better at self-defence? Observing the tenets will at least make it less likely that you end up drawn into unnecessary, consensual, or semi-consensual violence. Bad things do happen to good people, but if you regularly find yourself in bar fights, odds are that at some level one or more of the tenets were not being properly observed.
Want better relationships? Observe the tenets. Want to be a better leader? Observe the tenets. Want to be a better student, colleague, or human being? The answer does not really change. This, to me, is where the tenets stop being words on a page and start functioning as a lived ethical framework. But no discussion on the tenets are really complete without also looking at the Student Oath.
The Student Oath (Also called the 5 laws of Taekwon-Do)
I grew up with the tenets and the Student Oath as the "Dojang Heon" in the Taekwondo I was taught. One note of trivia though is that originally we were taught a slightly changed Student Oath. The first sentence or "law" was (translated from Norwegian): "I shall follow the laws of Taekwondo". In the original we are saying: "I shall observe the tenets of Taekwondo". So in my Dojang while the tenets were taught and talked about, the Oath had in reality "only" 4 "Laws", in that the first one told us to follow the "Laws of Taekwondo". When I became a black belt I checked the Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do as I wanted to read Choi Hong Hi´s own words about this and found that we had had it slightly bad translated into Norwegian. I was allowed to make sure it was changed to better reflect the original with the blessing of the main instructor at the time. This is not unique to my dojang, but it illustrates how small translation choices can subtly change emphasis over time. Just to be clear this was a translation from English to Norwegian, not some obscure Korean source :-)
The oath itself as written in the Taekwon-Do Encyclopedia (I have yet to find a credible Korean source so I will treat the English as the primary source)
I shall observe the Tenets of Taekwon-Do.
I shall respect the instructor and seniors.
I shall never misuse Taekwon-Do.
I shall be a champion of freedom and justice.
I shall build a more peaceful world.
The Student Oath is like the tenets something that should be reflected upon, discussed and internalized. I have used it in my own life as a yard-stick when it comes to decision making when I am in doubt in the moral or ethical outcome of my decisions. Sometimes it helps by asking yourself the questions:
"Is this aligned with the tenets?"
"Does this promote Freedom and Justice?"
"Will this contribute to build a more peaceful world?"
I no longer consciously do this (at least it has been some time), but I hope that measn I internalized it. The reason I said you can not discuss the Tenets of Taekwondo without talking about the Student Oath is that they are intertwined and overlap. The first part of the Student Oath links the two together as one.
One other difference between the Dojang I grew up in and the official ITF Student Oath is the order of the sentences. In the version I learned the order is a little different. It originally did not mention the tenets, but this was later changed. The second sentence in my old Dojang was: "I shall never misuse Taekwondo." The third was then the #2 sentence in the normal ITF order, and the two last ones were identically placed. I do not know it there ever was a reason why Choi arrived at the order he ended up documenting in his Encyclopedia, but if you briefly entertain me on this, the way I was taught is very consistent with Confucian philosphy and ethics and closely aligns with the order of appearance of virtues seen in other Kwan. Our (and the normal ITF) sentence 1 maps out the internal values, the inner cultivation. The second one (never misuse) then clarifies a moral boundary that is not to be crossed, a moral restraint. This is then followed by social conduct and outcomes (respect, justice, peace).
I am not saying the teaching order is better or worse, and I am very biased because the #1, #3, #2, #4, #5 order was the one I literally grew up with, but the one I grew up with is the one order I prefer.
The variations between the Dojang Heon I was taught, and what it says in the Encyclopedia also brings home the points I made in the Ji Do Kwan post about lineages being alive and evolving. Some changes are natural changes over time as things are transmitted. When my teachers teacher (or his teacher) was taught the tenets and oath he did so in a foreign language with very little written resources available, and the books and written material in Norwegian at the time was non-existent. The fact that I as a student several Dojang-generations later could go online, look at the Encyclopedia and find largely the same years later is actually remarkable. My teachers teachers teacher on my Oh Do Kwan learned this, translated as best he could to Norwegian and then let the information pass from instructor to student to the present day without access to the directly written sources of Choi Hong Hi.
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