Newsletter Newsletter 2/2006 51st Taekwon-Do Birthday

Founding Taekwon-do

At Kwang-Ju, Jun-Ra South Province, where I had been commissioned and first posted as a second lieutenant in the Korean Constabulary, I made a resolution to create a unique martial art of our people, and started to work on it in March 1946. After repeated studies and various difficulties, I completed the foundations of modern martial art by the Spring of 1955, a span of nine years.

"Once you have identified the difference, you’d better name it properly". As this passage says, I naturally needed to give this new martial art a new name to distinguish it from the others, since I intended it to proudly announce the wisdom and spirit of our Korean people along with the ethics and virtues of the Far East, as well as my own philosophy of living. However giving it a name was not an easy task for me. Because as a wise man, Xu-You said "name is a decoration of contents," the new name had to represent the movements.

Thus, while I had had "Taekwon-Do" in my mind for quite long time, as our nation was under the dictatorship of the president, I was just waiting for the right moment to announce it. I was afraid of launching it without an influential public announcement, due to the danger of becoming a target for gossip or scheming inside the Army. There was also sure to be a negative reaction from the civilian practice hall owners, who were using the name "Dang-Soo" or "Gong-Soo", which was the same word as that indicating Japanese Karate. Moreover, it seemed likely that no-one would approve Taekwon-do, and in the worst-case scenario, creating a new name might risk the loss of the bases that I had been building so far.

Since it was not simple matter, I came to think of a smoother way, to decide it by a vote following some discussion in a meeting for a naming committee. This would at least display a formal naming process. Fortunately, I asked a favor of General Hyung-Geun Lee, who at that time had been supporting me with all this might. I held a meeting with a number of leaders of public opinion, including Mr. Kyung-Ku Cho the vice-speaker of the National Assembly, powerful men and journalists at a Kiseang House.

As the first time in my army life I treated my guests well with dinner, I explained the purpose of our meeting. "We have come here to create a new name unifying the confused and varied terms applied to one martial art now called Dang-Su, Gong-Su, or Kwon-Buhp, just as one pleases." Everybody confirmed the necessity of doing so.

The meeting began. The Vice-Speaker of the National Assembly suggested that we vote by a show of hands, assuming there was nothing much to handle seriously. In the flash of a second I realized the possibility that the result could be influenced from hierarchical order of power, and I would be at a disadvantage. So I suggested voting anonymously to select the best proposal and then discussing it in detail before finally deciding, and my idea was adopted.

A while later, ballots started to be opened. Four-fifths to the ballots were of Dang-Soo or Gong-Soo. It was natural, since what they knew of so far was the Karate of Japan. Then when they heard of the name Taekwon, which was unheard of and used an unusual character for Tae, the chairperson of the meeting asked, "Could whoever suggested this name explain the meaning, please?" So I explained the character first. "Tae Means jumping, kicking or stamping. Kwon is as you all know, a fist. Yet here the fist is not only the clenched palm but also the various movements of martial art such as thrusting, punching and striking with one’s fist."

And saying that, I demonstrated these movements.

"Therefore, with the two characters, Taekwon depicts the dynamic characteristics and phenomena of protecting oneself using the fists and feet, jumping, kicking, hitting, blocking and ducking. Historically there was our popular martial art using fist and feet called Taek-Kyeun and this must have been written in Chinese Characters before the King Se-Jong designed our people’s own characters in 1443. I do not know exactly which characters had been used in Koryo Dynasty for Taek-Kyeun. Yet Taekwon might be related to our historically original martial art, since the pronunciation is similar." After my explanation, all voted for Taekwon.

Following the decision, Mr. Yu-Hwa Cheong, president of Mi-Chang company, added, "I absolutely agree with the name that Major-General Choi suggested. Yet to be cautious, the historical facts had better be checked, allowing us the chance of finding the better name in the process. After that we’d better let the President announce the name officially." No one would oppose his suggestion.

So the chair of the meeting concluded our discussion by announcing a three-person subcommittee would be organized to carry out academic research, and by the end of November it would notify the advisers individually of its findings. The advisers would identify name, and the result would be reported to the president in a week.

Eventually there would be some more steps to follow, slowing down the process, yet I was sure that it wouldn’t be a big problem since I knew I had the confidence of President Rhee at that time. When the meeting was concluded, all members of the meeting congratulated me, offering me handshakes. That reassured e that we would have the name Taekwon for our martial art.

Regardless of the activities of the three-person subcommittee, I ordered Oh-Do-Kwan to use our new name, Taekwon-do, from that day on.

And I requested that the President’s office arrange a handwriting by President Rhee of the name Taekwon-do, written in Chinese Characters. By doing that I opened the first page of the history of Taekwon-do, succeeding our people’s five-thousand-year-long tradition proudly. And at the same time, a new chapter of my life began, leading it into swirling combinations of tragedy and happiness as well as panoramic ups and downs.

Contrary to my expectation, I received a call from the chief of the presidential security guard a couple of days later, notifying me that, "The President would like to write the name as ‘Taek-Kyeun’ in Koreans characters." I almost fainted at the moment. If the president were officially to announce it as Taek-Kyeun, there would be the possibility of serious confusion.

And I was afraid of that possibility sending up in smoke my years of effort aimed at making my initial dream come true, fighting my way inch by inch through numerous jibes and jealously as well as disturbances and negative pressures.

I decided to offer some lip service. "Say, everybody knows that the President is an excellent calligrapher. To show off his artistic taste and techniques he’d better write it in Chinese characters. Otherwise it won’t be good. Please let him know that." But a couple of days later the presidential office notified me that he, still, proposed to write it in Korean. There was no other measure to have the name. I invited the most influential members of the presidential entourage and his secretary to the kiseang house that they liked most. And I persuaded them to encourage the President to write it in Chinese characters.

Eventually they succeeded in having the name in Chinese characters for me, proving the saying, "a cow has eaten, it will excrete." Since the President wrote Taekwon-Do as the signature of his approval, the name finally became free from slanders and schemes against it, being henceforward used as the official and proud name of the martial art that I had founded. To have that approval I lied and threatened those close to President on purpose, for the first and last time of my life. At the end of all hardships that I had gone through, when the birth of Taekwon-Do had been completed by its being named on the evening of the 11th of April, 1955, my joy of achievement was too great to be expressed in any words or writings.

Yet, even I myself felt strange in using the new name and could not relate the name to the actual thing (the martial art) at all at that time, since I had been calling it Dang-Soo or Gong-Soo for the past ten years, more or less. Therefore I was worried, no less that I rejoiced, about how many people would recognize what the Taekwon-Do really was within my lifetime, or it would be recognized socially to any extent.

Still, having belief in wisdom which Mencius showed, "There has not lived a man who could not achieve what we wanted to do after he has worked sincerely with hiss all might," I promoted Taekwon-do with the new name and launched further research about it, seeking more scientific and diverse techniques to the best of my ability. First, the sign-boards of "Dang-Soo-Do" at Oh-Do-Kwan and Chung-Do-Kwan were replaced with "Taekwon-Do". Second, I ordered Tae-hee Nahm, a Taekwon-Do instructor, to teach our soldiers to shout out loud and make the hand-salute before they began any session of training. Also, to aid in the mental readiness of the trainee I set up five principle values in practicing Taekwon-Do. These were courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit. Then I had the trainees recite these tenets of Taekwon-Do before each training session also. On top of that, I renovated a couple of buildings in Dae-jeon City that had been used by Japanese Army under the Japanese regime, changing them into the center for Taekwon-Do, and let a Taewkon-Do instructor, Cha-Kyo Han, train students and other civilians. Furthermore, I ordered two practice halls in each of the ‘provisional’ division in Juhn-Ju and Chung-Ju, which were within our army district, to set up and made available to both soldiers and civilians. What I intended was to draw national attention to Taekwon-Do by boosting up the art in short period of time throughout Choong-Chung North and South Provinces, as well as Ju-Ra North Province. Looking back to that time, I think it was possible to found Taekwon-Do and spread it a great speed because I was fortunate to be a general. So, later, after it had spread all over the world, whenever I have been asked how I found it and spread it so fast, I answer it as follows:

I came to have the will to create and spread a unique martial art which carries the wisdom and spirit of the Korean people in it, after I had suffered misery from the colonization of my country, feeling it deeply as a pain in my bones, and after I had happened to learn karate. After the liberation of my country, as we founded our new national army, I became a general, luckily being in an advantageous position to have freedom from any oppression or interference in founding Taekwon-Do and spreading it as I pleased. In a word, I was born into the perfect era for it. As an ancient scholar symbolically said, "Though it is the best horse in the world, it can’t have a chance to run unless it meets a good rider."

Some say a hero is a product of an era, others say an era is a product of hero. But to speak exactly, the era should be matched to the man for heroic work to be done. The essential elements of the success of spreading Taekwon-Do were my advantageous social status, as well as the status of being the founder of it, and as well as the technical superiority and unmatchable health with which I was endowed by heaven.

Yet, still more important is the fact that I did my best with all of my energy and might for thirty-three years, to the point that I was called insane, in order to cover the whole world with Taekwon-Do. I did as the founder of the ancient utopian dynasty, "Eun", who engraved nine Chinese characters on his basin to remind himself every time he washed his face to make a better world for his people. The nine characters were Korean; it is pronounced, ‘Gu-Il-Shin, Il-Il-Shin, Woo-Il-Shin’ which means "Day by day, it becomes new over and over again."

Source: Taekwon-Do and I – The memoirs of Choi Hong-Hi, the founder of Taekwon-do, pages 434-441