9781422286746

W H A T I S T A E K W O N D O ?

a Buddhist monk named Wong Kwang: be loyal to your king; be obedient to your parents; be honorable to your friends; never retreat in battle; and kill with justice. AncientKorea at this timewas dividedup into three kingdoms:Koguryo in the north, Baekchae in the west, and Silla in the southeast. Silla was the smallest of the three kingdoms and lived in constant fear of being overrun by its larger neighbors. In the sixth century, the King of Silla, Ching-Hung, organized an army of young warriors called the hwarang (translated as “the flowering manhood”) to protect his kingdom. These warriors were trained in the ancient open-handedmartial arts of taekyon (foot fighting) and subak . They formed a formidable fighting force, and their style became known as hwarangdo, or “way of the flowering manhood.” Martial arts remained popular in Korea for hundreds of years until the country went through a period of antimilitary rule. Even then, however, they were still practiced daily by the masses. Then, in 1909, Japan annexed Korea, banned all traditional martial arts, and forced students to take up Japanese martial arts, such as karate, judo, and jujutsu. Korean arts survived, however; some people practiced them in secret, while other martial artists fled to China. After Korea was liberated from Japan in 1945, the government made a special effort to rekindle interest in the traditional arts. It sought to unify them under a single Korean art form in an effort to revitalize the traditional art of subak. In the meantime, an army general, Grand Master Choi Hong Hi, had begun a quest to research martial arts in 1938, when he had gone to Japan to learn karate. General Choi had been a student of taekyon in Korea before going to Japan. After attaining a 2nd dan black belt in karate, he returned

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