Choi Hong-hi

Quick Facts

Date of Birth11/9/1918

Date of Death6/15/2002

Country of OriginSouth Korea

OccupationSoldier, Writer

Also known asChoi Hong Hi

Biography

Choi Hong-hi was a Korean general and the founder of taekwon-do in the style of the International Taekwon-do Federation (ITF), which he founded in 1966 and led until his death. According to the ITF, a special committee approved on 11 April 1955 the name taekwon-do that he proposed, but the authorship of the name is disputed. He was born on 9 November 1918 by the lunar calendar, that is 22 December, in the village of Hwadae in Myongchon County in present-day North Korea. He died on 15 June 2002 in Pyongyang.

In 1937 he left to study in Japan and in Kyoto learned karate from a Korean instructor named Kim. According to the ITF he earned his first dan around 1939 and his second later in Tokyo. During the war he spent eight months in custody, and according to the ITF liberation in August 1945 relieved him of the sentence. In January 1946 he joined the Korean army as a second lieutenant and in 1951 became a brigadier general. The ITF gives the rank of major general, and we have not found it independently verified.

In 1953 he founded the Oh Do Kwan gym on the island of Jeju with the 29th Infantry Division. On 3 September 1959 he founded the Korea Taekwon-do Association and was its first president. In 1965 he published the first English-language book on taekwon-do with twenty patterns. The ITF was founded on 22 March 1966 in Seoul with representatives of nine countries. The 1972 textbook contained 24 patterns, and the ITF still gives 24 official patterns, with the pattern Ko-Dang replaced by Juche in 1986 according to Wikipedia.

At the beginning of 1972 he left for Canada with the ITF headquarters and in 1985 moved it to Vienna. In February 1975 he publicly condemned South Korean President Park Chung-hee. In May 1979 he visited North Korea and in 1980 led an ITF demonstration team there. He was buried in the Patriotic Martyrs Cemetery in Pyongyang.

Early life

Choi Hong-hi was born on 9 November 1918 by the lunar calendar in the village of Hwadae in Myongchon County in northern Korea. The ITF states that this corresponds to 22 December in the Western calendar and that Choi celebrated his birthday on 9 November. An obituary reprinted in 2011 on the website of Bill Gladstone gives Pyongyang as the place of birth. According to the ITF, at the age of twelve he was expelled from school for protesting against Japanese rule, and his father then sent him to study calligraphy and classical Chinese.

In 1937 he went to Japan for education. During the Second World War, according to the ITF, he was investigated over an alleged plot of a student-soldier movement in Pyongyang, spent eight months in custody, and liberation in August 1945 relieved him of a seven-year sentence. This version is passed on by the ITF and Choi himself, and we have not found independent evidence.

Training and teachers

In Kyoto he was taught karate by a Korean named Kim, and according to the ITF he earned his first dan around 1939 after two years of training. He earned his second dan, according to the ITF in the Shotokan style, later in Tokyo, where he began teaching karate at the YMCA. The ITF does not give the date of the second dan.

In January 1946 he joined the new Korean army as a second lieutenant and taught the soldiers under his command martial arts under the then widespread name tang su do. According to the ITF biography he was promoted in 1947 to captain and major, in 1948 to lieutenant colonel, in 1949 to colonel and in 1951 to brigadier general. The ITF gives the rank of major general from 1953 to 1954, while English Wikipedia calls it unverified.

Son Duk-sung, head of the Chung Do Kwan school, states in a letter of 15 June 1959 that in 1955 he awarded Choi an honorary 4th dan and later took it away. Choi himself claimed a 9th dan from 1965.

Contribution and innovations

In 1953 he founded the Oh Do Kwan gym at the command of the 29th Infantry Division on the island of Jeju. According to the ITF, in 1955 he created the first patterns, Hwa-Rang and Choong-Moo, and on 11 April 1955 the committee approved the name taekwon-do that he proposed. On 3 September 1959 he founded the Korea Taekwon-do Association and led it until 1961. In 1962 he became the first Korean ambassador to Malaysia, and according to the ITF he introduced taekwon-do there.

According to the ITF, his first book on taekwon-do was published in 1959 with five patterns, while Wikipedia gives a Korean textbook from 1958. In 1965 he published the first English-language book Taekwon-Do: The Art of Self-Defence with twenty patterns, sixteen of which were new. He founded the ITF on 22 March 1966 in Seoul with representatives of nine countries. The 1972 textbook had 519 pages and 24 patterns. The fifteen-volume Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do was, according to the ITF, completed in 1983 and printed in 1985.

Philosophy and principles

In the words of the founder, the ITF states that among the principles of taekwon-do courtesy is one of the most important. The text comes from the ITF publication The Art of Taekwon-Do from 2014, and we have not found the exact wording with a book and page from books by Choi himself. In an interview of 12 November 1999 Choi said that right after his first black belt he realized that karate did not give all the answers, and he dated his research on the new art from March 1946.

Legends and documented facts

The authorship of the name taekwon-do is disputed. The ITF states that Choi proposed the name and the committee approved it on 11 April 1955. Son Duk-sung claimed that he handed him the paper with the name, and according to the 2011 testimony of Nam Tae-hi, recorded by the author John Gillis, both chose the name from dictionaries. The dispute has not been decided.

Academic works question the claim of origin in old Korean arts. Udo Moenig in Korea Journal from 2014 shows that the early literature from 1945 to 1970 is based on Shotokan karate. According to Steve Capener, Choi retracted in an interview in 2001 the claim that he had learned taekkyon in childhood. Wikipedia states that training directly with Gichin Funakoshi was claimed by Choi himself, the ITF names only the instructor Kim, and YMAA considers such training unlikely.

It is often written that in 1979 he defected to North Korea. A visit in May 1979 and the dispatch of an ITF demonstration team in 1980 are documented. The reasons for leaving South Korea are explained in different ways, from a dispute with the president to a connection with the secret service, and his open letter from 1975 is documented.

Legacy

According to a University of Turku thesis, he planned the move to Canada from 1968, carried it out at the beginning of 1972 and settled in Toronto with the ITF headquarters. In February 1975 he condemned President Park Chung-hee in an open letter. In 1985 he moved the ITF headquarters to Vienna. According to the ITF, during his lifetime he presided over seventeen world championships and received honorary doctorates in Moscow, Pyongyang and Chisinau.

He died on 15 June 2002 in Pyongyang and is buried in the Patriotic Martyrs Cemetery. After his death the ITF split into several organizations, all of which claim his legacy, among them the group led by his son Choi Jung-hwa.

Associated Martial Arts

Kata and forms

Organisations

• ITFInternational Taekwon-Do FederationFounder · 1966
• OHDOOh Do KwanCo-founder

Quotes