Ngo Dong
Vietnamese-American founder of the martial art Cuong Nhu ("hard-soft"), professor of biology in Hue and later of entomology at the University of Florida.
Quick Facts
United StatesBiography
Ngo Dong was the founder of the martial art Cuong Nhu, whose name means "hard-soft" in Vietnamese and reflects training across multiple systems. He founded the style while working at Hue University, where he was a professor of biology from 1961 to 1971. He died on May 15, 2000; we have not been able to verify the date and place of his birth in the sources.
As a boy he learned Vovinam from Ngo Quoc Phong and studied Wing Chun with his older brothers. After 1956 he trained Shotokan karate under former Japanese captain Choji Suzuki and reached fourth dan in it. He studied judo and goshin jujutsu with American Marine lieutenant Ernest H. Cates, earning a black belt in judo.
In 1974 he earned a doctorate in entomology from the University of Florida, and until 1975 he headed Da Nang College. Between 1971 and 1974 the first American Cuong Nhu karate club was established. In June 1977 he fled Vietnam by boat and subsequently worked as a professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology at the University of Florida until his retirement. In the U.S. he led the international Cuong Nhu community, which according to the source has over 3,000 active members.