Tang Soo Do
당수도A Korean karate style founded in 1945 by Hwang Kee. It draws on Okinawan karate and on Chinese styles, and is known for high kicks and its system of hyung forms.
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South KoreaCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
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What the style is built from
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About Tang Soo Do
Tang Soo Do is a Korean karate style founded in 1945 by Hwang Kee. The name means literally "way of the Tang dynasty hand" and acknowledges both Chinese and Japanese origins: Hwang Kee worked from Okinawan karate, which he studied from Japanese books, and from Chinese styles he met in Manchuria. His original organisation was called Moo Duk Kwan, one of the nine kwans of post-war Korea. The historical context is essential: the other kwans merged into taekwondo during the 1950s and 1960s, but Hwang Kee refused, and Tang Soo Do remained separate. That is why it is technically closer to Japanese karate than to modern taekwondo — it uses firmer stances, kata taken from shotokan (Pyung Ahn, Bassai, Naihanchi) and a smaller share of acrobatic kicks. It nonetheless keeps the Korean kicking tradition: kicks are high, frequent and technically developed, only they are used alongside karate hand work rather than instead of it. The belt system runs through gup to dan grades, traditionally with a midnight blue belt instead of a black one; Hwang Kee argued that black is final, whereas blue means continuation. Chuck Norris, who earned his black belt in it in Korea, popularised the style worldwide. There are several organisations today and they differ in how far they lean towards karate or towards taekwondo; before joining, it pays to find out which line a club practises.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.