Hwang Kee

Hwang Kee was born on 9 November 1914 in Jang Dan, Gyeonggi Province, Korea, and died on 14 July 2002.^[1] He founded the Moo Duk Kwan in 1945; the organization dates his first school to 9 November 1945, in Seoul's Yongsan district.^[1][2][3] A Kido Kwan page gives the same birth date and place, the same death date and the same founding date, and dates his first martial arts studies under Yang Kuk Jin to 1936 in Manchuria.^[4]

Influences #

He drew on several: taekkyon, studied while at school; Chinese martial arts, including a claim that he learned Kuk Sool under Yang Kuk Jin in China, which some of his peers doubt; Okinawan karate, learned partly from library books; and Shotokan, from which many of the original forms and techniques derive.^[1]

Names of the art #

His school was first called Hwa Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan, was renamed Tang Soo Do in the early 1950s, and from about 1957 he used the name Soo Bahk Do. In 1995 the organization was officially renamed Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan.^[1][2]

A disputed claim #

Lee Won-kuk said that Hwang had trained at the Chung Do Kwan and earned a green-belt equivalent. Hwang disputed this and named only Yang Kuk Jin as his teacher.^[1]