Annapolis, 2021: Captain Hung Cao on What a Martial Arts School Is Really For
In September 2021 a group of martial arts school owners toured the U.S. Naval Academy and then listened for two hours to a Navy Captain who was days away from retirement. His name was Hung Cao, and he was speaking to them as one of their own: a martial artist since the age of eight, trained by Grand Master Jeff Smith. Today he is Acting Secretary of the Navy. This is what he told them.
Disclosure. The 2021 meeting described here was a Martial Arts Wealth Mastery mastermind, run by this magazine’s publisher, Stephen Oliver. Grand Master Jeff Smith, Hung Cao’s martial arts instructor, is that programme’s Chief of Instruction. The account comes from the session video in the programme’s member archive. This article reports Hung Cao’s public record and takes no position on his politics.
This is the second time Hung Cao appears in this journal’s record. In early 2015, as a Commander, he walked a mastermind group through the Navy’s diving school in Panama City, which he then commanded. Six and a half years later the same programme met at his alma mater, and he spoke to its members for two hours.
Who was speaking
He was introduced as a member of the Naval Academy’s class of 1996, with his retirement ceremony due at the Academy the following week. He described a path that will be familiar to anyone who has taught children for a living.
His family left Vietnam in 1975, when he was four. He grew up partly in West Africa, speaking Vietnamese at home and French at school, and arrived in the United States at twelve, when he learned English. He had started martial arts at eight. In the United States he trained under Grand Master Jeff Smith, and by 14 or 15 he was teaching classes to adults.
From there it was Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the Naval Academy, and one of six places in his class for explosive ordnance disposal and deep-sea diving. He spent the next 25 years in that work, from recovering the bodies after the 1999 crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr. to directing counter-IED efforts across Afghanistan.
He was blunt about what martial arts had to do with it. A school, he said, took a shy boy who did not speak in public and taught him “how to lead others, how to be a black belt, how to teach martial arts.”
The argument: you are not making black belts
The day before, the group had read the Naval Academy’s mission statement: to develop midshipmen “mentally, morally and physically”. Cao asked them to hold their own schools to the same line. A school owner’s purpose, he said, is “not just, well, I need to make a buck”, and not just to produce black belts. “You’re making leaders in communities.”
He pointed to the student who calls the class to attention from the front corner of the room. To an instructor it is a ritual. To the child it is a first experience of projecting a voice and taking charge of a group, the same thing the Academy builds into its freshman year.
He also told them about failure. The first thing he ever failed, he said, was his second-degree black belt test. He was not prepared, and it took him a year to recover enough to retest. “Success is not from never failing, it’s rising after every fall,” he said, and teaching that is the job.
Four guiding principles
The centre of the talk was the four guiding principles he had built over a career, illustrated with two commanders he had served under: an admiral he had served as aide, one of the best leaders he had met, and a commanding officer who was later relieved of command.
| Principle | What he said, and how it applies on the mat |
|---|---|
| Decisiveness | “A bad decision is better than no decision.” The good commander polled the room and decided; the bad one analysed until events made the choice for him. Sometimes the 80 per cent solution is good enough. |
| Integrity | Doing the right thing when no one is watching. Students “may not hear everything you say, but they watch everything you do”. An instructor who demands a full bow and then nods past the line has taught the real lesson. |
| Servant leadership | From his son’s Scout troop: you do not eat, sleep, sit down, rest or relax until your people have had the chance to. On the mat, black belts take care of brown belts, all the way down to white. |
| Humility | Listen to everyone, including the youngest. Know your people, because each one is motivated differently, and adjust how you teach each student. |
The practical rules
The rest of the talk was a working notebook. These are the rules that translate most directly into running a school:
- Praise in public, correct in private. He recalled saying something foolish as a young instructor, and Grand Master Smith correcting him so that nobody else saw. Embarrass a child in front of the class, he said, and they may not come back.
- Admit mistakes out loud. An instructor who tells a class “I got that wrong” teaches more than one who never does.
- Under-promise and over-deliver.
- Tell people your priorities. Sort work into urgent and important; staff cannot read your mind.
- First reports are always wrong. A lesson from the admiral he served: wait for the second and third report before reacting.
- Under-react. When a child is hurt, the room takes its cue from the person in charge. Step back, let trained people work, and look at the whole picture.
Watch the address
What a school owner should take from this. Cao’s point was not that schools should be more military. It was that a martial arts school already does what the Naval Academy does, at a smaller scale and an earlier age, and should run itself as if it knew that.
In practice that means four things: decide rather than wait, model what you demand, make senior students serve junior ones, and correct in private.
Where he is now
Cao retired from the Navy as a Captain in October 2021, after 32 years. He was confirmed as Under Secretary of the Navy on 1 October 2025 and has been Acting Secretary of the Navy since 22 April 2026. In September 2026 the White House announced it would nominate him for the post. His earlier career, including his command of the Navy’s diving school and his two campaigns for elected office, is set out in our 2015 account.
Frequently asked questions
What did Hung Cao tell martial arts school owners at Annapolis in 2021?
That their real product is leaders, not black belts. Speaking to a mastermind group at the U.S. Naval Academy in September 2021, days before retiring as a Navy Captain, he set out four guiding principles, decisiveness, integrity, servant leadership and humility, and tied each to what happens on a martial arts mat.
Did Hung Cao train in martial arts?
Yes. He told the group he began martial arts at eight and, after arriving in the United States at twelve, trained under Grand Master Jeff Smith, teaching classes himself at 14 or 15. He said the first thing he ever failed was his second-degree black belt test, and that it took him a year to retest.
What is Hung Cao’s position now?
He has been Acting Secretary of the Navy since 22 April 2026. In September 2026 the White House announced it would nominate him for the post. He was previously confirmed as Under Secretary of the Navy on 1 October 2025.
What can a school owner take from the talk?
Four practical rules: make the decision rather than wait for a perfect one; act as if students are always watching, because they are; make senior students take care of junior ones first; and praise in public, correct in private.
Sources
Primary source: the session video of Captain Cao’s address, recorded at the September 2021 meeting and held in the programme’s member archive (embedded above). Quotations are taken from the recording and lightly cleaned for transcription errors; nothing has been added to them.
Career and current position: Naval History and Heritage Command; Breaking Defense, 1 September 2026; Wikipedia. Checked October 2026.
What we left out. The talk includes passing remarks on current politics. They are not reported here, in line with this journal’s practice of not taking political positions.
Corrections. See our editorial policy.
