Hwang Kee (1914-2002) was the Korean martial artist who founded the Moo Duk Kwan in Seoul in 1945 and developed Tang Soo Do and Soo Bahk Do.

What is the difference between Tang Soo Do and Soo Bahk Do?

Both are names Hwang Kee used for his art. He taught it as Tang Soo Do and from 1957 called it Soo Bahk Do; many independent schools still teach under the Tang Soo Do name.

Did Chuck Norris learn from the Moo Duk Kwan?

Chuck Norris trained in Korea under Jae Chul Shin, whose lineage runs back to Hwang Kee and the Moo Duk Kwan.

Who succeeded Hwang Kee?

His son, H.C. (Hyun Chul) Hwang, named in a sealed document opened after his death in 2002.

Hwang Kee, 1914–2002: Founder of the Moo Duk Kwan

Hwang Kee founded the Moo Duk Kwan, the Korean school whose Tang Soo Do reached America through servicemen like Chuck Norris and became one of the roots of American karate. When the other Korean schools merged into taekwondo, he refused, kept his organization independent, protected its name and wrote down who would succeed him. He died in Seoul on 14 July 2002, aged 87. His succession, unlike most in this archive, went as he intended.

Full name: Hwang Kee
Born: 9 November 1914, Jang Dan, Gyeonggi Province, Korea
Died: 14 July 2002, Seoul, South Korea, aged 87 (88 or 89 by Korean reckoning)
Art: Hwa Soo Do, then Tang Soo Do, then Soo Bahk Do
Founded: The Moo Duk Kwan, Seoul, 9 November 1945
Successor: His son, H.C. (Hyun Chul) Hwang, named in a sealed document opened 1 August 2002
American lineage: Through Moo Duk Kwan instructors who taught U.S. servicemen in Korea, including Chuck Norris‘s teacher Jae Chul Shin

An origin story, and its critics

Hwang Kee’s own account of his training is dramatic: boyhood exposure to the Korean kicking art taekkyon, years in Manchuria working for the railway, and study of Chinese martial arts under a master named Yang Kuk Jin. Much of it has been disputed. Peers questioned his Chinese training, the Korea Taekkyon Association disputes his account of taekkyon, and Won Kuk Lee, founder of the Chung Do Kwan, claimed Hwang had been his student, which Hwang denied. Historians generally agree that the art he first taught drew heavily on Japanese Shotokan karate, as did most of the early Korean schools. We report his own account as his own.

The Moo Duk Kwan

Hwang founded the Moo Duk Kwan in Seoul on 9 November 1945, weeks after the end of Japanese rule. By his organization’s account the first attempts failed before the school took hold. He called his art Hwa Soo Do, then Tang Soo Do, and from 1957, after studying the eighteenth-century Korean military manual Muye Dobo Tongji, Soo Bahk Do. The Korean Soo Bahk Do Association was registered in 1960.

Through the 1950s the Moo Duk Kwan became one of the largest martial arts organizations in South Korea; one widely repeated figure puts it at three-quarters of the country’s practitioners, which is the organization’s own claim.

The refusal

In the early 1960s the South Korean government pushed the country’s independent schools, the kwans, to unify under a single national art, taekwondo. Hwang would not join. In March 1965 three of his senior students, Kim Young-taek, Hong Chong-soo and Lee Kang-ik, led a large part of the Moo Duk Kwan membership into the unification movement, and by April that group had formed its own “Moo Duk Kwan” taekwondo organization under Lee. Meeting records cited by historians suggest that Hwang’s objection was partly that he would not lead the unified body. He kept his remaining schools independent, and won, by his organization’s account, two lawsuits against government pressure in the same period.

The price was size in Korea; the benefit was control. Hwang kept his curriculum, his art’s name and his organization, and the break is why two unrelated groups still use the Moo Duk Kwan name.

America

The Moo Duk Kwan’s influence in the United States came largely through American servicemen stationed in Korea. Chuck Norris trained at Osan Air Base under Jae Chul Shin, a Moo Duk Kwan instructor, and brought Tang Soo Do home in 1962; his students and the many servicemen like him spread it across the country. Hwang’s own federation in the United States, originally the U.S. Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan Federation, renamed itself the U.S. Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan Federation in 1996, the year after the Moo Duk Kwan’s fiftieth anniversary. It holds U.S. federal trademark registrations for the name Moo Duk Kwan and Hwang’s fist logo.

Death, and the sealed envelope

Hwang Kee died in Seoul on 14 July 2002. His wife of sixty-nine years, Cho Kyung Kap, had died in 1997. He had named his successor in a sealed document kept in a safety deposit box; it was opened on 1 August 2002 and named his son, H.C. Hwang, who was confirmed by the federation’s board. We have not found a published cause of death.

What a school owner should take from Hwang Kee

Hwang Kee is the clearest case in this archive of a founder who planned for his own death. Mas Oyama’s organization split over a contested will; Masatoshi Nakayama’s went to the Supreme Court. Hwang put his decision in writing, sealed it, and the organization accepted it. Every owner whose school depends on him needs the same document, and needs the people who will stay to know it exists.

He also understood that your name and logo are assets that need legal protection. Registering them is what lets an organization stop others from using them, and it is cheap compared with what it protects.

And his refusal in 1965 is a lesson in trade-offs. Staying independent cost him most of his Korean membership. It also kept the thing he cared about most under his control. Owners offered a merger, a franchise or an association should decide in advance which of those two they value more.

Quick answers

Who was Hwang Kee?: Hwang Kee (1914–2002) was the Korean martial artist who founded the Moo Duk Kwan in Seoul in 1945 and developed Tang Soo Do and Soo Bahk Do.
What is the difference between Tang Soo Do and Soo Bahk Do?: Both are names Hwang Kee used for his art. He taught it as Tang Soo Do and from 1957 called it Soo Bahk Do; many independent schools still teach under the Tang Soo Do name.
Did Chuck Norris learn from the Moo Duk Kwan?: Chuck Norris trained in Korea under Jae Chul Shin, whose lineage runs back to Hwang Kee and the Moo Duk Kwan.
Who succeeded Hwang Kee?: His son, H.C. (Hyun Chul) Hwang, named in a sealed document opened after his death in 2002.

Sources, and what we could not confirm

Sources: the English Wikipedia biographies of Hwang Kee, the Moo Duk Kwan, Moo Duk Kwan Taekwondo and Soo Bahk Do, and their cited sources, for his life, the 1965 split and the trademarks; the Moo Duk Kwan history published by his federation (labelled promotional) for his death, his wife, the sealed succession document and the 1996 renaming; the federation’s resolution affirming H.C. Hwang’s appointment; and our own profile of Chuck Norris, which cites Norris on his teacher.

Conflicts printed rather than smoothed over. His age at death is 87 by Western reckoning and 88 or 89 by Korean. His training history is disputed by the Korea Taekkyon Association and by other founders, as described above. The Moo Duk Kwan’s size in the 1950s comes from the organization itself.

Not independently documented. His years in China, his teacher Yang Kuk Jin, the two lawsuits against the government, and his cause of death. The federation’s history is the source for much of his biography and is written by his successors.

Corrections. See our editorial policy. If you trained under Hwang Kee, we want to hear from you.