Taekwondo Pioneers: Haeng Ung Lee
October 5, 2010 was the tenth anniversary of the passing of Haeng Ung Lee (1936-2000), founder of the American Taekwondo Association. According to the Korean tradition of hehe (annual memorial for family members who have passed away), we take the time to remember an extraordinary man with an extraordinary vision.
Lee grew up amid the difficulties of the Japanese occupation of Korea and China. In the chaos of post-World War II Korea, he began studying taekwondo to learn self-protection. He initially trained informally, but eventually was invited to train at a Chung Do Kwan High School in Incheon. Since he had natural ability and constantly trained, he quickly achieved the rank of black belt and began teaching.
In the mid-1950s, Lee spent his national service in the South Korean army, attached to an intelligence unit based on Baengnyeong Island. His main duty was as a martial arts trainer for his unit. After his discharge from the army, Lee eventually ended up in Osan, running a Chung Do Kwan branch school near Osan Air Base.
One of Lee’s earliest students was US Air Force aviator Richard Reed. At first, Reed trained at the airbase with one of Lee’s assistants, but due to his skill and commitment he was eventually brought to Lee’s school in Osan. Ultimately, Reed became one of Lee’s first two non-Korean black belts. It was to Reed that Lee first revealed his vision of teaching martial arts in the United States. Lee’s goal was not simply to establish a single school, but to touch so many people with martial arts that his students would spread throughout the country. Although he had doubts about whether or not Lee’s goal could be achieved, Reed agreed to help Lee immigrate to the US and help him in any way he could.
Lee first came to the United States in 1962. Reed, still in the Army, was stationed in Omaha, so Lee joined him there and began teaching at the small school Reed had established. Lee was a charismatic and gifted instructor, and he quickly attracted a following. However, he had only been able to obtain a visitor’s visa and in 1963 he was forced to return to South Korea. After a protracted effort, including the intervention of one of Nebraska’s senators, Lee was granted a resident alien visa in 1965.
After Lee settled in Omaha, he focused on growing his martial arts schools. He also founded the Midwest Karate Federation (MKF), an umbrella organization for the growing number of martial arts schools that his students were opening. Due to Lee’s hard work, MKF grew rapidly and earned a reputation as one of the best organized martial arts groups in the country.
Lee’s success attracted the attention of General Hong Hi Choi, president of the International Taekwon-do Federation (ITF). The General had established the ITF in 1966 and had been working tirelessly to build national affiliates outside of Korea. He saw the MKF as a starting point from which to build a potential national governing body for taekwondo in the US In late 1968, the general met with Lee in Omaha, ostensibly to discuss the issue. What exactly was decided was never recorded. However, the General spent four days with Lee, teaching him the first 16 forms of Ch’ang Hon in the process.
A few months later, in 1969, the American Taekwondo Association (ATA) was formed as the original US affiliate of the ITF. The MKF formed the core of this new organization. Although he was considered the driving force behind the establishment of the ATA and thus deserving of the title “founder”, Lee was not allowed to be the first president of the ATA. This was for cultural reasons, mainly; In Korean culture, seniority is very important and the senior leads the organization. As a sixth-grader in his 30s, Lee didn’t even have the right to call himself a “master” at the time (in the ITF, you needed and still need to be a seventh-grader to hold that title), and there are already several higher-ranking ones. instructors in the united states
The issue was resolved when Lee’s original instructor, Kang Suh Chong, was persuaded (probably by Choi) to move to the US. Black belts, he had spent 14 years training martial arts in the South Korean military, and was (at the time) a Choi loyalist. Due to these factors, it was thought that he would attract some of the most experienced Korean instructors to join the ATA. Kang settled in New York City and was installed as president of the ATA. Lee was named Vice President and Chief of Instruction, and his Omaha school served as the central school for the ATA.
Lee’s position meant that he essentially ran the day-to-day operations of the ATA. He made it his personal task to not only grow the ATA, but to make it the standard for outstanding taekwondo training. Furthermore, the financial difficulties of the early days in Omaha (in 1962, Lee’s school gross monthly income was approximately $160) had convinced Lee that a martial artist should not have to live in poverty to teach on time. complete. So, with the help of Richard Reed, he set about building a support structure that would allow martial artists to run schools full time and make a decent living. Innovations include business training for school owners, a printed instructor’s manual, and a standardized instructor certification system.
The 1970s were a difficult time for South Korea and for Korean martial arts in the US It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the changing political landscape and the alliances and loyalties that were made and broken during that time. turbulent. In 1978, the ATA appears to have broken with the ITF. Suh Chong Kang left the ATA to become ITF Vice President, taking several of the remaining veterans with him. Haeng Ung Lee took over as chairman.
Around the time he became president of the ATA, Lee sold his school in Omaha to one of his students and moved to Little Rock. When asked why he chose that particular city, Lee replied that the geography reminded him of where he grew up in Korea, but without the cold winters. He purchased a building on the south side of town that became what is now the original wing of the ATA headquarters facility.
In the 1980s, Lee’s innovations continued. For example, he established a computerized database containing the student records of all ATA members, one of the first automated record systems that included color belt and black belt students. However, his most significant innovation was the establishment of the new Songahm formulary system. Lee had long felt that the Ch’ang Hon system of form patterns did not emphasize kicking enough in the lower belt forms and that there were too many complicated manual techniques. He also wanted forms that could be combined with step sparring and sparring combinations that used similar kicks; this would form a unified curriculum for each belt, something that was not possible under the Ch’ang Hon system at the time.
By the late 1980s, Lee was eligible for promotion to ninth-degree black belt. Instead of simply assuming the rank as so many other leaders in the organization had done, he wanted to prove that he was worthy of the promotion and the grandmaster title that came with it. There was some controversy when he became president of the ATA, and he probably wanted to avoid the same difficulties with an elevation to grand mastery. Lee then outlined a nine-step process for becoming a grandmaster. The first of these steps was acceptance by ATA members; and an overwhelming percentage of ATA members signed the petition to grant him the promotion. With the loyalty of the members confirmed, Lee completed the remaining eight steps of the process and was acclaimed Grand Master in 1990.
For the next ten years, Lee presided over an ATA experiencing explosive growth. The number of active ATA schools increased from 200 in 1989 to over 1,000 in 2000. Additional innovations such as weapons training for black belts, an early childhood martial arts program, and a series of books and DVDs on the Songahm forms were examples of the ATA leading the industry with its innovations.
Unfortunately, in the late 1990s, Lee began to experience health problems. Ultimately, he was diagnosed with cancer and the underlying treatment. For a time, his health improved, but the cancer returned in March 2000. This time, the prognosis was poor, so he began to put his affairs in order, including planning a transition in the leadership of ATA . On October 5, 2000, Lee lost his battle with cancer.
In June 2001, Lee was commemorated with a posthumous promotion to 10th degree black belt, with the title “Eternal Grand Master”. The promotional documents were signed by several legendary Korean martial arts practitioners, such as Jhoon Rhee and Bong Soo Han.
The legacy of this extraordinary man is a testament to taekwondo’s principles of perseverance and indomitable spirit. In the space of forty years, the vision of him for a multitude of schools in the US grew from a mere idea to the reality of the modern ATA. The politics of martial arts and post-war Korea and fluctuations in the American economy did not stop him from making that vision a reality. In this, he was well served by his extraordinary charisma and humanity. He had the ability to make complete strangers feel like he had known them for years. Because of the great personal loyalty he had built with so many, those he had touched genuinely mourned him on a deeply personal level.
And so, to honor the 10th anniversary of Haeng Ung Lee’s passing, we say, “Suseung-nim, khamsa hamnida.”