Original masters of taekwondo
group of twelve South Korean martial art masters
The original masters of taekwondo is a group of twelve South Korean martial art masters assembled by the Korea Taekwondo Association (KTA) in the early 1960s to promote the newly established art of taekwondo. In alphabetical order following Korean naming conventions, they are: Choi Chang-Keun, Choi Kwang-Jo, Han Cha-Kyo, Kim Jong-Chan, Kim Kwan-Il, Kong Young-Il, Park Jong-Soo, Park Jung-Tae, Park Sun-Jae, Rhee Chong-Chul, Rhee Chong-Hyup, and Rhee Ki-Ha.
The group came under the leadership of Choi Hong-hi (1918–2002), inaugural president of the KTA and later founder of the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF), and Nam Tae-hi (1929–2013), known as the Father of Vietnamese Taekwondo. Many of these men held senior positions in the ITF under Choi, but several left over time. Most of the men settled in North America, while others settled in Europe or Australia.
The phrase "original masters of taekwondo" is used to describe this group of men, but does not indicate that they were the first (or original) masters in the KTA. The leaders of the nine kwans that unified to form the KTA was a different group of men who, while perhaps senior to some of those listed as "original masters of taekwondo", were practising arts with other names, such as tae soo do, kong soo do, and others. Some of those leaders resisted using the name taekwondo. The men in the present group were among the first to adopt and promote the name taekwondo.
History
Demonstrations and tours
The original masters of taekwondo featured in the earliest demonstrations of taekwondo as a Korean martial art outside South Korea. The following table summarises demonstrations or instructional tours for which references are available.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7102601. The first chronological checks are 1918, 2002, 1929 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Original masters of taekwondo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.