A Brief History of Tae Kwon Do

The martial arts have a rich and varied history. They can be traced all the way back to India, and then to China. The martial arts of Japan started in Okinawa and eventually became influenced by the Chinese.

Much of Tae Kwon Do can trace its lineage back to early Japanese Karate. This is where most of the early Korean teachers first started learning martial arts. While the term Tae Kwon Do itself is relatively modern, the style can trace its system of strikes back to the original Kwans or schools of Korea. The founder of the Chung Do Kwan school first started learning Shotokan Karate, but this was well before Shotokan became the popular and complete system it is today.

Tae Kwon Do has become a unique and complete system in it's own right. It is hard style. Hard style martial arts focus on force against force The softer styles such as Aikido, Hapkido, Tae Chi, etc focus on redirection of energy and momentum. They also tend to focus on join locking and other techniques.