Oh Do Kwan

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Oh Do Kwan Taekwondo

Founder	Choi Hong Hi and Nam Tae Hi
Ancestor arts	Taekyon, Tang Soo Do

Oh Do Kwan

Hangul	오도관
Hanja	吾道館^[1]
Revised Romanization	Oh Do Kwan
McCune-Reischauer	Oh Do Kwan

Oh Do Kwan is one of the original taekwondo schools in Korea.

1 Meaning
2 Founding
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Meaning

The word Oh (吾) can be translated both as 'mine' and 'our', which makes the meaning of Oh Do Kwan 'the school of my (or our) way'.

[edit] Founding

General Choi Hong Hi founded the Oh Do Kwan along with Nam Tae Hi in the mid-1950s as part of the ROK Army's Physical Training Program. The first people to instruct the ROK Army in "Tang Soo Do" (as Taekwondo was called in the early 1950s) were Nam Tae Hi, Woo Jong Lim, Ko Jae Chun, Kim Suk Kyu, Baek Joon Ki, Kwak Keun Sik, Kim Bong Sik, Han Cha Kyo, Kim Bok Man (almost all of whom were originally Chung Do Kwan members).

Originally the Oh Do Kwan was made up of mostly Chung Do Kwan members brought in by senior Chung Do Kwan members Nam Tae Hi and Han Cha Kyo. General Choi was the political power in the kwan, and Nam was the head instructor. The Chang Hon Hyungs (or, more properly, tul) developed by the Oh Do Kwan were adopted by all people in the military, no matter what kwan they were originally from. According to Kim, Yong Soo (in "Taekwon-Do and Korean Martial Arts," vol. 10, no. 6), by the late 1960s about 60% of civilian Korean practitioners had adopted the Chang Hon patterns. However, no other Kwans used the Chang Hon patterns. The other Kwans adopted the Palgwe Poomsae in 1967; until that time, they only practiced the Pyong Ahn (Karate^{[citation needed]}) forms. Today, the Chang Hon tul of the Oh Do Kwan are still practiced by members of the ITF, as well as by some other Taekwondo organizations, both "independents" as well as some who have Kukkiwon certification.

Oh Do Kwan and ITF representative Hyun Jong Myung was one of the eight people from various kwans who worked on the KTA Poomsae Committee that created the Palgwe and Dan Poomsae (patterns) for the Korea Taekwondo Association in 1965, and was also on that same committee when the Palgwe Poomsae was replaced with the Taegeuk Poomsae, and some Dan Poomsae was revised in 1971-72. Today the Taegeuk and Dan Poomsae (Palgwe has been eliminated) are the Official Poomsae of the Kukkiwon and used to compete in the WTF World Poomsae Championships.

Today the Oh Do Kwan still exist in Korea as a social friendship club and has an annual celebration every year in Seoul. Oh Do Kwan was dissolved as a martial art system in the mid-1970's.