From Spooky Kukki to the WTF, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

I now know that whenever a martial artist becomes a history expert, it is time to reach for the scotch. From the beginning, Tae Kwon Do has had high ideals and fought violence with violence (and sometimes fought justice with violence, too), but the history of the martial art has always hidden the painful truths about this violence. Millions of people, including Koreans, do not realize that the tall tale about Tae Kwon Do being an ancient martial art is more than a neat story: the creation myth sells the meditation while hiding the brutality, points to heaven and ignores the blood. In the 1950s and 1960s, Tae Kwon Do needed ancient mumbo-jumbo to hide its Karate roots and, in the 1970s, it needed ancient, invisible warriors to promote a wicked regime.

Choi Hong-Hi’s myth about 1500-year-old dynasties and hwarang warriors had a deep and practical purpose in the early 1970s: the sketchy “historical research” that embedded Tae Kwon Do in Korea’s old culture grew into a legend as hardy as an ancient gingko. It came as no surprise, then, that the Korean Overseas Information Service published a booklet, Taekwondo, which opened with: “Tae Kwon Do is a martial art unique to Korea developed about 2,000 years ago.” But the nation borrowed more than Choi’s creation myth. To his amazement, it stole the name of his martial art, Tae Kwon Do, and it assigned Korean CIA agent Kim Un-yong to merge the nine martial-arts gyms (kwans).

Kim believed that the kwans had been monkish in their isolation, medieval in their segregation, and simply vicious during tournaments. Uniting them and raising money for a world Tae Kwon Do headquarters, the Kukkiwon, were Kim’s most important projects. In fact, political and martial arts leaders chose him as KTA leader in 1970 partly because they thought that he could raise huge amounts of money.

At Kim’s first press conference, a journalist asked him if he would indeed build the Kukkiwon as promised.

“Yes,” Kim replied.

“How much will it cost?” the journalist asked.

Kim froze, because he did not know. He knew that he wanted a Kukkiwon and, coming from a rich family, he believed, “where there is a will, there is a way.” He turned and whispered to Lee Chong-woo, a martial arts leader who sat nearby.

“Say that 300 million Won will do,” Lee whispered back. In those days, that was an enormous sum, equivalent to U.S.$1.5 million today.

“I think we need no more than 200 million Won,” Kim said, not wanting to alarm people with the larger number. Korean newspapers reported the amount.

Kim wanted the Kukkiwon built in the old style, “to give the impression of tradition, like the Korean Palaces for instance, or the magnificent homes of the Confucian high officials,” he said. For the roof, he chose a traditional Korean tile: the blue kiwa, the same type of kiwa on the Blue House, the country’s presidential mansion. In the old days, the making of blue kiwa was a respected, secret art, passed from father to son, and there is a saying in Korea: “He is as arrogant as a kiwa merchant.”

Kim could not find land in Seoul for the Kukkiwon, so he approached a friend, the mayor of Seoul, who offered him a flat plot.

“I need the highest ground in Yoksam-dong,” Kim countered.

“You can have lower ground,” the mayor insisted. “I don’t understand why you need a place on the top of the mountain.”

“This martial arts gym will have a monumental meaning,” Kim said. “I also have a feeling that a Tae Kwon Do miracle might occur if we build it at the summit.”

Kim received his mountaintop miracle, and construction began in November 1971, “financed with my personal property,” Kim wrote, “and donations from my acquaintances — large companies like Samsung.”

One year later, the Kukkiwon was inaugurated by Kim Ch?ng-p’il, Kim Un-yong’s former KCIA boss, who was now Prime Minister of the country. The beautiful, three-storey building rested on a two-acre lot and contained studios, an auditorium, a dormitory, a recreation room, and the distinct aura of ancient history around its blue kiwa roof. The Kukkiwon would unite rival martial arts factions by forcing them to conduct black belt promotions and Tae Kwon Do business in the Kukkiwon itself. The building would be more market than monastery.

Many martial arts leaders refused to unite, but they soon had no choice. With the iron support of the Korean regime, Kim transformed part of the Korean Tae Kwon Do Association into the World Taekwondo Federation, which sounded nearly identical to Choi’s “International Taekwon-Do Federation.” Also, the acronym “WTF” sounded like “ITF” in English. Choi, in a rage, warned them not to use the term “Tae Kwon Do,” but everyone ignored him, and South Korea severed all ties to the ITF in Canada. The war between Choi and Kim entered a new phase.