Jan. 3, 2009 , This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Tae Kwon Do is the art of empowerment. This wasn't an accident; the military officers who developed the art did so to strengthen themselves, their students and their nation. No matter how wealthy or poor they were, the art's leaders had suffered war traumas that scarred and drove them to create a martial art, partly in order to survive. They had witnessed death, learned how to kill with their bare hands, and, mainly from Karate, developed a system of techniques that would empower. These warriors were obsessed. Eventually, their martial art strengthened millions of people around the world, so Tae Kwon Do's leaders succeeded beyond their dreams; the martial art is probably the most popular art in the world right now if you look at sheer numbers.

Some credit goes to Kim Un-Young, who dramatically expanded the martial art after helping to create the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) in 1973. He came from a wealthy family but saw his share of trauma, surviving North Korean attacks on Seoul in 1950, watching extreme destitution in South Korea in the 1950s, lamenting over a coup d'etat in 1961, and working with a wicked dictatorship in the 1960s and early 1970s. Love him or hate him, he obsessively promoted Taekwondo and the Olympics for South Korea.

Choi Hong-Hi was perhaps more obsessed. He made up the name "Tae Kwon Do" and promoted it zealously in the 1950s and 1960s. After surviving torture in World War II and deprivation during the Korean War, he was sick of Japan, the U.S. and Russia bullying his country. Hate him or love him, he created the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) in 1966 and consciously set out to develop an art that would empower people against bullies -- fighting them physically, mentally and morally.

Both men were big on morals, even during raunchy parties. I wrote about them in my book, but I could have focused on dozens of other pioneers who suffered traumas and went on to create empowering martial arts. One of the two, big themes in the book -- personal empowerment -- shows how these warriors' obsessions became successes, how a killing art practised in wartime became an empowing art practised in church halls and mall basements. The feelings of power are more than an adrenaline rush...