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# The Teacher Behind the Kwans: How One Okinawan Master's Students Shaped Korean Martial Arts
- URL: https://www.themudoledger.com/the-teacher-behind-the-kwans-how-one-okinawan-masters-students-shaped-korean-martial-arts-2/
- Published: 2026-08-15T04:01:52.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-15T04:01:51.000Z
- Description: We are publishing this on August 15th, Gwangbokjeol—Korea's celebration of the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945. This date feels fitting for a history intertwined with that occupation- not a pure or ancient lineage, but a legacy shaped by colonization.
- Author: Brent Harshbarger
- Tags: History, Taekwondo

**Editor's note:** We are publishing this on August 15th, Gwangbokjeol—Korea's celebration of the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945\. This date feels fitting for a history intertwined with that occupation, not a pure or ancient lineage but a legacy shaped by colonization. A generation of Koreans trained in Japan and later developed it into the national martial arts we recognize today. If modern Korean martial arts have an unofficial birthday, this date is more fitting than any federation charter date.

Ask most Taekwondo practitioners about their art's origins, and they typically cite either an unbroken 2,000-year lineage from the Hwarang warriors of Silla or a simpler link to the traditional Korean kicking game taekkyŏn. Both stories are fascinating origin myths, but neither aligns with the historical record.

The true story is more captivating. It focuses on Itosu Ankō, an Okinawan schoolteacher born in Shuri in 1831, who never traveled to Korea and likely never encountered a Korean martial artist. Despite this, nearly all the major kwan — the founding schools that later unified into Taekwondo — can trace their technical origins to men directly trained by Itosu or his students. This is that story, presented with its uncertainties intact rather than smoothed over.

**A note on names, first**

Before proceeding, note that this individual is sometimes called **Itosu Ankō** and other times **Itosu Yasutsune**. These names refer to the same person; the difference lies in the Japanese pronunciation of the kanji 安恒—Ankō is Okinawan, while Yasutsune is the Japanese reading. Some historians view "Yasutsune" as a mispronunciation that became common. Regardless, it is the same person, and this article uses Ankō consistently.

**The teacher who made karate teachable**

In the stories about him, Itosu didn't seek fame as a fighter— he was primarily an administrator and educator, though he was also among the most technically skilled martial artists of his era, trained by the renowned Sōkon Matsumura. His historical significance doesn't lie in his fighting techniques but in two key decisions he made as a teacher.

In 1901, he played a key role in integrating karate into Okinawa's public school curriculum, shifting it from a secretive, small-scale tradition to a discipline taught to ordinary students. Around 1905, he also simplified advanced kata into easier, safer versions for beginners—most notably the five Pinan (Heian) katas still practiced worldwide today and a three-part version of the older Naihanchi form.

In summary: Itosu is credited with transforming karate from a practice taught to individual students into a discipline that can be taught in classrooms. This single administrative change arguably had a greater impact on the global dissemination of karate — and even on Korean martial arts — than any punch or kick he ever delivered.

A warning: many of the colorful stories about Itosu found online — such as his childhood as a frail, shy boy who became strong enough to pull stones from walls, or his work as a Chinese ambassador's translator — are nearly identical across various martial arts sites. This suggests they were copied from a single uncredited source rather than independently verified. These are interesting stories, but they lack confirmation.

Itosu instructed numerous students, but four of them in particular established the styles that are central to this story:

- **Gichin Funakoshi** → Shotokan
- **Kenwa Mabuni** → Shitō-ryū
- **Chōshin Chibana** → (Kobayashi) Shōrin-ryū
- **Kanken Tōyama** → Shudokan

Two of these — Funakoshi's Shotokan and Tōyama's Shudokan — mark the true beginning of the Korean story.

**Why Koreans were training in Tokyo at all**

This aspect doesn't easily fit into a lineage chart, yet it is crucial: none of this transmission occurs without Japan's colonial occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945.

The situation affected Korea in three interconnected ways. Initially, the occupation actively diminished Korea's martial traditions — subak and taekkyŏn — as part of broader bans on Korean cultural practices, coinciding with the promotion of Japanese alternatives. Next, colonial-era economic and educational systems directed many young Koreans to Japan: by 1940, about a million Koreans resided there, mostly working in factories and mines, while some wealthier families sent their sons to Japanese universities — the same path taken by almost all kwan founders discussed here. Lastly, and often overlooked, karate had only recently reached mainland Japan from Okinawa in the 1920s. Funakoshi established his first Tokyo dojo in 1924, and Tōyama launched the Shudokan in 1930\. Korean students weren't learning an ancient, established tradition; they observed karate being standardized into a modern, university-based sport in real time, then brought this evolving system back home within a decade.

None of this suggests that individual kwan founders acted dishonorably. Instead, it's about the mechanism: colonization not only failed to stop karate from spreading into Korea but also created the very conditions that facilitated its arrival.

**The Shotokan line: Chung Do Kwan and Oh Do Kwan**

**Lee Won-kuk** moved to Tokyo in 1926 for secondary education and later attended Chuo University to study law. There, he trained under Funakoshi and was regarded by peers as Korea's leading Shotokan practitioner. He returned to Korea in 1944 and established the Chung Do Kwan, one of the earliest Korean martial arts schools, teaching under the name "tangsudo"—the Korean pronunciation of Funakoshi's term for karate from the mid-1920s.

**Choi Hong-hi**, a Korean army officer associated with Shotokan and Chung Do Kwan, established Oh Do Kwan in 1954 as part of the ROK Army's training initiatives. This dojang created the first forms specific to what would become Taekwon-do, modeled after Shotokan sequences but given intentionally Korean and nationalist names. In 1966, Choi split from the Korean Taekwondo Association to establish the International Taekwon-Do Federation, a division that continues to influence the ITF/WT split today. It is important to note that Choi's claimed Shotokan rank is disputed by other Chung Do Kwan leaders, and his reputation as the "Father of Taekwon-do" after 1966 is debated within academic circles — this remains an unsettled issue.

**The Shudokan line: two unrelated men, both named Yun**

This is the point where the story truly becomes complex, and many common retellings often get it wrong.

**Yun Byung-in** was born around 1919–1920 in Manchuria. As a child, he began studying Chinese boxing (quánfǎ) under an instructor whose name is unknown. In 1938, he moved to Tokyo to study agriculture at Nihon University and trained under Kanken Tōyama. He eventually earned a master's certificate. After World War II, Yun returned to Korea and, starting in 1946, taught at his own school, the YMCA Kwonbup Bu in Seoul.

**Yun did not directly establish Chang Moo Kwan.** In August 1950, amid the North Korean invasion, Yun was taken to North Korea—likely under duress, since otherwise he would have had to leave his wife and infant daughter behind. After his disappearance, his students Lee Nam-suk and Kim Sun-bae revived his school in 1953, calling it Changmookwan. Two other senior students, Park Chul-hee and Hong Jung-pyo, broke away from that school in 1956 to form their own organization, Kangdukkwan, also known as **Kang Duk Won in English**. The founding date of Kang Duk Won is often cited as 1954, but a more reliable source suggests it was 1956.

Yun's personal story is a minor tragedy: North Korean records indicate that in the late 1960s, he was assigned to teach a combat art to an elite unit in Pyongyang, likely in response to South Korea's growing Taekwondo movement. Afterward, he was discharged and worked at a cement factory, where he died of lung cancer in 1983.

**Yun Kwei-byung** — no relation, despite the similar name — initially trained in Kenwa Mabuni's Shitō-ryū in Osaka, then studied with Tōyama at Nihon University, eventually earning a reported seventh dan. In 1940, he established the Kanbukan, a Tokyo dojo that welcomed both Korean and Japanese students, including a young ethnic-Korean karateka named Choi Yeong-eui (최영의), later known as **Masutatsu Oyama**, the founder of Kyokushin. Yun later returned to Korea, took over the Yunmookwan after its previous leader disappeared during the war, and renamed it the **Jidokwan**. Although Yun trained in Shitō-ryū and Shudokan, the Jidokwan continued to teach the Shotokan-style forms set by his predecessor—a reminder that a school's forms do not always reflect the leader's personal training background.

**After liberation: building a new history**

The occupation's impact extends beyond 1945 — subsequent events may be equally crucial to understanding contemporary Korean martial arts.

Immediately after liberation, there was no effort to hide this. Most leading Korean schools in the late 1940s were run by men trained in Japan and openly taught karate-influenced curricula under names such as tangsudo and kongsudo—Korean pronunciations of Japanese terms. At the time, Japanese martial arts training was a mark of prestige in Korea, not something to be downplayed.

This shift occurred during nation-building. In 1955, Choi Hong-hi led a committee to select a uniquely Korean name for the martial art—choosing "Taekwondo" to distinguish it from Japanese karate terms. The decision was driven by political, linguistic, and technical considerations.

The claim that Taekwondo directly descends from the ancient taekkyŏn game and the 2,000-year-old Hwarang warrior traditions is not well supported. Research, including Steven Capener's 1995 *Korea Journal* article, shows that interest in taekkyŏn during Taekwondo's early development was limited, and its influence on techniques was minor. The Muyedobo-tongji, an 18th-century martial arts manual often cited as evidence of historical continuity, d*evo*tes only a small portion of its pages to empty-hand combat and draws mainly on Chinese sources rather than Korean ones.

This reconstruction wasn't merely passive forgetting; at times, it was actively enforced. During the Park Chung-hee era from the 1960s onward, Taekwondo was used as a symbol of national pride: it was declared the national sport in 1971, and the Kukkiwon was founded the same year under a director who also held a senior position in Korea's intelligence agency. From 1971, all schools required government permits to operate, giving the government significant control over kwan leaders who opposed the state's version of the art's history. Some early pioneers faced blacklisting, non-renewal of teaching contracts, or passport issues — pressures so severe that several, including Choi Hong-hi and Hwang Kee, moved abroad. By 1978, the remaining kwans formally agreed to abolish their individual identities, effectively erasing the last institutional remnants of the karate-influenced origins.

This does not diminish Taekwondo, which remains a fully developed, uniquely Korean martial art and sport today, shaped over seventy years of independent evolution, competition, and philosophy. It simply clarifies a fact that rigorous history warrants: its technical origins trace back to Okinawa through colonial Japan, and the connection to ancient Korea was largely constructed later, driven by understandable nation-building motives.

**The family tree**

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/a8/42/a8422931-cdf0-4714-aefc-644200724a67/content/images/2026/08/itosu-korean-lineage-tree-ghost-1.svg)

**What's still genuinely uncertain**

A thorough account also has its shortcomings.

- None of the sources reviewed mention Yun Byung-in's Chinese boxing teacher in Manchuria by name.
- Kang Duk Won's founding year is listed as both 1954 and 1956 in different sources; this article uses the better-sourced 1956 date.
- Historians continue to debate Choi Hong-hi's technical qualifications and his title as the "Father of Taekwon-do.'
- Even birth years vary: Itosu is listed as both 1831 and 1832, and Yun Byung-in as both 1919 and 1920.
- Even in more reliable sources, reports remain inconsistent about whether Chun Sang-sup (Yunmookwan) was abducted or volunteered for a mission into North Korea during the war.

**References**

- Madis, Eric. "The Evolution of Taekwondo from Japanese Karate." In *Martial Arts in the Modern World*, edited by Thomas A. Green and Joseph R. Svinth, 185–207\. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.
- Madis, Eric. "Storming the Fortress: A History of Taekwondo," Parts 1–5\. FightingArts.com, 2011.
- Kang Won-sik and Lee Kyong-myong. *T'aekwondo Hyŏndaesa* \[Modern History of Taekwondo\]. Seoul: Pogyong Munhwasa, 1999\. (Consulted via Madis's citations and translated excerpts.)
- Capener, Steven D. "Problems in the Identity and Philosophy of T'aegwondo and Their Historical Causes." *Korea Journal*, Winter 1995.
- Capener, Steven, and Herb Perez. "State of Taekwondo: Historical Arguments Should Be Objective." *Black Belt*, July 1998.
- Lee Jeong-kyu. "Japanese Higher Education Policy in Korea During the Colonial Period (1910–1945)." *Educational Policy Analysis Archives* 10, no. 14 (2002).
- Pederson, Michael. "Taekyon." In *Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia*, edited by Thomas A. Green, 603–608\. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2001.
- Hwang Kee. *The History of Moo Duk Kwan*. Springfield, NJ: U.S. Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan Federation, 1995.
- "The Founder of the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) Choi Hong Hi: An Exploration of Fiction and Fact." *The International Journal of the History of Sport* 38, no. 17 (2021).
- Wikipedia contributors. "Ankō Itosu," "Kanken Tōyama," "Kang Duk Won," "Chang Moo Kwan," "Gichin Funakoshi," "Kenwa Mabuni," "Chōshin Chibana," "Choi Hong-hi," "International Taekwon-Do Federation." Accessed 2026.
- World Kangdukwon Federation. "Kangdukwon Founders" and "A Worldwide Family." kangdukwon.org.