World Karate 

Martial Arts Instruction
309 Main Street, El Segundo, CA 90245
310-322-8542 

We Will Be Closed Labor Day

Monday, September 5th

TAE KWON DO

CLASS TIME:  35 Minutes

This class is made up of warm-ups that are specifically designed to help develop flexibility.  In each Tae Kwon Do class,  there are workouts that deal with Basic, Intermediate and Advanced-Kicking skills.  Students are drilled in these skills to make them second nature and engender an instantaneous response to situational stimuli.  Focus is also directed to forms (Poomse) which are choreographed movements that represent belt rank from the most elementary of the white belts all the way up to the Black Belt forms that are highly advanced dealing with multiple combinations of self-defense, kicking, blocking and striking.  The Tae Kwon Do classes are 35 minutes long and are an exciting experience for students at any level.  These classes follow a traditional Korean Karate style with the Instructor teaching students using Korean commands along with many confidence boosting 3-step self-defense drills. The advanced students are also introduced to the art of Board Breaking, all the while pursuing there next advancement in the Tae Kwon Do Belt system.  At the advanced level students that have reached the rank of Black Belt are then introduced to the staff or long stick.  These forms are only for the Advanced Students and are taught with strict discipline.

HISTORY:

Although there are no written records, Tae Kwon Do can be traced back approximately twenty three hundred years through sculptures of warriors on ancient tombs.  The Taw Kwon do of today is a fairly recent addition to the martial arts, with a documented style only beginning to exist in the nineteen sixties, with a lot of forms (pumses) being developed in the seventies.  Tae Kwon Do is the national sport of the Koreas (with baseball a close second).  Due to it's importance during the Olympic games of 1988, when it was an exhibition sport, Tae Kwon Do has grown.  Today it is a full fledged Olympic sport providing some the fastest and most exhilarating action to be seen.  There are small variances in different style so Tae Kwon Do; this is due to what was taught in the original schools in Korea.  The style taught at World Karate Martial Arts Institute is Kang Duk Won Tae Kwon Do which is a direct derivative of Korean Tae Kwon Do Martial Arts that firmly established its roots some two thousand years ago in Korea.  Over a period of time, the Tae Kyum (the art of striking or smashing with the feet and hands) has grown, spread and diversified into several families of the Tae Kwon Do Art.  Documentation going back several hundred years has been translated, showing that Kang Duk Won means "The arena for the teaching of virture".  The school was officially and nationally recognized as one of the eight founding schools of Korean Martial Arts.  This ensures that the lineage of skills being taught is as pure as those originally taught in Korea.

 Grandmaster 9th Degree Ok Hyun You

The Senior Grand Master Ok Hyun You started his martial art training in the early 1940's, in what is currently known as YMCA in Seoul, Korea.  During that time, he was one of the few to officially receive a black belt from the nationally recognized institution, Grand Master You was selected to the National Olympic Team to represent Korea.  After receiving numerous national titles and experiencing a personal lack of challenge, Grand Master You went into the deep mountains to search for "virtue of true art".  There in one of the mountains, Grand Master You sought this study in a Buddhist Monastery under the guidance of a senior monk.  He studied a true form of meditation "mind over matter".  In 1950, Grand Master You served in a specialized elite covert military unit jointly operated with the U.S. CIA.  As a covert operative he made numerous deep cover,  cross border missions to enemy territory.  After the Korean War, in the mid '50's, Grand Master You united with his colleague from the YMCA, Grand Master Park Chul Hee and assisted in founding the KANG DUG WON TAE KWON DO.  In 1967, Grand Master You was chosen as one of the Head Martial Arts Instructors to teach the South Vietnamese Army in Vietnam to develop martial art skills. In 1970 Grand Master You immigrated to the United States where he again met up with Grand Master Park Chul Hee.  Together these two masters began to plant the seeds of KANG DUG WON TAE KWON DO in the United States.  Grand Master You opened three Kang Duk Won schools in upstate New York in 1973, and four schools in Baltimore, Maryland in 1978.  Since then Grand Master You has assisted and developed more than 100 junior masters to branch out throughout the United States.  Currently, Senior Grand Master Ok Hyun You remains inactive and only chair as honorary head of the Korean Tae Kwon Do Association in Maryland.