Ran across this article from March, 2011 just today:
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Black Belt: Theres a lot of disagreement about how the post-World War II Korean martial arts came about. It is claimed that many styles were practiced in Korea prior to the Japanese occupation and only resurfaced after the country was liberated. How did the most well-known Korean martial artstaekwondo and hapkidocome into existence?
Joo Bang Lee: Lets talk about them one at a time. Some taekwondo people say that their art came from a style called su bak do, which was the name of the combat skills practiced in the Koryo kingdom. Others claim that it came from tae kyon. Tae kyon is the soft-style civilian foot-fighting skill from the latter part of the Chosun dynasty. Heres the reality: During the Japanese occupation, a lot of Koreans were forced to learn karate-do, which was pronounced in Korea as kong soo do or tang soo do. Some of these Korean karate students became masters, and they founded the seven kwan: Son Byong-in of the yon mu kwan, Hwang Kee of the moo duk kwan, Ro Byong-jik of the song mu kwan, Um Un-kyu of the chung do kwan, Lee Nam-suk of the chang mu kwan, Lee Jong-woo of the ji do kwan and Choi Hong-hi of the oh do kwan. In 1964, these founders united and brought kong soo do, tang soo do and taekwondo together under the taekwondo banner. Gen. Choi Hong-hi held a great deal of political power at the time, and his federation had a growing membership. Claiming taekwondo as a Korean national martial sport gave the Korean people a martial art to identify with. It capitalized on the post-occupation nationalism.
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