The Founder of Hapkido

The founder of Hapkido is recognized across the world as Yong-Sool Choi. Referred to with the highest respect and admiration as “Dojunim”, Choi Yong-Sool was the teacher of Dojunim Ji Han Jae.

Born in Chung Buk province in Korea, Choi Yong-Sool experienced tragedy at a young age with the death of his parents. As the story goes, he was taken to Japan by a candy maker around age 8, and was abandoned. He became a homeless child, begging in the streets, and was forced to learn how to defend himself from other children’s assaults.

Seeing this child in the street, a man took Choi under his care, and adopted Choi, changing his name to Tatujtu Yoshida.

Education was difficult and ultimately didn’t work out as Choi didn’t speak Japanese well enough to understand his teachers. He lost interest in school, and got into a lot of fights with other kids. A turning point came when he was given a choice: stay in school, or study martial arts.

A Student of Sokaku Takeda

Choi decided to study martial arts, and joined a Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jutsu dojo under Sokaku Takeda (1860-1943). This was to define the next 30 years of his life.

After 3 decades of study under Takeda, Choi moved back to Korea in 1945 and changed his name back to Choi Yong-Sool. On this fateful trip back home, he unfortunately lost his credentials and certificates that proved his training with Takeda Sensei.

Choosing to stay in Taegu instead of going all the way back to Chung-Buk, he worked selling bread for a year and saved up his money, eventually raising pigs. To feed them, he went to a local brewery and collected free leftover chaff from the grains.

Practical Proof that Hapkido Works for Self Defense

On one of these trips, he was attacked by several men and successfully defended himself. The president of the brewery, Suh Bok-Sub, witnessed this, and noticed how little effort Choi seemed to use. This impressed him, so he invited Choi up to his office. When asked what kind of martial arts he practiced, Choi didn’t provide an answer. Instead, he invited Suh to grab his lapel.

What followed was an impromptu lesson in an elbow lock, throwing Suh to the floor. Not satisfied with one attempt, Suh got up and tried again, and was thrown to the floor again. After this second time, Suh asked for Choi to teach him, and offered to pay him for it.

The First Hapkido Dojang

This led to the creation of the first Dojang, at the brewery. The skillsets that dictated leadership were the true “certificate” of authenticity, and Choi had these skillsets extensively from his many decades on the mat with Takeda Sensei.

It took years, but Choi became established as a revered martial arts teacher. At first, he called the art “Yu Sool” (Korean for Ju Jitsu) and focused on passing on what he had learned from Takeda. Over time, additional techniques were added in, including kicks and weapons techniques.

Suh was of the opinion that adding “Kwon” to Yoo Sool to create “Yoo Kwon Sool” made more sense as it integrated joint locks and throws with strikes and kicks. Over time the name evolved to HapKiYuSool and then was truncated to HapKiDo, using the same characters as AiKiDo uses in Japanese.

Once the Korean war was over, Choi opened a new private school in Taegu. He expanded the student body and throughout the 1950’s, many of his students went on to form their own styles, including Hwang-Kee (Tang-Soo-Do), In-Hyuk Suh (Kuk Sool Won), Dr. Joo-Bang Lee (Hwa Rang Do), and Han-Jae Ji (SongMuKwan Hapkido).