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Pioneer Grandmaster Kong Young Il

The Taekwondo Journey of A Taekwondo Pioneer

Taekwondo Pioneer Kong Young Il began his martial art training in 1952 at the age of 9 with Shotokan Karate.  In his high teens, he was one of the members selected to receive a full scholarship for Taekwondo and to participate on the All Star Competition Team at Kyung Hee University which had over 35,000 students. 

General Choi, Grandmaster Nam Tae Hi established Oh Do Kwan approximately in the year 1953.   The main members of the Oh Do Kwan were soldiers from the Korean Army, among them was Major Woo Jong Lim, the Master Instructor who was the Director of Taekwondo and Chief of Staffs to General Choi Hong Hi.  PGM Kong Young Il was a student of Major Woo Jong Lim under his mentorship in the Army days.
The book written by the Journalist Taekwondo martial artist, Alex Gillis, “A Killing Art: The Untold History of Tae Kwon Do” has recorded a few accounts in which the credits of Taekwondo development weren’t only for Gen. Choi, some were given to other pioneers such as Nam Tae-hi. The author wrote this while referring to the martial art demonstrations, “Choi ran the show, but Nam was the show”.  Alex Gillis quoted the Battle of Yongmunsan in his book with this: Chinese special forces and North Korean elements overran a Korean outpost.  It was completely dark.  One Korean leader, Second Lt. Nam, singlehandedly, with his hands, killed 20 men in the dark.  He knew the communists had shorter hair and when he approached one, he felt his head and killed or spared him accordingly.  Apparently such incident happened without weapon of any kind, Grandmaster Nam literally did this barehandedly, minus the brutality in war killing, that is the Killing Art as Taekwondo was meant in its original military form, what we later learned to be the traditional military Combat Taekwondo.
Similar accounts were recorded for all three students of Major Woo Jong Lim, PGM Choi Chang Kuen, PGM Kong Young Il, and PGM Park Jong Soo.  All of them were involved in real fights with the audiences from all disciplines of martial arts in many accounts of demonstration rundown in the early years traveling with General Choi to help promoting Taekwondo beyond the Korean soil. The sacrifices these masters made were not just the due credits owed to them, some had really late marriage because of his “call” to travel with General Choi in his younger years.  PGM Kong Young Il only got to marry his wife in his mid 30’s because of his travels with General Choi before his marriage.  Sacrifice like this was unknown because people only saw the glamour of these great Taekwondo Pioneers without being told of the efforts and sacrifices they contributed to the betterment of the Taekwondo martial arts in the accord of history.
Major Woo Jong Kim was a key instructor who created and developed the sparring pattern in the early Taekwondo period in sparing, patterns, breaking and special breaking.  Major Woo Jong Lim emphasized much in the equilibrium of ability in both left and right limbs, and demanded his students to practice both left and right equally, so that his students were able to execute technique from either side with equal power and accuracy.  To his students, Master Woo had all the good qualities of a human being that any man would want to have. He taught his students not only the best Taekwondo techniques which allowed them to be top notched Taekwondo martial artists, he also taught them values in life. The students received Taekwondo lessons and life lessons at the same time.  Major Woo Jong Lim had won the loyalty and respect from his students, including the three of the 12 Original Masters known as Taekwondo Pioneers namely PGM Kong Young Il, PGM Choi Chang Kuen, and PGM Park Jong Soo.
Throughout those years, PGM Kong was a key member of the Taekwondo demonstration team that traveled with and helped General Choi around the world, he was also the first Master Instructor to Introduce Taekwondo to the 8th US Army in Korea.  PGM Kong’s role in the Army was to further enhance the training of other Taekwondo Instructors to ensure they were qualified to be sent to Vietnam to spread Taekwondo offshore of Korea.  PGM Kong was again on the All-Star Team in his Army days and was competing with many other teams, university teams, air force, marine, and so on.
Military Taekwondo training was tough.  The soldiers had to get up at 5:30am in the morning and went running until 6:30am. Then they had breakfast, to be followed by a training session 9:00am through 12:00noon practicing techniques. After lunch, they would train in sparring from 2:00pm through 5:00pm.  PGM Kong would then go to the US Army Base to teach the soldiers and the soldiers family members until 9:00pm.  As the captain in those days, PGM Kong had to ensure every soldier was working and training all the time, at the same time he had to practice himself just as hard.  Back in those days, there was no protective gears and everyone did full contact combat.  Thus, one had to be really good in all the techniques in order not to be hurt or injured.  Such lifestyle in early days shaped and molded the evolvement of a true living legend in the history of Taekwondo as PGM Kong is recognized today.  Today PGM Kong still teaches his students the same way he was back then, but obviously not as intensive as he used to.
During 1963 to 1980 as a selected member of an International Taekwondo demonstration team, PGM Kong not just witnessed the inception of ITF in 1966, he was one of the founding members and served as the Chairman of the Expansion Committee in ITF at founding.  PGM Kong also visited 127 countries performing demonstrations to introduce Taekwondo Martial Art to the world. After each demonstration there was an open invitation/challenge to the public to fight any of the demonstration team members, PGM Kong, PGM Choi, and PGM Park fought martial artists of all kinds in 127 countries and never lost a fight.  This was the background of PGM Kong Young Il in the history of Taekwondo; he is today the only true living legend, a Taekwondo Pioneers who is still teaching Taekwondo all the over world to his devoted students and followers who are not just loyal to him but treasure his true knowledge of Taekwondo as what it originally meant to be.

PGM Kong Young Il migrated to USA in 1968, two years after the inception of ITF.   PGM Kong has two brothers who competed and taught Taekwondo with him.  He and one younger brother, Grandmaster Kong Young Bo, founded the Young Brothers Taekwondo Associates in 1968 which is now located in Houston, Las Vegas, and Pittsburgh.  Another brother by the name of Kong Young Joon who was also teaching and competing in Taekwondo competitions until he retired from the Taekwondo competition undefeated to become a professional golfer; he later returned to Korea and became the President of the KPGA for an extended period of time. 

PGM Kong opened up numerous Taekwondo dojangs in the 70’s and 80’s from the East Coast to the West Coast of America as well as Puerto Rico and taught Taekwon-do to tens of thousands of practitioners. Quite a few of his students became champions around the world. One noteworthy highlight was PGM Kong being Master Instructor for the USA Law Enforcement Agency, the FBI, incorporating Combat Taekwondo in tactical defense for the law enforcement officers.

PGM Kong has been awarded the All American Open Award, inducted into the Hall Of Fame and been voted Martial Artist of the Year in numerous occasions over the various stages of his life in Taekwondo. 

At his young age of 78, a vision arose when the world is cocooning amid the Covid-19 pandemic, PGM Kong shared with a handful of his loyal students the vision of founding a borderless Taekwondo platform to unite the Taekwondo family as the Ultimate Home of Taekwondo named the World Taekwondo Organization (WTO) for the tens of thousands of his students with their respective grand-students and great grand-students added to millions in number who are in the Ch’ang-Hon ITF background, World Taekwondo background, independent Taekwondo background, hybrid Taekwondo background, cross-breed Taekwondo background, and martial artis from other martial art disciplines from all over the world. 

This is the era of Kong Young Il Taekwondo, the Taekwondo as it meant to be when it evolved in its military tradition originally, the Taekwondo as we are promoting to the world today and will pass on to the future generations as heirs of Pioneer Grandmaster Kong Young Il.