Taekwon-Do

WINNER in 2015 Beverly Hills International Book Awards & Finalist in the 2015 USA Best Book Awards! -- A personal historic photospective of Taekwon-Do through Grand Master Bok Man Kim's personal photo collection spanning nearly 60 years. Grand Master Kim's training in the martial arts began in 1941. By 1950, he had joined the Korean Army and was transferred to General Choi Hong Hi's division in early 1955 before the new Korean art was named, and advised Gen. Choi on many things related to Taekwon-Do. He drove Gen. Choi to the Naming Committee meetings where members would agree in 1955 to name the martial art "Tae Kwon Do" and recommend the name to then-president Syngman Rhee. Grand Master Kim was a member of the first Taekwon-Do demo team to perform outside of Korea in China and Vietnam in 1959. He helped Gen. Choi develop 15 of the Ch'ang Hon patterns and provided input on as many as four more. GM Kim helped Gen. Choi write the first English book about Taekwondo in 1963; Taekwon-Do: The Art of Self-Defence was published in 1965. GM Kim was a founding member of the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF), and every country where he demonstrated and organized Taekwondo became member nations when it was founded in March 1966. GM Kim also lead the first ITF demonstration team in 1967. In 1978, GM Kim sponsored the 3rd Asian Taekwon-Do Championships in Hong Kong, which was sanctioned and promoted by the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF). Ten years later, Taekwondo would be a demonstration sport in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. GM Kim has starred in two feature films in Hong Kong in 1973 and appeared in as many as three earlier films. GM Kim has published three earlier books about martial arts: Practical Taekwon-Do: Defenses Against Weapons (1979); Chun Kuhn Do: The Complete Wellness Art, Vol 1 (2002); and Taekwondo: Defense Against Weapons (2012), which was selected as a Best Books Award Finalist by U.S. Book News. TAEKWON-DO: Origins of the Art: Bok Man Kim's Historic Photospective (1955-2015) takes readers through the history of Taekwon-Do as seen through Grand Master Kim's photographs.