Taekwondo as a Martial Art and Sport

As both sport and martial art, taekwondo is not just an effective form of self-defence, it is also ideal for developing fitness and self-confidence. For children in particular, it develops important social and physical skills and also provides a basis for the development of self-discipline, determination, team-work and respect for others, as well as cultivating a sense of self-esteem.

Taekwondo is a fun way to keep fit in a friendly social environment and offers mental as well as physical challenges to keep it interesting. It develops balance, agility, flexibility and a high degree of cardio-vascular fitness.

Because the classes are designed to allow each individual to work at their own pace, taekwondo is suitable for all ages from 6 to 60 and is particularly popular with women as it takes advantage of their sense of balance, flexibility and leg strength.

History of Taekwondo in Australia

In 1963, Chan-Yong Kim was sponsored by the Australian Judo Federation (AJF) and was the first taekwondo instructor to teach in Australia. Chan-Yong Kim was a graduate of the Korean National Yudo College, the premier training institution for martial arts in Korea, which later became Yong-In University. When his two year contract was over, Chan-Yong Kim went to Malaysia and in 1965, the AJF invited Chan-Yong Kim’s friend and colleague, Ke-Hyung No, to come to Australia to run specialist courses in judo and taekwondo.

Ke-Hyung No ran courses in Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania from 1965 to 1967, introduced taekwondo to Monash University and established the teaching of taekwondo at the Silver Top Taxi Club in North Melbourne, which had been established because of attacks on taxi drivers and which was one of the earliest premier venues for the teaching of martial arts in Victoria.

Amongst the students there were Bob LeTet, Robert MacMahon and Geoff Burrows, who became multiple gold medalists in Australian national judo championships under No’s training. Jack Rozinszky was also trained by No at the Silver Top Taxi Club and later went on to run his own successful club called Melbourne Taekwondo. In the years to come, many of No’s students were to become instructors running their own clubs and they too played a role in the development of Australian taekwondo. Numbering among these were: Trevor Morrison, Dale Eagling, George Malizia Ken Edwards, Robert Schembri, Tony Gibb, Richard Noble, John Van Kerkhoven and David No.

Ke-Hyung No’s four children all trained in both judo and taekwondo. David No started as a keen four year-old and went on to be included in the national judo team and was selected for the elite taekwondo team which was part of the Olympic Gold Medal program in preparation for the Sydney Olympics. David, Michael and Sarah No all attained 1st Pum black belt before they were 10 years old and Barbra reached 1st gup before ceasing training to follow a career first in ballet and later in yoga. David No went on to become a valued club instructor, recently attaining the rank of 6th Dan. He is now based overseas but continues to train at No’s when he returns to Australia.

In the early 1970s, one of the students from the Silver Top Taxi Club, Ivan Barry, established the Brunswick Taekwondo Club, specialising in taekwondo. He invited Ke-Hyung No to be the instructor and its more advanced students often also trained with No at No’s Martial Arts Centre as it was then known. One of these students was Martin Hall, whom No trained to be a successful contestant. He took over the Brunswick club in the 1980s and some years later developed it into a thriving fulltime taekwondo school under the name Hall’s Taekwondo. One of Ke-Hyung No’s students was Robin Marchment who started training with him in 1965 and became the first woman in Australia to be awarded 1st Dan in taekwondo. She went on to become a full-time instructor at No’s and to achieve 6th Dan, which made her the highest ranking female practitioner in Australia. She still trains at No’s.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, in order to promote taekwondo and raise its standard, Ke-Hyung No was instrumental in the invitation of several Korean instructors to Australia, amongst them Young-Youl Oh and Yong-Dai Cho who went on to take key positions in the national body. At that time, in the Western world, taekwondo was called 'Korean karate'. It was Ke-Hyung No who stood out on a limb and insisted on calling taekwondo by its correct name. There were many who predicted failure because of the difficulty of accepting a strange and foreign name, but with the formation of the Australian Taekwondo Association in 1971, it became a requirement of membership to use the word taekwondo and to remove all references to ‘Korean karate’ in any signage or promotional material. Today we see the ready recognition and acceptance of the name 'taekwondo', which is Korean for ‘art of the foot and fist’. This decision was further vindicated in later decades with the establishment of the World Taekwondo Federation and the subsequent international recognition of the name taekwondo.

In the following decades, taekwondo enjoyed a tremendous boom and the Australian Taekwondo Association (ATA), established in 1971 with Ke-Hyung No as its president and driving force. The principle aims of the ATA were to regulate technical standards, regulate the grading system and its fee structure and of course, also to promote taekwondo as a martial art and organise championships and the training of contestants for international competition. Fees raised through the national grading system and membership fees paid by chief instructors were used to fund the training of contestants and to sponsor their participation in international competition, which was fully funded by the ATA.

Unfortunately, there were some instructors who preferred to be independent and did not contribute to this funding and whose students missed out on the benefits of ATA membership. There was much failed negotiation to have taekwondo unified under one banner during the 1970s and 1980s. Meanwhile, Ke-Hyung No worked hard for taekwondo to be accepted into the Olympic program, which it was in 1994. Upon its acceptance as an Olympic event, he pushed harder for unification in the face of much opposition but finally achieved that as his final act of presidency before resigning in 1995.

Ke-Hyung No was greatly respected as an honest and conscientious man with a vision for taekwondo. He was continuously returned as President of the Australian Taekwondo Association for 21 years and was chosen to be head of the National team until his retirement from the Association in 1995. Under his guidance, Australian taekwondo was included in the Australian Olympic Committee’s “Gold medal Program” in 1994 which made it possible to sponsor a Korean elite coach to train the Australian team and to develop a sophisticated training program for Australian taekwondo contestants. The hard work was amply rewarded when Australia a gold medal was won by Lauren Burns and a silver medal by Daniel Trenton in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

For his enormous contribution to taekwondo, Ke-Hyung No was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Australian Sporting Achievement, presented to him by Prime Minister John Howard in 2000 and in 2003 was awarded the Republic of Korea Presidential Honour Medal in recognition of his service to taekwondo, which was presented to him by President Roh Moo Hyun of Korea.