This past August/September, on the cover of Black Belt Magazine and featured article, Hwa Rang Do®’s Grandmaster Taejoon Lee spoke publicly for the first time about it’s unique 2-day martial arts decathlon, which is their World Championships!
http://www.blackbeltmag.com/daily/traditional-martial-arts-training/hwa-rang-do/hwa-rang-do-behind-the-scenes-of-taejoon-lees-cover-shoot-for-black-belt-magazine/
For the past 50 years, no martial arts venue, tournament or sport has been able to capture the full breath of what was possible with a martial arts curriculum consisting of over 4,000 techniques. So over the past 20 years, Hwa Rang Do®, sought out to create its own!
Since 2010, Hwa Rang Do®’s World Championships has consisted of 10 separate tournaments in the categories of forms, weapon forms, point fighting, grappling and various categories in sword fighting and stick fighting.
Each year, the champion was crowned based on their overall performance in ALL tournament categories, not only testing their skill, but their endurance and spirit as well.
The final piece to this already grueling 2-days of competition was added this past year, with the advent of a NEW Fighting Sport, Yongtoogi, which consist of submission fighting rules designed to condition fighters to master Hwa Rang Do’s self-defense formula of defend, takedown and quick submit.
Yongtoogi: Hwa Rang Do®’s New Standup Fighting Sport
Emphasis being on the “quick submit” part, as fighters only have 5 seconds to execute a submission, after a takedown is completed, before they are stood up and continue the match on their feet.
For the first time, we’d like to share with you the HIGHLIGHTS from this past summer’s World Championships for Yongtoogi! Enjoy!