What is Choi Kwang Do?

Grandmaster Kwang Jo Choi is the President and Founder of Choi Kwang Do Martial Art International, which is based in Atlanta, Georgia – USA. He is a 9th Degree Black Belt and has over 57 years of martial arts experience.

At the age of 12 Grandmaster Choi studied his first martial art called ‘Gwonbeop', a Korean martial art that means 'fist fighting'. He attained the rank of 4th Degree Black Belt and taught this art to the Korean army.

During his military service he met the founder of Tae Kwon Do, General Hong Hi Choi, whose Tae Kwon Do system was being used by the army to teach its soldiers unarmed combative techniques. After completing his military service Grandmaster Choi travelled to Seoul to meet General Hong Hi Choi who taught him the art.

General Hong Hi Choi often referred to Grandmaster Choi as the ‘model of Tae Kwon Do' due to the precise nature of his techniques and movements. In the early 1960's Grandmaster Choi was personally selected by General Hong Hi Choi to be a member of an elite group of twelve masters whose sole purpose was to promote Tae Kwon Do throughout South East Asia.

The extremely stressful practices and harsh lock out movements whilst promoting Tae Kwon Do had serious detrimental effects on Grandmaster Choi's health and body; so much so that he had to spend several months in a wheelchair!

In 1970 he moved to North America in search of doctors to heal his injury-ridden body. After many unsuccessful specialist consultations and numerous visits to the doctor's Grandmaster Choi decided to rehabilitate his own body. He studied physical therapy techniques and began to rehabilitate himself.

During the course of Grandmaster Choi's rehabilitation, he soon discovered that it was the techniques he practised in conventional martial arts that had caused his injuries. As a result he began to study autonomy, physiology and human movement sciences. From his newly gained scientific knowledge and life experiences Grandmaster Choi devised and developed his unique style of martial art training called Choi Kwang Do.