What is Tang So Do?

Tang Soo Do is a traditional style of Korean martial art, with linear strikes and a wide variety kicking techniques and strategies. It is an excellent "base" martial art and is especially effective for long range attacks. TSD (Tang Soo Do) is relatively modern, however its roots date back many centuries to the art of Soo Bahk Do. It is a composite style, being 60% Soo Bahk Do, 30% northern Chinese and 10% southern Chinese. TSD is both a hard and soft style, driving hardness from Soo Bahk and the soft flowing movements from the northern Chines systems. The kicking techniques, for which TSD is unsurpassed, are based on Soo Bahk and date back to the Silla Dynasty (618-925 A.D.)
Grandmaster Hwang Kee, the man who developed Tang Soo Do, had mastered the art of Tae Kyun (another Korean system not related to Tae Kwon Do), and the art of Soo Bahk Do by the time he was 22 years of age. At that time, 1936, he traveled to northern China where he encountered a Chinese variation of a art called the "Tang Method". Integrating these three systems he developed a style which was to be know as Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan. Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan (a brotherhood and school for eliminating all conflicts and for the development of martial virtue) is not a sport. Although it is not essentially competitive, it has great combat applications. It is a classical martial art and its purpose is to develop the total person.......emotional, spiritual and physical.