Gongkwon Yusul — the Korean Art That Claims No Ancestry
Founded in 1996. The founder opens the account of his own training with a Japanese art — and that is exactly what makes this case unusual.
Lineage
Contents
Overview
Gongkwon Yusul (공권유술, 空拳柔術) is a Korean martial art founded in 1996 by Kang Jun. It joins standing strikes to throws, locks and groundwork, and is marketed by its own association as “Korean jiu-jitsu” and a “Korean form of mixed martial arts”.
The reason it belongs in this encyclopedia is not its technique. It is its origin story — or more precisely, that it has none.
The three Korean arts this stock has examined before all invoke a distant antiquity: hwarangdo the Silla of the 6th century, haidong gumdo the warriors of Goguryeo, kuk sool won the gathered Korean tradition.
Gongkwon Yusul invokes 1996 — and its founder begins the list of his own training with a Japanese art.
What the founder says about himself
Kang Jun describes his path, in Korean accounts, like this:
He began in the fifth year of primary school with Hakkō-ryū yusul — the Japanese Hakkō-ryū jūjutsu (팔광류 유술, 八光流柔術) — and went on to judo, kumdo, taekwondo, hapkido, kickboxing and competitive fighting.
Out of the comparison between “traditional” and “practical” arts, the account continues, came the decision to build a system of his own.
This self-presentation is notable because it conceals nothing. It names a Japanese art first, it names a competitive sport, and it dates everything.
| Step | Year |
|---|---|
| founding of the association Daehan Gongkwon Yusul Hyeophoe | 1996 |
| adoption of the name Gongkwon Yusul | 1998 |
| registration as an incorporated association (sadan beopin) | 2005 |
| first dojang outside Korea (Brazil) | 2006 |
The two-step of 1996/1998 is typical and usually flattened out in short accounts. First the organisation existed, two years later the name. Anyone who reads only “founded 1996” loses the information that the art at first had no name of its own.
The name says it too
The characters are 空拳柔術, and the second half is the point.
- 空拳 (gongkwon) — “empty fist”: everything struck and kicked without a weapon.
- 柔術 (yusul) — “gentle art”: throws, locks, grappling.
柔術 is the very pair of characters that Japanese reads as jūjutsu. In 1998 a Korean founder chooses for his new art precisely the term Japan uses for its grappling arts.
Within the Korean stock this is not unique, but it is the most open case:
| Korean | Characters | Japanese reading |
|---|---|---|
| hapkido (합기도) | 合氣道 | aikidō |
| yudo (유도) | 柔道 | jūdō |
| kumdo (검도) | 劍道 | kendō |
| yusul (유술) | 柔術 | jūjutsu |
| taekwondo (태권도) | 跆拳道 | — |
Taekwondo is the exception, and it proves the rule. Its name was formed in 1955 with a character (跆) not current in Japanese — the art was meant to set itself apart in language too. Forty years later Gongkwon Yusul reaches back into the shared stock.
Two roads back to the same man
And here the case becomes genuinely interesting for this stock.
Kang Jun names two formative arts, and both lead to the same Japanese school:
| Art named | Route | Destination |
|---|---|---|
| Hakkō-ryū jūjutsu | Okuyama Ryūhō founds it in 1941, trained in Daitō-ryū (briefly under Takeda himself) | Daitō-ryū |
| Hapkido | Choi Yong-sul brings the art to Korea after 1948 | Daitō-ryū |
Both lines end at Takeda Sōkaku.
Within a handful of articles that is the third Korean art whose technique leads back there — after hapkido itself and after hwarangdo, whose founder had the same teacher in 1956 as hapkido did.
The difference is not the descent. The difference is who says it out loud.
What the art is technically
| Area | Content |
|---|---|
| Standing | strikes with a marked influence from Western boxing, plus kicks |
| Transition | throws and take-downs in the judo manner |
| Ground | locks and controlling positions, close to judo and BJJ |
| Standing locks | joint control from the hapkido stock |
| Grading | seven steps to black belt (white, 5th–1st gup, black) |
| Competition | amateur combat sport with a standing and a ground phase |
The composition follows from what was in the air at the end of the 1990s. This stock’s MMA article describes how in exactly those years the notion collapsed that a single system covers every range. Gongkwon Yusul is a Korean answer to that situation: no new principle, but a deliberately mixed selection.
The clearest difference from hapkido lies in the hands and on the ground. Where hapkido uses the hand mainly to grip and lever, Gongkwon Yusul punches like a boxer; and where hapkido treats groundwork briefly by tradition, Gongkwon Yusul makes it a main component.
What is Korean about it
A fair question in return: if the components come from Japan, America and Brazil — what makes the art Korean?
The honest answer is: the selection and the place. There is no element that occurs only here. What there is, is a particular mixture, made in Korea, taught in Korean dojangs, with Korean terminology and a Korean competition circuit.
That is also the answer for most other arts in this stock, once their origin stories are subtracted. Karate came from China to Okinawa, judo arose in 1882 out of several jūjutsu schools, taekwondo out of Korean schools that taught Japanese karate.
What is new is not the procedure but the openness about it.
Today — and the criticism
Gongkwon Yusul is taught in a manageable number of dojangs in Korea and has had offshoots abroad since 2006 — Brazil first, later Australia, Spain and the United States. It is not a large art, and it does not claim to be one.
The objection one can raise concerns the marketing, not the descent. “Korean jiu-jitsu” and “Korean MMA” are advertising terms that dock onto known brands; whoever hears them may expect the rule set and the competitive hardness of the model and receive instead an association art with gup grades.
What cannot be objected to is an invented ancestry. And after three articles on Korean arts with exactly that problem, that is remarkable enough to record.
Common fallacies
“Gongkwon Yusul is an old Korean art.” It is from 1996, and its name from 1998. The association says so itself.
“Korean jiu-jitsu means Brazilian jiu-jitsu in Korean.” No. The groundwork is close to BJJ, but the standing game is boxing and the levers come from hapkido.
“If the components are Japanese, the art is not Korean.” By that standard hardly a martial art in the world would be what its name says. What decides is whether the descent is named.
“An art without a tradition is worth less.” That is a matter of taste, not a fact. The test this stock applies is a different one: is what the art says about itself true.
Related Articles
- Hapkido — the Korean basis of the levering, and the same road back into Daitō-ryū
- Hwarangdo — the same technical descent, but with a Silla story laid over it
- Haidong Gumdo — founded 1982, invoking Goguryeo
- Kuk Sool Won — the claim to gather the whole Korean tradition
- Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu — where both of Kang Jun’s levering arts come from
- Takeda Sōkaku — the man at whom both roads end
- Judo — the throwing, and in 1882 itself a declared selection from several schools
- BJJ — the groundwork the Korean version takes its bearings from
- MMA — the situation of the 1990s to which this art is an answer
- Taekwondo — the control case for the name: formed in 1955 with a character deliberately not current in Japanese
- Sibpalgi — the other Korean art with a clean date, only two hundred years older
- Karate — the same procedure, only with five hundred years between the import and the naming