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Sitting astride his warhorse, the thirteen-year-old Hwarang let the weight of command settle across his shoulders. As the eldest son, he knew that not only his, but his family’s, future rested on the decisions he would make from then on. In true fashion of the warrior-poets who unified his land, he never questioned whether he could achieve greatness, or whether he would secure that future. The only question that burned from his gaze was how.

Thirty years later, Taejoon Lee finds himself answering the question he posed to himself so long ago. With hundreds of rang do (students) under his direct tutelage, and thousands more internationally following the martial way, Susuk Kwanjangnim is poised to achieve a monumental feat.

The Kwan Chang Chronicles sat with Chief Master Lee to discuss his achievement, and get his reflections from thirty years of teaching Hwa Rang Do in the United States, and what he envisions for the coming years.

KCC: Susuk Kwanjangnim, what is the most vital aspect of your teaching? What one thing do you hope students take away from their training?

ML: When you look back into the history of the Hwarang and whom they were, their martial training was not just to develop skills for combat, they were life skills as well. Everything they did, be it raise a family, the arts, teach, heal, etc. was guided and congruent with how they lived as warriors.

In battle, there are no excuses. Failure was equivalent to dying. Now even though in our modern everyday lives, we normally don’t pay that high of a price for our failures, as modern warriors we need to be guided by that same philosophy. I always tell my students, “don’t be the exception, be exceptional”.

Now that being said, often in life we do fail and make mistakes. Once a mistake has occurred, there’s nothing you can do to change it – it’s in the past. But as warriors if we have faltered and still have the opportunity to live on, we must view that failure as an opportunity to learn and grow and continue moving forward with our new found wisdom.

Most people view failure or success as the only two possible outcomes for a venture. But there are many opportunities for personal growth as you work toward achieving your objective. Only focusing on the outcome can be dangerous, because it opens you up to temptation – to cheating your way to get to the end, cutting corners or even just becoming complacent.

But as warriors, the journey and how we conduct ourselves and what we gain during that journey is just as important. Every great warrior, every great leader shares an inherent dissatisfaction with status quo and a desire to challenge themselves, to become better people in the process of achieving one’s goals. As a result, the journey becomes even more important than arriving at your destination.

From international martial arts exhibitions and seminars, to private instruction where he teaches one-to-one, Master Lee has taught thousands of people Hwa Rang Do’s martial way. We asked him, then, what has the largest obstacle been to imparting the Hwarang philosophy to the public at large.

ML: In our western society, we have become conditioned and told that it is acceptable to avoid responsibility for ourselves. It’s even engrained in our legal system, where they make a distinction between premeditated murder and just murder… “crimes of passion” versus just crime. This conditions us to believe that there are times when we can avoid taking full responsibility for our own actions. This is ridiculous. Everything we do and don’t do, is our responsibility regardless of the circumstance!

This is my biggest challenge, but it is also my responsibility as a teacher to help everyone who walks into my dojang understand this. From the little tiger who forgets his sparring gear to the adult students not taking responsibility for their test material, everyone is accountable for their own actions. If a little tiger comes to the dojang without the necessary equipment, it’s not the parent’s responsibility, it’s the little tiger’s responsibility and he/she is the one who will be disciplined.

The encouraging part about my job is that as students progress to the higher levels of Tae Soo Do and into Hwa Rang Do, most do become more responsible and self-critical. It’s a great joy of mine to watch them mature and progress.

However, I also rarely acknowledge my students for these achievements, because I want them to improve for themselves, and not for the sake of pleasing me. It is very difficult for me to bottle up this silent pride for my students. There is nothing more I want to do than to hug them and tell them “great job”. But, I am reluctant to do this because I want them to be proud of themselves, while still never being satisfied and remain hungry for more.

KCC: How do you translate that concept to the dojang?

ML: Well, my life’s journey as a teacher has taught me quite a bit as you can imagine. Early on, I focused quite a bit on techniques, application and execution of Hwa Rang Do inside the dojang. While obviously, there is no one more strict on the proper execution of techniques than I, instilling my students with the desire to better themselves has taken precedent over anything else. I want my students to be able to be self-critical and stand up to the challenges in their lives, no matter the circumstance..

Now so you don’t’ misunderstand me, I have excellent students. They are the best! However, we must all strive to improve ourselves, our lives, our environment and those around us… until we reach our full potential.

That is what it means to be a Hwarang – a warrior.

As Hwarang, we don’t seek to improve to please others or win a prize or medal. Achieving one’s human potential means achieving and doing as much as you possibly can during your lifetime, with your God given strengths and overcoming any weaknesses or shortcomings.

If you are three feet tall, be the best three footer you can be. Don’t worry about those taller than you. Focus on being the best, period.

KCC: Besides teaching, how are you striving to reach your full potential?

ML: Fifty knuckle push-ups! (laughing) Just kidding. Over the past 15 years, I’ve been working to fulfill a dream of mine. It is to improve upon our Kumdo (the Korean version of Japanse Kendo) techniques. I have developed a new set of techniques to be added to the traditional mori, hori and son strikes. When I started, I did not know how I would do this, but I knew it was a goal worth striving for.

Constantly challenging myself with new dreams and goals is how I reach for my full potential. As long as I have new dreams, goals and ideas, my job is not done yet.

KCC: What were the obstacles in fulfilling your dream?

ML: This is changing one hundred years of tradition! I had the idea, but I couldn’t just introduce the concept. I had to set the foundation – I had to create the armor, and create the Hwarang Kum Sur (Hwa Rang Do sword techniques). This is the legacy that has been handed to me, which I must honor and respect by very carefully thinking it through.

This isn’t capricious, this is methodical. I had to be able to envision this change fifteen years out, to work on it, develop the techniques and train students in the new techniques.

KCC: So as you encourage and challenge your students . . .

ML: I continue to challenge myself. It is liberating to have achieved this, but I strove because the journey was important. And each of us should continue to do this in our lives. We train to afford ourselves very real challenges, to push ourselves and to grow. This is more than a formula, more than a set of numbers to add up and say “Ah! I have the answer!” No, this is not it. It is defining perfection, establishing goals, and then working until you’ve achieved them. No one is going to reach perfection. It is an impossibility. But in striving for perfection, in attempting to reach the infinite possibilities in all of us, THAT is where we experience growth!

I look at the Hwarang way of life, the philosophy of growth and achievement, and I want to share it with as many people as possible. Where else in our modern society does someone experience the challenges necessary to grow on a regular basis? Think about it. The characteristics you need to succeed in training – discipline, perseverance, awareness, balance – are the same characteristics you need to succeed in life.

Do Joo Nim once told me a story: A man wanted to climb a mountain, wanted to achieve something in his life. So he set out up the mountain. He worked and sweated, strained and struggled, but finally, he stood on the peak. He achieved it. The wind was cool, chilling him. The sun shone bright, and the colors of the mountain were bright and vivid. Slowly, he turned all the way around, looking out across the vast range. Do you know what he saw? More peaks.

This is life. This is our philosophy. This is our way. Once you have achieved something, earned it, worked at it, there are other peaks to climb. But you do so with the confidence that comes from having reached the first peak. And the converse is, those who never try to climb the mountain, who never reach the first peak, don’t know what is possible, don’t know about the other peaks, because they haven’t conquered themselves, conquered their fears and attempted anything at all. This is the Hwarang way. Once you know that you can achieve in here, once you see that discipline and practice, awareness and balance, that perseverance allow you to achieve, then what is there you cannot achieve in life?

KCC: Is this something you believe people can achieve by themselves?

ML: No. No one can do it alone. Everyone is in need of ongoing mentorship, including myself. I will be disciplining a student for some transgression, challenging them to help them learn and grow, and days later, Do Joo Nim, my teacher, would be disciplining me for the exact same thing! This just shows that we all need a teacher, a mentor, someone to help us become honest with ourselves and be self-critical. For most of us, being self-critical is very difficult, because most human beings have a very high opinion of themselves, and we often need someone to step in and point out where we are lacking integrity. That is why beyond teaching and training, I am also going to begin offering Life Coaching.

KCC: For students?

ML: For students. For non-students. For everyone. As I said before, the didn’t just train for combat, their martial training served as a compass for their lives. Through live coaching, Hwa Rang Do will be able to reach a portion of humanity, which would otherwise not benefit from our training as life’s warriors.

This may seem like a lofty goal, but I’ve yet to find anything else, which offers more of an opportunity for personal growth and achieving one’s potential, than Hwa Rang Do. Life coaching is yet another peak to climb, with many more to follow.

Since 30 years cannot be summarized into a few mere paragraphs, our interview with Chief Master Lee will be continued in the next issue of the Kwan Chang Chronicles – West Coast Hwa Rang Do Newsletter.