HWA RANG DO AND THE QUADRANTS OF THE MIND

…Korean brothers import ancient 'occult' martial art

By Bob Wells
(Karate Illustrated - July 1974)

Joo Sang Lee points to a scar running behind his left eyebrow. "Our father started teaching us the martial arts very early," he says.

Joo Sang Lee insists he's alert at all times.

"When I was four and my brother was two he taught us how to fall by tossing us on the floor." His face relaxes in a smile as he curls himself more comfortably in his chair. Over his shoulder in his gym in Huntington Park, California, several dozen of his students are working out in front of mirrors flanked by U.S. and South Korean flags, On the back of their white jackets is a large yin-yang symbol and the letters "HWA RANG DO."

Mr. Lee's younger but higher-ranked brother, Joo Bang Lee, also smiles when he recalls the training he received as a youngster in Korea. "At the Yang Mi Ahm temple where my brother and I learned hwa rang do," he says, speaking through an interpreter at his gym in Downey-an industrial suburb of Los Angeles, "we had no mats. Sometimes my legs were broken from throws." He surveys his own students working on the floor, practicing punching, kicking, blocking forms, and the high, spectacular spinning kicks that are the trademark of hwa rang do. "Very good students; work very hard, learn well." He pauses for a moment of reflection, and then he says, "If someone were dedicated to fully mastering the art, I could teach them the same way I was taught in Korea." His own words make him laugh. "But then there would be no one here."

An 8th-degree black belt at 30, Joo Bang Lee is the world's highest-ranked instructor in the ancient Korean martial art of hwa rang do. He is president of the International Hwa Rang Do Federation, with headquarters in Seoul. His brother Joo Sang, 7th-degree and President of the American Federation, brought hwa rang do to the United States in 1968. Joo Bang followed him here in 1972, and several other top-ranking instructors are making arrangements for entry visas now.

Because it came to this country so recently, hwa rang do is still unfamiliar to most Americans. In a strict technical sense, hwa rang do is not "karate," karate being a Japanese word that describes specifically Japanese fighting systems. But in the generic way the word is used in this country, hwa rang do is a form of Korean karate, especially from the beginner's point of view. Novices are taught techniques of blocking, punching, and kicking, along with the dance-like combination drills called hyungs, and extensive stretching exercises. But before students qualify for 1st-degree black belt they go through a great deal of training in breakfalls, throws, wrist locks and elbow locks that is similar to judo and aikido training.

Hwa rang do differs from many other of the more familiar martial arts in that it is designed purely as a way of deadly fighting. It is not intended to be an educational system, competitive sport, or a form of self-improvement, although it can be all these things. Consistent with its origins as a fighting system for feudal warriors, hwa rang do includes all forms of personal combat, as well as training in the use of hand weapons and instruction in revival techniques. Its advanced stages encompass the occult mental disciplines of the inner arts.

Hwa rang do does not fall either into the hard, linear category of martial art, or into the soft, circular category. Rather, it includes both hard and soft, both straight-line and circular. Hwa rang do is considered a dialectical form of combat, inasmuch as it contains opposite or contradictory elements within its single unity, and derives its strength from the dynamic interbalance between the two. This dialectical conception flows from Asian cosmology, symbolized by the swirling circle in the South Korean flag, which holds that all opposing forces of the universe, uhm and yang in Korean (yin and yang in Chinese), are indivisible.

HARD AND SOFT STYLES

HWA RANG DO in the Lee dojang in Downey has martial artists of all ages perfecting their forms in practical situations.

Uhm symbolizes softness and darkness, and is represented in the martial arts in the soft fighting styles. Its power is that of gently flowing water that changes the shape of stone. Its typical motion is circular, with the force of a whip, or a rock whirled on a string, and its tendency is to unite and combine, to close in.

Yang symbolizes hardness and brightness, and is represented in the arts in the hard, linear forms of fighting. Its strength is that of steel or rock, and its typical motion is straight lines and angles, with force derived from leverage. Its tendency is to maintain distance between opponents.

Hwa rang do incorporates the elements of uhm along with the elements of yang. Its karate-like techniques involve straight punches and kicks of the familiar type, but they also include spectacular circular spin kicks. Some-traveling as much as 540 degrees before impact-building up tremendous centrifugal force. These kicks can be aimed at the body or at the head, or they can whip in at mat level to cut an opponent's feet out from under him.

A punch or a kick from an opponent, or a blow from a weapon, may be met in kind, or it can be answered with a breaking of joints, a throw, or an attack against the opponent's nerves or acupuncture points. It can be met with a hard block and finished with a punch or a kick, or it can be met with a loose-wristed defection similar to the Hawaiian lima-lama techniques, trapped by the flexible hand, and finished with a throw or a joint dislocation.

Hwa rang do includes a complete discipline of throwing techniques, some similar to the body throws of judo, others similar to the pain throws of aikido. But hwa rang do throws are always executed in their combat, or disabling form, never in their sport form.

Hwa rang do training also includes counter-throws, finger pressure techniques (more than 300) applied against nerve or acupuncture points, 30 different choking techniques, and a system of ground fighting or matwork based to some extent on ancient Mongolian grappling.

When hwa rang do students reach 4th-degree black belt, they may qualify for training in a martial art completely different from the techniques they have learned before, consisting of 36 categories of killing techniques.

Weapons training includes kumdo (Korean kendo), both with the bamboo sword and with the live blade, stick fighting with all lengths of sticks, short-sword and spear techniques, knife throwing, and the throwing of dirks, pointed stars, stones, etc.

At advanced black belt levels, students begin to learn the healing arts of acupuncture and finger-pressure revival.

Like many other Asian martial arts, hwa rang do at its highest levels passes beyond the physical into the range of paranormal capabilities. In addition to the sometimes amazing physical prowess he shares with his brother Joo Sang, (like leaping 12 feet in the air from a standing position for a flying spin kick), Joo Bang Lee has proven that he can also apparently function in the realms beyond the conventionally explainable.

One of his American black belts, Bob Duggan, describes an incident that happened at the Downey dojang: "During a regular practice session," he says, "my hands for some reason lost their circulation and started getting numb. I reported this to Mr. Lee. After checking over my hands he lowered his eyes and got that distant, concentrated look on his face that he gets when he's going to do one of his things. I was startled to see his hands instantly turn blue, a deep, real blue. Then he held my hands in his, which were icy cold. The coldness brought back my circulation. Then he concentrated again and his hands returned almost to normal, but not quite. He showed his hands which were still a little blue to another student and laughed. Then he concentrated again and I saw hi hands go back to their normal flesh color.

THE POWER OF KI

CHUCK CONNORS squares off against the Lee Brothers.

Another exhibition of the mental discipline of hwa rang do was reported in the first issue of PROBE magazine, in December 1972. The demonstration took place at the Bio-feedback Research Institute in Los Angeles, where Joo Bang Lee was wired with electrodes to measure various body pulses. After he went into a state of intense concentration (not meditation), a sharpened bicycle spike was thrust through the folded flesh of his arm. There was no bleeding, and he said he felt no pain. Joo Bang then raised a 25-pound bucket of water attached to the spoke. Still no bleeding, still no pain. When the spoke was removed, all that showed were two tiny holes.

At other times Mr. Lee has had blocks of concrete smashed on his chest with sledgehammers, and has allowed full-sized automobiles to be driven over his prostate body, with no pain and no injury.

The researchers at the Biofeedback Institute concluded from their graphs (mainly from the absence of alpha waves) that Mr. Lee had been in a a state of active concentration, rather than in the passive meditation of yoga-that rather than transporting his mind "someplace else" and "letting" it happen, he was "present and focused" and was "making" it happen. Mr. Lee explained through an interpreter that he had begun by focusing on his tanjen ("sweet field" or "red field," literally "field of life"), a small area in the lower belly below the navel, to concentrate his life force ki (Literally translated from the Korean, ki means "power ocean."

"I start my concentration with abdomen power," he says, "bringing the energy up into my arm and letting this energy flow out into the arm. The energy comes up from the legs and abdomen and flows into the arm. During the penetration of the spoke, I am aware of what is happening because I am doing it, but I do not feel anything."

This is consistent with the punching and kicking instruction the Lee brothers give their students. They tell them to remain relaxed while throwing the punch, flexing only at the point of impact, and bringing power up into the blow from their heels and legs-from the ground itself.

The Lee brothers attribute the extension of hwa rang do into the paranormal to the fact that in Korea, as in other Asian lands, the development of the martial arts has been historically connected with the development of the Buddhist religion. Their own training is an excellent example of the interweaving of the fighting arts with the mental disciplines of Buddhism.

The two brothers were born into a martial arts family. Their father was a black belt in judo and kendo, the only martial arts officially permitted during the Japanese occupation. Joo Bang Lee recalls that as a nine-year-old, he saw his grandfather lift a cow. The early part of their lives was spent in north Korea during World War II. While their martial arts training proceeded at home and at school, their father enrolled them for religious training in the So Gwang Sa Buddhist temple.

Just before the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, when the boys were at the junior high school level, the family moved to Pusan, at the southern tip of the peninsula, and their father enrolled them in the Yang Mi Ahm Buddhist temple on O Dae Mountain, a famous religious mountain in South Korea.

During the school months they studied judo, kendo, boxing, and other martial arts; all their weekends, holidays, summer and winter vacations were spent at the temple. Yang Me Ahm had been the repository of the ancient warrior arts during the Korean Yi Dynasty and the Japanese occupation, and the chief priest of the temple, Suahm dosa, was the Master of hwa rang do. He began to teach the boys.

THE IRON MASTER

THE KOREAN EMBLEM forms a backdrop for the Lee brothers to demonstrate their high kicks of hwa rang do.

Joo Bang Lee recalls that Suahm Dosa "never smiled, never talked-never. His face was always like this, with no emotion of any kind. He had us sweep the floors and carry water all the time, to see if we really wanted to be there, really wanted to learn.

"The first thing the Master asked was patience. Someone without patience would be likely to lose his temper and misuse the art. When the Master began to instruct us he would show us one technique. He would tell us to think about it, and he would disappear. Then we would have all day to think about it."

As youngsters of eight or 10, hadn't the Lee brothers been tempted to go fishing instead of spending all day thinking about a technique? Joo Bang laughs. "If we did go fishing we wouldn't be here now. We stayed because we wanted to learn. If we had not wanted to learn we would have left."

He says he looks at teenagers now and wishes he could go back and do it differently. "All the time, all I did was martial arts." With a fatalism not unmixed with satisfaction, he says that now his life has been cast. As the chief instructor of hwa rang do, he is responsible for the continuation of the art. "I cannot change jobs," he says, laughing at the notion.

He points out that he and his brother were at the temple to learn about Buddhism, but not to become monks or religious teachers. He says he believes in Buddhist principles and lives by them, and he stresses that hwa rang do is a product of Buddhism. He says it was the instruction in the spiritual disciplines of Buddhism that he received from Master Suahm Dosa, combined with his training in the physical techniques, that permitted him to advance as far as he has in the paranormal realms of the martial arts.

"At the temple in Korea," says Joo Sang Lee, "Master Suahm Dosa took Buddhism even further than religion. He made it like magic, but it was not magic. The Master said that with concentration, people could do anything.

"I saw him take yum joo nuts, which are very small, very hard nuts, like stones, and push straws through them. When I was about 17, I saw him throw a stone at a tree, and the stone stuck in."

Joo Bang concurs, recalling a time when he saw the Master throw a handful of yum joo nuts at a tree, and the nuts stuck in.

Discussing some of the inner arts that were taught in Korea, the lee brothers mentioned chemyen sul, controlling others through suggestion or hypnotism-putting people to sleep; un shin bup, the art of concealing oneself in front of others, partly through distraction, partly through suggestion, and partly through the arts of stealth and camouflage inherited from the spies and assassins of feudal times: and chuk ji bup, "the technique of making the earth short," or paranormal travel.

In describing chuk ji bup, joo Bang Lee told of a monastery in the Korean mountains that was a one-day and one-night journey from the nearest village in the valley. On a certain religious holiday, monks in command of chuk ji bup would leave the monastery in the morning, appear in the village beating drums for gook luck and begging rice, and be back at the monastery by early afternoon-a 48-hour trip in the space of a morning. It was not clear if Mr. Lee was recounting this from his own experience, or was repeating a story. He said that while he does not have this capability himself, he is able to teach it to others.

Joo Bang Lee describes the stages of human consciousness in terms of a circle divided into quarters. The first quadrant clockwise to 90 degrees encompasses the range of ordinary human experience, where the powers that people have and the forces that operate are subject to scientific explanation. The hwa rang do techniques of chemyen sul (putting a person to sleep), un shin pup (concealing oneself in front of others), and kyukpasul (techniques of breaking, developing 100 percent mental and physical potential through concentration) would all fall in this first quadrant.

The next quadrant, from 90 to 180 degrees, covers the range of extraordinary human powers. People sometimes unexpectedly find themselves in this zone in emergencies, when they can lift weights they could never lift before or afterward. Joo Sang Lee says that the awareness in this quadrant can still be considered human, but is so different from the ordinary that those without understanding might think people in this range were crazy. Into this zone fall such powers as seeing the future, moving objects with the mind, and the art of chuk ji buf (ESP travel). Joo Bang Lee says that with concentration, he can function in the quadrant beyond 90 degrees.

In the third quadrant, from 180 degrees to 270, one encounters capabilities that can no longer be called exactly human, such as changing oneself into a tiger or a snake. This is the zone of the dosas, including Suahm Dosa, where a person can kill another by looking at him, or can write a saying on a piece of paper and use that for bait, and the fish will bite. Joo Bang Lee says it requires immense effort and extraordinary difficulty to pass the 180-degree point and get into the quadrant.

After one passes the three-quarter mark and moves through the final quadrant toward the starting point, one is in the final quadrant toward the starting point, one is in the category of the Buddhas and the Christs. Joo Sang Lee says that after a 100-day fast, a person at this level can see the entire world with one eye, and can control the world.

Joo Bang Lee is not sure he had ever seen Suahm Dosa perform any of these feats possible in the third quadrant. He describes an incident that happened at the temple when he was about 18. he was dreaming intently on a technique the Master had taught him for defending against seven tigers, when he was awakened by a tap from the Master's stick. He explained that he had been thinking about a technique, but the Master indicated he already knew that. Mr. Lee describes the dream as a daydream, but even more intense than that, to the point of actually seeming real. To this day, he is not sure if he was really dreaming, or if Suahm Dosa was doing something to him, either entering directly into his thoughts and controlling them, or else actually changing into a tiger.

In 1969, the Lees were summoned back to the Yang Mi Ahm temple-Master Suahm Dosa had died, and the supreme council of monks established the brothers as the ultimate authorities in hwa rang do. Joo Bang Lee was raised to 8th-degree black belt, the highest rank in the art (he is the only one who holds it) and Joo Sang Lee was raised to 7th-degree. Both are now teaching in this country, although Joo Bang Lee is longing for his wife and small children in Korea, and will probably go back once immigration arrangements are completed for bringing over two more of his higher-ranked instructors.

Joo Bang says he would teach the mental arts along with the physical, except for the language barrier. He says the mental discipline can be learned without the martial arts by techniques like saying mantras, "but that is out of the world. We are in the world; chanting may be all right in the Korean mountains, but not down in the cities."

In the martial arts the mind and the body, the mental and the physical, are not separate-they are one-and learning the mental techniques is part of the same process as learning the combat techniques. At the age of 17, after he had mastered the 36-category second stage of hwa rang do, Joo bang Lee began to progress in the mental arts on his own. Until then, he had been instructed by Suahm Dosa. Joo Bang smiles and says that someday he may decide to concentrate on advancing himself further in the mental realms, but he does not foresee this. The only path he can see for himself now is the commitment to further the art of hwa rang do throughout the world, as the legacy of Suahm Dosa.

If his mind were to return to the temple, though, it would just happen, and he would have no choice but to follow. If that time comes he will have to give up his life "in the city," leave his wife and children behind, and go back into the mountains of Korea.