Rhee Taekwon-Do
Rhee Taekwon-Do is a school for teaching martial arts, located in New Zealand and Australia.
The school is also called Rhee Tae Kwon Do, Rhee Tae Kwon-Do and Rhee Taekwondo. It teaches
taekwondo, the martial art technique form Korea. The full name of this school, "Rhee International
Taekwon-Do", has "New Zealand" or "Australia" appended. The school was founded in the mid-
1960s by Chong Chul Rhee, 1 of the original taekwondo masters. In the 1970, Rhee was joined by his
two brothers Chong Yoon Rhee and Chong Hyup Rhee who came to help Rhee run the school.
It is often considered to be the 1st and largest taekwondo school situated in Australia while Chong
Chul Rhee, the founder of the school, is known as the 'Father of Australian Taekwondo'. This school
has around 294 publicly listed training halls or dojang in Australia while there are 5 training halls in
New Zealand. The school has approximately 1,400 dojang or training halls in total. Several martial
art training institution founders in Australia have taken their basic taekwondo training at the Rhee
Taekwon-Do.
Rhee Taekwondo, an independent organization for teaching martial arts, has no relation to
WTF or World Taekwondo Federation. However, the school was formerly affiliated to the ITF or
International Taekwon-Do Federation.
Training
The military style taekwondo is taught at the Rhee Taekwon-Do School. This style bears more resemblance to the traditional martial art compared to modern martial sport. The exercises that constitute the training are classified as:
- Basics (it consists of group drill exercises)
- Destruction (breaking)
- Hyung (forms or patterns)
- Self-defense
- Sparring
The basics, hyung, destruction, and self-defense exercises are very similar to the equivalent exercises
taught in other traditional schools of martial arts. The Chang Hon hyung is taught by Rhee Taekwon-
Do.
Sparring is divided into three forms: (a) 3-step sparring, (b) 1-step sparring and (c) free sparring. The
3-step and 1-step sparring are quite similar to the equivalent exercises in WTF and ITF schools. But
the free sparring form is different, being more similar to traditional karate sparring. The free sparring
taught at Rhee Taekwon-Do is generally unarmored, unscored and 'non-contact' in principle. There
are two methods of achieving non-contact sparring: separately and in combination.
- In the first method, the attacker deliberately stops abruptly when going to hit his or her training partner but still executes the attack with full power and speed. The primary responsibility of the attacker is keeping the fight non-contact at a particular moment during sparring. This generally occurs when 1 training partner is more experienced compared to the other.
- In the second method, the defender has to actively block or avoid incoming attacks executed by his or her training partner. The defender's primary responsibility is of non-contact at a specific moment during sparring. This generally occurs when the training partners have similar level of experience. This form of sparring is practiced when both the training partners are from senior ranks with high experience level.
Ranks
The ranks at Rhee Taekwon-Do are denoted by a number of colored belts. These belts indicate the experience level and the responsibility of each student in the school. The school ahs 10 kup ranks or colored belt grades and 9 dan ranks or black belt degrees. Students begin their training with the white belts, progressing through yellow belt, green belt, blue belt, brown belt and finally black belt.