Grandmaster 
Young Gul Son

     Grandmaster Son was born in December of 1959. He holds a ninth degree in Hapkido, a seventh degree in Taekwondo, and a third degree in Kuhapdo. In 1972, during his childhood, Grandmaster Son began martial arts by joining the Taekwondo club (Moo Duk Kwan) at school.

 

     In 1975, Grandmaster Son was fascinated by the techniques of Hapkido as he watched the Martial arts movies of Grandmaster Inshik Hwang, who holds the highest degree in Hapkido and is a movie actor. Grandmaster Son began Hapkido training in earnest as an apprentice of the Founder of Heuk Choo Kwan, Jongmoon Jin. Twenty years later, Grandmaster Son met Grandmaster Inshik Hwang at a Hapkido demonstration in Toronto, Canada. After that, Grandmaster Son visited Grandmaster Inshik Hwang’s Dojang a few times to take lessons in his martial arts style. Realizing that there were limitations of Hapkido, using muscle strength itself instead of power from Dan-jun would only be able to overwhelm some opponents in an actual fight. Grandmaster Son has practiced and developed his inventive martial arts. He has accomplished this by collecting and analyzing a lot of books, videos, and other information related to martial arts that he could find. His family and acquaintances were astonished by his passion.

 

     Grandmaster Son was not satisfied with bare-handed martial arts such as Hapkido and Taekwondo, so he started learning the techniques of Kuhapdo in 2000 under the famous Grandmaster Tae-ryong Jeong, who provided intensive training in the form of Kuhapdo: Muso Jikiden Eishin-ryu ( 無雙直傳 英信流 ). Afterward, Grandmaster Son was able to apply the principle of the sword to bare-handed techniques. Overwhelming opponents using only Hapkido is not easy in modern society, where consideration of others is gradually disappearing, and violent crimes are increasing. Therefore, Grandmaster Son has created Sugi Hapkido, a combination of Judo and Boxing based on experience in and understanding the principles of Taekwondo, Hapkido, and Kuhapdo. Grandmaster Son has built the foundation of Sugi Hapkido with intensive training in martial arts and by mastering the philosophy and principles of martial arts. In October of 2008,Grandmaster Son decided to immigrate to the United States, where there are many adult practitioners, to systematically train and deeply research practical martial arts.

 

    Grandmaster Son has also been invited to teach Sugi Hapkido in many countries in South America and Europe. He is always eager to impart his martial arts philosophy and Sugi Hapkido in many major cities in the United States. Every October, Grandmaster Son holds large-scale seminars at the United States headquarters in Dojang to emphasize the importance of continuous training and to instruct the methods of training newly invented martial arts. Grandmaster Son continues to devote himself to research and training for the globalization and organization of Sugi Hapkido.