In the forming, or founding, of any martial art there must be a central concept. Meaning, it needs to be more that just a hodge podge mixture of disjoined techniques. There has to be a reason for the style. This “Core Element” should be conceptual in nature. The greatest masters of history have all recognized this, from Gichin Funakoshi, to Bruce Lee and John Pellegrini. All of them have known that there needs to be a purpose for the art. While the “Core Element” can be as simple as providing effective self defense, or a better way of teaching students, it must go much deeper. To the point of making the world a better place. At least leaving your small part of the planet better than how you found it.

Much thought and reflection has been devoted to these principles with the founding of Yeon Oh Kwan, or Synergy Tae Kwon Do. It was quickly realized that the central theme of the style was just the surface. Deep below, in the root, there is a desire to take these principles and theories to empower students, instructors and masters not just in martial arts, but in everyday life. Once the central element is internalized, everything just flows and “is.” It is circular in philosophy.

The word Synergy literally means “greater than the sum of it’s parts.” Similar to 1+1=3. A deep concept. Incidentally, it is closely related to the chaos theory. The way this is applied to martial arts, specifically tae kwon do, is quite interesting.