Hwang Kee had recently returned to Korea in 1937 and had found a job in the Survey Department of the Cho Sun Railway Bureau in 1939. With this new job, he had access to a library. In that library, he found copies of books on Shotokan Karate. Being a prodigy of sorts, Hwang Kee learned a lot from these books and decided to incorporate them into his marital arts training. By 1945, World War II had ended. This resulted in Korea being liberated from Japanese rule by the American and Russian armies. The surrender of Japan to the Allied Forces on 15 August, 1945 meant that for the first time in decades, Korean culture and Korean martial arts were allowed to be practiced and taught openly.
Now that Korean culture was free to flourish, so too was Korean martial arts. On November 9th, 1945, Hwang Kee opened his first dojang. He initially called the system of martial art that he taught Moo Duk Kwan Hwa Soo Do. Moo Duk Kwan means “school of martial virtue” and Hwa Soo Do roughly translates as “flowering hand way”. Hwang Kee established his new authentically Korean dojang near the Ministry of Transportation in Yong San Gu (Dragon Mountain District). Unfortunately, his dojang was very unsuccessful as a business due to the fact that Koreans were not familiar with authentic Korean martial arts, but rather the Japanese systems as a result of the years of Japanese colonization. In 1946, Hwang Kee decided to blend more Japanese elements into his system at the advice of two Korean instructors who had attained black belts in Japan. In 1947, Hwang Kee made a final attempt to open his dojang, this time teaching a mixture Korean Taekkeyon, Chinese Yang family Kung Fu, and Japanese Karate. In addition, Hwang Kee decided to change the name of his art to Tang Soo Do which means “the way of the Tang (Chinese dynasty) hand”. This name was more familiar to the Korean people. With these changes, Tang Soo Do began to experience tremendous success.
