What is a Taekwondo grandmaster called in Korean?

There are two options. A Taekwondo grandmaster can be called 사성 sasong, or 관장 kwanjang.


If you are a practitioner of Changheon-yu Taekwondo (i.e., ITF-style Taekwondo – the style of Taekwondo promulgated by Choi Hong-hi), you can use 사성 sasong to refer to a grandmaster. This is a word specifically invented by Choi, and is only used for ninth degree black belts – grandmasters. This word literally means ‘sage-master’, and is probably a nod towards Korea’s heavily Confucian past. (Before the 20th century, Korea was an exemplary Confucian society.) There is also the word 사현 sahyon for seventh and eighth degree black belts, which means ‘moral teacher’ or ‘wise teacher’.

For all other styles of Taekwondo, including Kukki-won Taekwondo (i.e., WTF-style Taekwondo), the word 관장 kwanjang can be used to refer to a grandmaster. This is the same word that’s used to refer to just a master. The literal meaning is just ‘head of the school’, ‘head of the kwan‘, and has been used since the Kwan Era of Taekwondo (the 1940s-1960s).

In both cases, if you are speaking directly to a grandmaster, and you use the word, you should add the honorific suffix 님 -nim (pronounced neem) – so 사성님 sasongnim, or 관장님 kwanjangnim – a standard practice in Korean.

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If you'd like to learn more about the Korean terminology used in Taekwondo, consider buying this book: Taekwondo Terminology. It contains an extensive dictionary of terms used in Taekwondo, as well as explanations on how to pronounce Korean words, and aspects of Korean grammar.

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