Moo Yea Do

Summary

Tiger Yang created a unique form of martial art, which he decided to call Moo Yea Do. Yang has a long history of martial arts. Having studied disciplines like Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Aikido, Wing Chun, Judo, Kempo and Jujutsu, he extracted elements in each of these martial art forms and created a new form he called Moo Yea Do in the late 70’s.

History / Origins

ETYMOLOGY

Moo Yea Do is a Korean phrase translated as “the path of discipline”. It comes from the synthesis of classical techniques like Taekwondo and other Korean martial arts, but puts more emphasis on the harmony between body, mind and spirit.

BEGINNINGS

Grandmaster Tiger Yang was born as Song Yang in 1945 to an apple farmer who also ran a martial arts school in South Korea. In the Yang family, martial art was something that was passed down from generation to generation and Song Yang began training at the early age of 6 years along with 10 of his brothers. During that time Korean martial arts was outlawed by the Japanese who occupied South Korea so, much of it was done in secret and sometimes disguised in folk dancing. The Yang style was unorthodox and somewhat brutal, requiring that the boys stand under an ice-cold waterfall, or spend a considerable amount of time holding buckets up in mid air without spilling their contents. The idea behind this was to teach the young boys to use their minds to overcome pain and any sort of challenge that might come their way. Young Song Yang was particularly tenacious in executing some of these techniques earning himself the name “Tiger” which stuck and became the name he would be called from then on.

Tiger spent some time teaching Martial Arts to Korean soldiers before moving to the United States for greener pastures. He soon realized that he would need to find a way to make a living and to do this he opened his own training school in Fullerton, California teaching his own unique style of martial arts he would call Moo Yea Do.

PRESENT DAY

Even though the Japanese banned native Korean martial arts, several styles flourished and grew underground. The indigenous styles also evolved into something else. When the Japanese repression ended, these martial art forms came to the for, some were obviously different and other were completely new because they had hybridized so many styles that were not even Korean by origin. Moo Yea Do is a hybrid form of martial art that seems to subscribe to the tenets of most martial arts styles that challenged the limits and boundaries imposed by old-school disciplines. It is safe to say that like other forms of hybrid martial arts like Jeet Kune Do, Moo Yea Do is open to further evolution.

FOLKLORE

Tiger Yang the creator of Moo Yea Do is a 10th Dan, black belt holder in Taekwondo, which is a level that very few people, attain in their lifetime. He had been training all his life to achieve the martial art expertise that he has and his training is the kind that Kung-Fu legends are made of. Imagine, at 6 years old practicing to still the mind under an ice-cold waterfall or balancing heavy pails of water in your shoulders for a considerable time. What might have seemed like cruel punishment, turned out to be the very thing needed to build a strong mind in a fighter. Song Yang became very good at this and earned the name Tiger for his perseverance and tenacity. He learnt to use his mind to overcome the discomfort and pain that came with the training.