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Bio: Grand Master Soon Ho Lee

Grand Master Soon Ho Lee sits at the head of the United States largest single system martial arts organization, the American Taekwondo Association (ATA). His historic inauguration to the esteemed position of Grand Master of Songahm Taekwondo brought people from around the world to the ATA’s World Championships in June, 2002.

Since that day he has traveled the world to honor his pledge to dedicate his life to the more than 300,000 Songahm Taekwondo members worldwide; the same Songahm family that signed a petition in his honor.

During his first year as Grand Master he has not only trained literally thousands of students and instructors in over 16 countries around the world, he has also come to a higher level of understanding for the sacrifice his brother, the late Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee made each day to care for the worldwide Songahm Taekwondo family.

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Songahm Taekwondo and the American Taekwondo Association
Songahm Taekwondo is the foundation of the American Taekwondo Association’s rank curriculum and teaching system. In addition, the ATA has developed a 300-hour intensive internship for martial art instructor development and certification. The American Taekwondo Association or ATA, as it is recognized around the world, was originally founded in 1969 in Omaha, Nebraska. Since the first ATA school was opened by the ATA’s founder and Grand Master Soon Ho Lee’s older brother, the late Grand Master Haeng Ung Lee (July 20, 1936 – October 5, 2000), over 300,000 men, women and children from ages 3 to over 70 have made ATA training a part of their lives.

Today Grand Master Soon Ho Lee oversees an organization with over 1,500 schools and clubs in more than 16 countries worldwide. Headquartered out of the International Songahm Taekwondo office located in Little Rock, Arkansas, he directs and mentors over 100 Songahm Masters.

Coming to America
In 1969, Grand Master Soon Ho Lee joined Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee in the United States. Grand Master Soon Ho Lee’s original goal was simply to expand his academic opportunities. He actually had no intentions to make martial arts a career, but felt duty bound to help his brother and became just as passionate to build this new organization of professional martial arts instructors. Though he was extremely talented, his older brother would push him each day to improve both physically and mentally. Looking back he now knows even at the early stage of training his brother was preparing him for what would become his life, his love and his destiny as Grand Master of Songahm Taekwondo. After only a short month and a half, his brother pushed him to open his first club in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In fact as Grand Master Soon Ho Lee recalls, his brother just told him one day “let’s go” and it was only after they arrived in Milwaukee his brother told him of the goal to open his first club. This one club became a school and soon thereafter grew into three schools.

In 1978, he would move his family to Panama City, Florida and build what was at the time an 8,000 square foot state of the art training facility, which would include a complete fitness center and Taekwondo training center.

That training center was the center point of growth for the southeastern part of the United States. It would also become an international training center for instructors from Korea, South America, and many other international instructor development programs.

The success of his Panama City, Florida location allowed him to travel both nationally and internationally as needed for the initial push needed for the future growth of the ATA.

Looking back at each new obstacle and challenge from those early days helped him to develop the patience and mindset that would be required of him in his position as Grand Master.

Accepting His Destiny and the Nine Steps to Becoming the Grand Master
Though he realized it was his destiny to accept the position of Grand Master of Songahm Taekwondo, the news of his older brother’s illness hurt him deeply. Grand Master Soon Ho Lee explains, ‘My brother was my hero, my mentor, and my best friend. He was the Grand Master! He could not be ill, he surely could not die! My brother was like Superman to me and I knew he always trained hard, ate right and took great care of himself. We had traveled so many miles together and still had so many miles to go.”

As with the opening of his first school in Milwaukee, he soon found himself promising his brother that the vision would continue. He would leave his home in Panama City, Florida and dedicate his life even further to keeping the ATA and the worldwide Songahm family moving forward.

He would now have to complete the same Nine Steps his brother had some 10 years earlier when he became the first Grand Master of Songahm Taekwondo.

The following includes the Nine Steps Grand Master Soon Ho Lee completed and a short explanation of each step:

• Step 1: The Grand Master notifies the Master’s Council in writing that he will be stepping down from the duties and responsibilities of Grand Master. In his letter, the Grand Master would make a recommendation for his successor. If the Grand Master cannot decide on a nomination, the nomination would come from the Master’s Council.**In instances of death, illness, or in the cases of expulsion, the three highest-ranking members of the Master’s Council would perform all duties, providing that they are not the nominees for Grand Master.
• Step 2: The Master’s Council must approve the candidate 100%. Once approved, the Grand Master candidate would be asked to have a complete physical. Not only must he or she pass, but also their fitness level should place them in the top ten percent of their age group. Once a candidate is approved and has passed the physical, step two would be complete.
• Step 3: As Grand Master H.U. Lee did, the new nominee must circulate a petition signed by 300,000 students, or sixty percent of the current Songahm membership. Every Songahm Master, Instructor, School Owner, Club Owner, and Member would participate in the process of gathering signatures. A complete list of all signatures would become a part of the permanent record, and would be displayed with the first letters so that all will know that step three has been completed.
• Step 4: As Grand Master H.U. Lee did, the candidate will fast for twenty-one days during the preparation. Preparation will be broken down into four training quarters: fasting three days the first quarter, six days the second quarter, nine days the third quarter, and three days the fourth quarter just before the Grand Master ceremony. Each quarter, fasting will be documented and confirmed by a member of the Master’s Council. These documents will be placed in the museum as each quarter is completed.
• Step 5: The Grand Master candidate must spend three days at the same Korean temple as Grand Master H.U. Lee did prior to his Grand Mastership. The candidate must participate in the same rituals and meditations, with silence as the goal for the nominee during these three days. A Master’s Council member will be there to document the first words spoken by the future Grand Master. These first words will be spoken from the same special rock used by Grand Master H.U. Lee at the Palace of the Warriors. It was on this rock, selected by Grand Master H.U. Lee, that he and most Senior Masters made a personal pledge of dedication, sacrifice, and focus on Songahm’s future.
• Step 6: To ensure a “Strong Body and Clear Mind” the candidate will train daily, both physically and mentally. In addition, the candidate will train one day as a student with each member of the Master’s Council. The candidate must be able to fully appreciate the role of both student and instructor. Not only will the candidate gain new knowledge, but he or she will help create a tremendous force of synergy to help ensure a clear path for the leaders of the organization. The Council will train all future Masters in the name of Grand Master H.U. Lee.Daily training will include the following: The candidate must master a Pro-Tech weapon of his/her choice. The selection will be announced and documented by the Master’s Council with a letter to be displayed at the museum. This weapon must become a part of his/her daily routine.The candidate must learn and practice the ninth degree form that Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee performed for his own testing and promotion to Grand Master. The form is to be practiced in its entirety ninety-nine times throughout the year.
• Step 7: The candidate must perform the ninth degree Grand Master form at Songahm World Championships. He/she must also perform a personal demonstration with the weapon of choice and breaking. The demonstration must be performed with great ceremony and humility.
• Step 8: The previous Grand Master or the complete Master’s Council shall preside over the coronation and testing of the new Grand Master. Part of the ceremony will include the reading of all previous Grand Master names, and years holding the position, even if in the future there are hundreds of names in a thousand years. This list should start with Grand Master H.U. Lee. We cannot truly see the future without complete and accurate knowledge of the past.
• Step 9: The presentation of the new Grand Master in his new black uniform by the current Grand Master, or by the complete Master’s Council to the family and students of Songahm shall take place at the beginning of the Master’s ceremony.

All steps having been completed, Grand Master Soon Ho Lee was elevated to the esteemed position of Grand Master during a special ceremony and inauguration attended by VIP’s and special guest from around the world.

The Vision Tour: “There is always more to Learn”
Grand Master Soon Ho Lee has set out on a Vision Tour across the country and eventually around the world. His goal is to touch as many members of the Songahm family as possible. This tour includes special training for students, instructors and masters focused on traditional values and building better leaders for the future. Grand Master Soon Ho Lee believes there has never been a time in history when the need for positive people and strong leaders has been greater as it is now.

His brother changed the lives of all those he touched by making them believe “Today not Possible, Tomorrow Possible.” Grand Master Soon Ho Lee is working to continue that philosophy by adding “That as long as we know there is always more to learn tomorrow, anything is possible.”

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ATA History

In 1968, Korean General Hong Hi Choi (the man responsible for originally standardizing Taekwondo in 1955) met with then Master Haeng Ung Lee (now Eternal Grand Master), who at the time was teaching Taekwondo-Japanese mixed martial arts to his organization of followers. General Choi quickly taught Eternal Grand Master Lee the first 16 Cheon-jee forms of Taekwondo in only 4 days and three nights (this system of forms was the first set of forms developed under the new Taekwondo of Korea).

From this first meeting almost half a century ago, the stage was set for the founding of The American Taekwondo Association (ATA) in 1969 in Omaha, Nebraska by Eternal Grand Master Lee.

Eternal Grand Master Lee began his martial arts training in 1954 as a teenager. He taught martial arts to Republic of Korea military intelligence personnel from 1956 to 1959, opening his first commercial school in Osan, Korea after leaving the military. Eternal Grand Master then opened several “branches” to his commercial school, including one at a U.S. Air Force base. This is where Master Richard Reed began training with Eternal Grand Master, and the two forged a friendship that would ultimately result in the ATA.

When Reed returned to the United States in 1962, Eternal Grand Master joined him on a “visitor” visa, and began teaching in Omaha. Although he had to return to Korea in December, 1963 while awaiting a “resident” status visa, he returned to the U.S. in 1965 and began working toward a national Taekwondo organization that would be based on good martial arts and sound business practices. As it grew from a regional organization to one of national — and ultimately international — scope, the ATA began to establish standards that would ensure consistent instruction.

The ATA held “closed” tournaments — you had to be a member to compete. Instructors had to undergo a rigorous trainee period to become a certified instructor, and the only way to receive certification was to come to Little Rock for a week in August and participate in a Trainee Instructor Camp, complete with physical and written exams.

Every student uniform was white (no black, no blue, no stars & stripes), and all lettering, piping and patches (initially just a school patch and the ATA patch) on uniforms were to be consistent across the organization. The ATA also shared marketing acumen with its instructors, helping to build a stronger organization by presenting a consistent, professional program and message to the public.

From the beginning, Eternal Grand Master Lee was determined to establish the most professional martial arts organization possible. In 1973, he introduced the first instructor manual, which provided information and procedures to standardize the operation of all ATA schools. In 1976, he hosted the first Grand National tournament, which was the predecessor for the Songahm Taekwondo World Championships now held annually. A year later, he re-located the ATA headquarters from Omaha, Nebraska to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he soon had 200 black belts earning instructor certification each year.

In 1980, the ATA became the first martial arts organization to introduce a centralized computer record keeping system. This innovation enabled the ATA to maintain rank histories and other important information about the thousands of ATA members. The same year, the ATA began publishing a tabloid entitled “ATA News” which has evolved into the international magazine The Way of Taekwondo, now published quarterly to keep Songahm Taekwondo students informed about upcoming events, appraised of new programs, and knowledgeable about the physical and mental aspects of Songahm Taekwondo.

The history of the ATA was set on a new and unique course in 1983 when, at a Certified Instructor Camp in Little Rock, Eternal Grand Master introduced the Songahm system of Taekwondo. The Songahm system represented the culmination of years of study by Eternal Grand Master Lee. The ATA had used the Chang Hun Taekwondo forms since 1969 — and the “Pinan” forms prior to that — but he had noticed something missing in the forms.

With the assistance of senior instructors including Robert Allemier, Bill Clark, In Ho Lee and Jee Ho Lee, Eternal Grand Master developed a unified teaching system in which, for the first time, White Belts learned kicks in their Taekwondo forms and one-step sparring was closely integrated with the forms to aid in student development by establishing a more logical system for beginners. But even more than that the entire system of Songahm forms worked together with balance and harmony, reflecting the essence of the art.

In 1984, the Songahm Taekwondo Federation (STF) was founded by Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee and Master Cezar Ozuna to help spread Songahm Taekwondo outside of the United States. In the fall of 1990, the World Traditional Taekwondo Union (WTTU) was formed. While the ATA encompasses member schools in the United States and Canada, the STF includes member schools in South America and the WTTU covers the remaining portion of the world.

With the passing of Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee in October 2000, our current leadership has taken up the torch of his inspirational guidance and leadership and ensured the values the ATA were founded upon remain our focus for today and into the future.

Grand Master Soon Ho Lee, after many trials and tests for the Grand Master title, was elevated to be our leader in Taekwondo and guides and focuses the Songahm Taekwondo style. Mrs. Sun C. Lee, wife of the late Eternal Grand Master H.U. Lee and the ATA’s Chairman of the Board, continues the legacy of her husband by helping the youth of Songahm Taekwondo through her philanthropic efforts and devotion. Our leadership ensures that the ATA will continue to be one of the most innovative, effective, and widespread organizations in martial arts worldwide.

From its humble beginnings, today the ATA and its affiliated organizations is beginning to register over 300,000 members worldwide, including 53,000 black belts and 3,000 certified instructors.

In many ways, this is still just the beginning. We know the ATA has many wonderful surprises in store for Taekwondo in the United States and across the world. We hope you will journey with us as the ATA, and Songahm Taekwondo, continues to evolve and improve to help our students and masters do the same.

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