Tae Kwon Do Times, November 1995

Press · August 5, 2025

Scanned pages from the November 1995 issue of Tae Kwon Do Times, featuring UMAC's founder, Grand Master Noah Guak.

In the November 1995 issue, David Peck wrote “Grandmaster Noh Geun Guak: Pursuing Mu Ye Do, The True Spirit of the Martial Arts.” Guak was born in Jun Nam, South Korea, and won several Korean national championships. By 1995 his Fort Myers school was the United Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido Center. About half the students were children, and his wife, son and daughter trained there too.

More than one hundred students had earned black belts under him. Guak believes respect, discipline, modesty and perseverance should become daily habits. He founded the World Hapkido Association and the World Mu Ye Do Federation. As he puts it, “Without Mu Ye Do the martial arts are meaningless.”

He began competing in the early 1970s. Even so, he told Peck that competition is only healthy when it helps you improve. He asked students to enter tournaments only now and then, and to challenge themselves from within instead.

His whole family trained at the school. His son Channy started at age three and had a yellow belt at five. His daughter Yeri started at four and was a brown belt at seven. His wife Soona was a blue belt.

Color belts learned forms, sparring plans, self-defense and meditation, so they would be ready for black belt work. In 1995 he added a Korean tea ceremony for every student who had earned a black belt under him. The school also ran discipline camps, survival camps and seminars, plus a yearly tournament inside the school. To people unsure about starting, he said trying a class is like tasting a sample at an ice cream shop.

Peck writes that Guak saw fear, stress and low self-esteem as the real enemies, and martial arts as a way to beat them. His steady praise gave students a “Yes I Can” attitude.

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