The United Martial Arts association promotes the teaching of martial arts between its members and others in the martial arts community. We strive to be examples of martial artists with high standards and ethics both to other martial artists and to the community at large.
Our founders and instructors hold black belt ranks in Tae Kwon Do. Our fundamental techniques and how we promote our students are based on traditional Tae Kwon Do methods. We use the original 20 Tae Kwon Do hyungs (patterns or forms) that General Choi Hong Hi called the Chang Hon or Blue Cottage Forms. General Choi was the founder of Tae Kwon Do.
We feel that a style the stands still, moves backwards. With this in mind, the totality of what we teach constantly evolves and changes. We incorporate many techniques and moves from other styles of martial arts. We use throws, trips, and sweeps from Judo; disarms and counters from Aikido; weapons training from Filipino Kali (also called Escrima); and many others. We spar like open Karate tournaments spar, not like traditional Tae Kwon Do. Our emphasis is not with ‘purity of the art’, but on functional self-defense and self-improvement. If we discover something that we believe can help us become better martial artists, we will use it!
