History of
Shin Boo Young

Shin Boo Young is considered the founder of Hwa-Rang taekwondo in Europe. He came to Europe in 1970 and was the national coach in Germany in the early seventies. He is the founder and president of Hwa-Rang Sports School in Hamburg and he has contributed to the foundation of several taekwondo schools in Germany and Denmark.

Background

Shin Boo Young was born in Pusan, Republic of Korea, in 1944. At the age of 13 (maybe 11) he began to practise taekwondo, probably because a friend of his brothers was a taekwondo teacher.

Shin Boo Young’s first teacher was Chang Man-Young. Later he also trained under Kim Hwa-Won, and Lee Euk Cheon (a student of Hwang-Ki) who was the master of the taekwondo main school in Pusan.

It took Shin Boo Young about 4 years to get his black belt, which in those days was considered a long time. The reason was that the requirements for young people were the same as for adults. Therefore Shin Boo Young had to do the same kind of break tests etc.

Shin Boo Young enjoyed many kinds of sport. He was a competent football player at the school team and was also fond of table tennis. Athletics like running and long jumping also had his interest.

Germany

In July 1970 Shin Boo Young moved to Germany. Like many other foreigners he came to Europe because Germany and other European countries were short of labour. Shin Boo Young worked as a miner in Dortmund for 3 years.

After work Shin Boo Young practised taekwondo. At that time he was a 4th dan black belt.

Kwan Jae-Hwa

In the late sixties highly-educated taekwondo instructors were sent around the world by the International Taekwondo Federation. The purpose was to popularise taekwondo in the world. One of the instructors was Kwan Jae-Hwa who went to Germany.

Kwan Jae-Hwa was a friend of Shin Boo Young’s uncle (father’s brother). Therefore Shin Boo Young started to train with Kwan Jae-Hwa in Germany. According to a quotation in a German karate magazine (1976) Shin Boo Young considered Kwan Jae-Hwa as one of the worlds best taekwondo instructors.

Shin Boo Young became Kwan Jae-Hwa’s assistant. When Kwan Jae-Hwa moved to the USA (around 1972) Shin Boo Young took over the role of Kwan Jae-Hwa. About a year later Shin Boo Young was hired as national coach in Germany.

Tangun

After the World Championship in 1973 (May 25th - 27th) Shin moved to Hamburg. Besides the job as national coach Shin also worked as an instructor at Tangun Sports School. The chief instructor at Tangun was Ferdinan Hunkel whose daughter once became world champion.

Shin Boo Young stopped as national coach after 3 years.

Hwa-Rang Sport School

In May 1976 Shin Boo Young started his own taekwondo school in Hamburg. For many years he planned to use "Hwa-Rang" as the name for his school. Therefore the school was named Hwa-Rang Sports School.

Hwa-Rang was the name of some special trained warriors in Silla (57 BC - 935 AD), which was one of three kingdoms in the old Korea. Translated from Korean, Hwa-Rang means “flowering youth”.

Shin Boo Young’s school also functioned as the Moo Duk Kwan main school in Europe.

Denmark

At some point, the Dutch instructors Theo P. Salm and Bernd Denni brought Shin Boo Young to Denmark in order to teach with them at some training sessions. The date for Shin Boo Young’s first visit in Denmark is unknown at the time of writing. At least it is known that Theo P. Salm, Bernd Denni and Shin Boo Young were instructors at a Vingsted Camp in Vejle (Denmark) in the Whitsun in 1973.

Since then Shin Boo Young was often in Denmark. He was a great support and great teacher to Gunnar Sørensen who was the only Danish taekwondo teacher at that time.

In 1975 Palle Petersen from Ballerup (Denmark) contacted Shin Boo Young. The club in Ballerup wanted to establish a closer collaboration with Shin Boo Young. During the following years the collaboration with Ballerup and many related clubs was increased and Shin Boo Young became the grand master for those clubs.

Chief instructors during the years

In 1994 Dang Dinh Ky Thuy moved to Hamburg in order to succeed Shin Boo Young as chief instructor at the school. However, this collaboration ended after a year because of disagreements.

After some time Nguyen Thanh Long moved to Hamburg in order to be chief instructor at Shin Boo Young’s school. But he also resigned after some years from the role of chief instructor. However, Nguyen Thanh Long is still training at the school.

Today

Since 1995 Shin Boo Young has been an 8th dan black belt. Today he is still active in taekwondo and still doing some teaching at the school in Hamburg. Besides taekwondo he plays tennis every week.

For some years now, Shin Boo Young has practised oriental medicine such as acupuncture as a living. His interest for this area began many years ago and today he considers some of it as part of his taekwondo.