Historical Summary

The reasons for the creation of the World Martial Arts Congress began during the redevelopment of Asia after World War II. The Japanese military forces had devastated most of Asia and systematically assassinated many of the leading Martial Arts Leaders of that time so that they could not help to train resistance forces prior to the end of the war. This policy enforcement of eliminating Martial Arts Leaders had a distressing effect on the martial arts communities of China and Korea specifically as many of the founders and heads of styles were victims of this leaving many schools and styles without anyone who knew the entire system.

The remaining Martial Arts Leaders began seeking out these schools and mentoring those young masters through private training, organized meeting and clinics to reestablish the recently lost skills. Although unknown to each other at the time groups of high-level masters in China and Korea had begun this process informally and later heard that similar groups were now active in much of Asia through the 1950s and the 1960. They were able to meet each other and begin a larger movement through international competitions where training would be conducted in the evenings after the tournaments had finished.

At one of these events in 1967, a motion was made to create an official name for the groups and to create a unifying mission statement. Officers were elected and the global mission for the World Martial Arts Congress was launched. To the events and projects, include Guardian Course, Instructors Course, Masters Course, Grand Masters Course, Administrative Leadership Course, and the world martial arts language, culture and character development programs.

In 2016 the congress suggested that the mission should be globalized to include Western Countries and to even included Japanese stylists. The original mission expanded to allow for the growth and introduction of the martial arts at its highest levels worldwide. Realizing that outside of Asia, martial arts existed primarily as a sport and did not always include the total mind, body and spirit aspects of the historical origins of the arts. To make this happen the members of the congress agreed that the culture, character and languages of Asia needed to be included in the training so that developing martial arts leaders would have a deeper knowledge and understanding of the roots of the traditional military arts and their branches.

The language and culture training program is still evolving and are conducted annually during the open events in both China and Korea. The character and leadership development program is taught to instructors via the online mentoring program. These instructors in turn teach the student character development program in World Martial Arts Congress affiliated schools around the world using the programs provided materials. There is an annual Spring Culture and Leadership Course in China and a Summer Culture and Leadership Course available in Korea. These courses are available only to our members and their students. The course applications are distributed by invitation only. The annual Autumn Conference is held in China and Korea on a rotating calendar.

Our Culture and Leadership teachings are founded on the Gai Shan (Constantly Improving) philosophy established by the legendary Sun Tzu of China. Sun Tzu also referred to as Sun Zi; was a Chinese Army General, military strategist, writer, and philosopher who lived in the Zhou period of ancient China. Sun Tzu is the author of “The Art of War”, a widely influential work of military strategy of Gai Shan that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. Aside from his legacy as the author of The Art of War, Sun Tzu is revered in Chinese and East Asian culture as a legendary historical and military figure. His birth name was Sun Wu, and he was known outside of his family by his courtesy name Changqing. The name Sun Tzu by which he is best known in the Western World is an honorific, which means “Teacher Sun”.