Ha Yong-sung: Maintaining the Taiwanese-Korean Friendship in Difficult Times

"Chu Mu-yan was the most dedicated of all the members of the Chinese Taipei team over the years," says Ha, musing on the Chinese Taipei teams of yore, teams he knows like the back of his hand. "He was just brilliant in every regard. But Chen Shih-hsin had the most fighting spirit."

Who knows these athletes better than Ha? He spent more than 20 years training Taiwanese athletes and helping them bring home numerous medals. Taiwanese-Korean relations may be at a low ebb, but when Ha visited the national trials in March, every athlete and coach, no matter how anxious about the matches, stopped to offer a respectful bow and hello.

When Ha, a 180-centimeter-tall man with large hands and a broad face, first came to Taiwan in 1990, he brought Korean culture and training methods with him. "I had an explosive temper in those days, and would lay into the athletes," says Ha. Then in his 40s, Ha has mellowed over the years. He admits it's hard to imagine just how domineering he was. But every member of the 1990-1998 national teams, from Chen Yi-an and Tung Ya-ling to Chu Mu-yan, Chen Shih-hsin, Huang Chih-hsiung, Hsu Chih-ling, and Su Li-wen, experienced it. His training regime was so severe that it even brought tears to the eyes of many male athletes.

Under Ha, Taiwan earned a reputation on a par with that of Korea at international competitions. In 1994, the then-16-year-old Chen Shih-hsin won her first world championship. In 1997, Huang Chih-hsiung won his first world championship. In 1998, Hsu Chih-ling won her first gold at the Asian Games. Ha coached them all.

These athletes were the main force in 2004's medal drive for Olympic gold. "Ha forged their international performances," says Chou Kuei-ming, a fellow student of Ha's from Huang's generation who now coaches at National Taiwan College of Physical Education. "Competitors are anxious when they face their first international competition. But if they do well they become much more confident and capable of realizing their full potential."

Prior to Ha's assumption of coaching duties, the Chinese Taipei team fared poorly in every encounter with the Koreans. After Ha took over, Korea finished second in their match ups for a period of nine years. As a result, the Koreans came to hate this "guest coach" with a burning passion. "Taekwondo emphasizes ferocity and Coach Ha made us feel we were a match for anyone going into competitions," says Su Li-wen. "Once we had that monkey off our backs, we began to do well."

Early on, Taiwanese athletes depended on Korean military coaches like No Hyo-yeong, Song Sang-geun, and Gim Gi-dong to compete internationally at the highest levels. These men laid the foundations for Taiwanese taekwondo with their work at the ROC Marine Corps School and the ROC Infantry School. The Koreans began providing guidance when five military trainers, including No, arrived in Taiwan in 1966. Though many more followed, Ha Yong-sung was by far the most influential in the development of Taiwanese taekwondo.

"It's not that our own coaches were bad," says Chou. "It's just that Ha was more hands-on. He was the most diligent and dedicated coach I've ever seen." Because the Korean coaches were brought in on one-year contracts, their continued employment de-pended entirely on results. That pressure forced them to pull out all the stops to maintain their pride and their jobs.

But Ha's character and methods offer a better explanation of why he walked the walk in Taiwan.

"As a coach, he practiced what he preached, always running, doing stamina training, demonstrating techniques, and sparring with his athletes," recalls Wei Cheng-hung, who finished second in the 1994 Asian championships. "He was a lightweight competitor himself, with both speed and power. After you'd sparred with him, your opponents felt weak."

In addition to emphasizing repeated practice, Ha imported many little tricks aimed at improving the generally less scientific approach to training prevalent in Taiwan. "When practicing, he used a whistle to give attack commands. Athletes were to strike when they heard the whistle. The whistle created more nervous stimulation and improved reaction times. Ha was the first to introduce this kind of training to Taiwan."

"When I first arrived, I really wasn't used to it," recalls Ha. "I originally intended to open a studio in the US with a friend after completing my one-year Chinese Taipei coaching contract. But my wife thought the US was so far from Korea that it would be difficult to go back to visit family, so I didn't go."

Once Ha became a naturalized ROC citizen, he brought his entire family to Taiwan. He now works as a trainer at National Taiwan College of Physical Education in Lin-kou, makes his home in the Tai-ping District of Tai-chung, and loves to go fishing on the Chang-hua coast when he's free. His two sons don't practice tae-kwondo, but were notable high-school baseball players.

Speaking about the future of tae-kwondo, Ha emphasizes that Taiwan and South Korea will continue to compete, but that in the future their biggest rival, aside from one another, will be mainland China. "Taiwan will have to work even harder to contend with South Korea and a rising China," he says.

"The incident at the Asian Games in Guang-zhou shouldn't be used as an excuse to denigrate the work of the Korean coaches who've come to Taiwan," says Yang Shu-chun, who is training again in preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Taiwan and Korea may have become the fiercest of rivals in the ring, but Ha continues to carry the torch of athletic amity outside it.