Mas­ter Jin Young Jung en­tered this world in Chon City, South Ko­rea, on Sep­tem­ber 19, 1946 and de­part­ed on Oc­to­ber 23, 2023 at the age of 77. He was a very ar­dent mar­tial arts prac­ti­tion­er, com­menc­ing his jour­ney in 1956 with Ju­do train­ing, fol­lowed by Taek­won­do in 1958 and am­a­teur wrestling and Hap­ki­do in 1959.

He con­tin­ued Taek­won­do and Hap­ki­do as his life­long pas­sions, for which we all know him. Mas­ter Jung led by ex­am­ple (Vet­eri­nar­i­an Seoul Mu­nic­i­pal Uni­ver­si­ty 1967-1974) and would al­ways in­still in us the im­por­tance of a sound ed­u­ca­tion, or as he would say: “stud­ies first.”

He served in his home coun­try (Ko­rea), where he at­tained the rank of sergeant in the army as the Mar­tial Arts In­struc­tor (South Di­vi­sion).

South Ko­rea’s mis­sion was to make Taek­won­do an Olympic sport. Imag­ine your teacher in­struct­ing you to go and spread the art form world­wide—this was our Mas­ter’s as­sign­ment.

At 29, on De­cem­ber 1, 1975, he land­ed on the shores of Trinidad and To­ba­go to teach and pro­mote Taek­won­do and Hap­ki­do, a stranger to every­one.

With very lit­tle knowl­edge of Eng­lish and obliv­i­ous to our peo­ple and cul­ture, Mas­ter Jin Young Jung pi­o­neered those mar­tial arts dis­ci­plines.

He ex­celled in any sport he un­der­took, lawn ten­nis, ta­ble ten­nis, snook­er, and golf.

He would re­call wak­ing up at 3 am to go to Ce­dros, Erin, and Or­ange Val­ley to pur­chase fish and shrimp from fish­er­men, al­ways stress­ing: “You have to work hard.”

In 1976, one year af­ter he ar­rived in T&T, Mas­ter Jung opened his first Taek­won­do school. And as the say­ing goes, “the rest is his­to­ry”.

His first gen­er­a­tion of black belts (Stok­ley Clarke, Cheryl-Ann Sankar, Car­lyle Bel­grave, Fran­cis Jim­mer­son, Ru­pert Har­ri­son, Collin Mof­ford, Bar­ry Aqui, An­tho­ny Dil­lon, Sher­land Flo­res, Nicholas Ve­lasquez, Nigel Gar­cia, Kei­th Fin­lay, Ger­ard Lit­tle, Li­nus Brown, Lo­re­al Lit­tle, Ger­ard Lit­tle, Michael Cheng, and Joan Moore) would at­test to train­ing in the parks around Wood­brook and Port-of-Spain and the garages of well-wish­ers.

He told his stu­dents: “En­joy the pain,” as they broke stone bricks and fought each oth­er. Sev­er­al of his black belts medalled in vir­tu­al­ly all com­pe­ti­tions they fought in, such as the Pan Amer­i­can Taek­won­do Cham­pi­onships, World Taek­won­do Cham­pi­onships, Pan Amer­i­can Games, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) games and Caribbean Taek­won­do Cham­pi­onships. Two of the crown­ing achieve­ments in his Taek­won­do lega­cy are qual­i­fy­ing for the Olympic Games in 2000 and 2004.

In 2000, Cheryl-Ann Sankar won her first fight, and though she tied 5-5 dur­ing the sec­ond round (medal round), the win was award­ed to the Philip­pines by su­pe­ri­or­i­ty.

In 2004, Chine­dum Os­u­ji qual­i­fied for the Olympics Wel­ter Weight Di­vi­sion in the Mex­i­co Olympic Games.

How­ev­er, at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, he was de­feat­ed in the first elim­i­na­tion round.

To put this in per­spec­tive, on­ly two ath­letes, one male and one fe­male, ever qual­i­fied in each di­vi­sion (4) for the Olympics from the en­tire re­gion (Cana­da, Amer­i­ca, Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca, and the Caribbean). Those stu­dents came from Mas­ter Jung’s Taek­won­do School.

Earn­ing a belt, es­pe­cial­ly a black belt from Jung’s Taek­won­do School, was a wor­thy ac­com­plish­ment and no easy feat.

He would say that he was fool­ish to on­ly have about 40 black belts, which is why he was poor. How­ev­er, over 5,000 stu­dents earned coloured belts from the Mas­ter.

Achiev­ing a yel­low belt re­quires a stu­dent to know all 15 steps and be able to count in Ko­re­an. He in­sist­ed that all trainees must know all the kicks and ex­e­cute with both feet with pow­er, speed, and ac­cu­ra­cy, and par­ents had the fi­nal say on whether the stu­dent got the belt or not.

He would al­ways ask the par­ents, “Mom­my, dad­dy, you here? He gives trou­ble, you tell, he does home­work, he cuss, he no eat food, he looks for girl­friend/ boyfriend?”

If all the an­swers were pos­i­tive, on­ly then would the stu­dent ob­tain the next belt. He would tell his stu­dents that be­ing pret­ty or hand­some would not earn them a belt.

We were priv­i­leged to have got­ten the chance to learn Hap­ki­do and Taek­won­do di­rect­ly from Grand Mas­ter, from the source (Ko­rea). His watch­words were, ho­n­our your par­ents, be hon­est, hum­ble, and truth­ful, and no sweat, no re­wards.

Though a Ko­re­an by birth, Mas­ter Jung was a “Tri­ni to the bone” and loved cur­ry, pep­per, roti, bar­beque, pelau, and the oc­ca­sion­al beer.

“Tri­nis have re­al tal­ent; they are ag­ile, strong, fast, and very good-look­ing,” he would say.

He tru­ly loved all of us and quick­ly for­gave us for any trans­gres­sions.

There is an empti­ness in Trinidad, Taek­won­do, and all of us.

We black belts will en­deav­our to keep your great her­itage alive; we salute a Leg­end, an Icon, and the Grand Mas­ter of Mas­ters: Mas­ter Jin Young Jung.

RIP Mas­ter.