Jhoon Rhee International`s Web Site

photo: Muhammad Ali spars with Jhoon Rhee.

Taekwondo Instructor Says He's Got a New Mission: Happiness

By Abhi Raghunathan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 8, 2002; Page VA10

It's a drowsy summer morning, the kind when even the sun has trouble getting up and stretching across the sky. The streets are empty, the houses dark, the residents asleep.

In the basement of his stately McLean home, 70-year-old Jhoon Rhee begins his workout as he has done every day for years, among pictures of some of his heroes: George Washington, his Korean ancestors, an ancient Korean king. Midway through an hour of aerobic exercises, he drops into a split that would make a gymnast envious, bends forward until his face touches the floor, looks up, and smiles.

"I couldn't do this 15 years ago," Rhee said.

Rhee's daily workout doesn't end there. He does at least 1,000 push-ups and a few hundred sit-ups every day. He even does push-ups during long overnight plane trips -- when the flight crew allows. He hasn't missed a day of working out in more than 17 years.

"Who else can say they've been working out like me?" Rhee asked.

Rhee, widely recognized for introducing and popularizing taekwondo in America, came to the United States from Korea in the 1950s with just $46 to his name. Today, taekwondo schools bearing his name, including one in Alexandria, are scattered across the Washington region.

With his wiry 5-foot-6-inch frame and taut 135 pounds, Rhee still resembles the young face from the TV commercials ("Nobody bothers me!") that made him a household name around the region.

Today, his nine schools are all run by instructors, with Rhee dropping in now and then for inspections or ceremonies. He has dropped work so he can devote his time to working out, expanding his schools and preparing for the numerous motivational speeches he gives.

His martial arts program and philosophy of discipline, respect and personal responsibility were developed into a curriculum that was adopted by several District elementary schools. Rhee is also a legend on Capitol Hill, where he has trained more than 270 members of Congress in taekwondo. In 2000, he was named one of the 200 most famous immigrants of all time by the National Immigration Forum, in conjunction with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

And he's not finished yet. Part of the reason for his daily, grinding physical regimen is to prepare for his ambitious plans. He wants to open dozens more schools in the Washington area, as well as many more throughout the country and abroad.

"I want to be happy," Rhee said. "I still have a lot to do."

A Life of Discipline

Those looking for clues to Rhee's vigor and health need look only at his lifestyle. His diet is just as disciplined as his exercise regime. He drinks juices and Korean tea and eats at least five bananas a day as well as grapes, peaches and other fruit. During meals, he piles heaps of vegetables on his plate and when he does eat other things, he prefers fish and chicken. He eats beef on rare occasions, usually the "finely cooked" kind found at fancy restaurants. He doesn't smoke or drink.

This last bit of self-control is sometimes a problem for Rhee. He is so well known that when he dines out with his wife -- especially at Korean and Chinese restaurants -- strangers often insist on buying him a laudatory glass of wine. Rhee declines. If they insist, he asks for a soft drink instead.

He looks much like he did 20 years ago, except he says he is now in far better shape. Ask him to prove it and he will balance a glass of water on his head and scissor one leg straight up into the air.

"Cover my face and look at my body and you'll think I'm 21," he said. "Look at my face and you'll think I'm 50."

Growing Recognition

On a recent misty morning, Rhee visited the Korean War Memorial to give a speech and a demonstration for veterans and their families.

"I believe that America is the great hope for the world," he told the group, speaking in the same hard staccato that characterizes his punches. "It saddens me when I hear people say things like 'Yankee, go home!' "

He then led some of students in a demonstration of what he calls "martial arts ballet," in which they performed moves to songs such as "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America."

As he got into an instructor's car to leave the event, a man Rhee had never seen before pulled up next to him and asked, "Are you leaving now, Master Rhee?"

"Yes," Rhee replied, smiling.

"Such things make me very happy," Rhee said on the drive to his home. "I've never seen that guy before and he recognized me. It shows my commercial is working."

Rhee's now-famous commercial first aired in the 1960s and launched his fame. Before then, he had a black belt and was respected within his community. As his recognition grew, so did his circle of famous friends. His close friends included martial arts legend Bruce Lee. The two met at a national karate demonstration when Lee approached Rhee and told him that he admired his kicks. Rhee told Lee that he admired his punches. The two became friends

"Bruce Lee taught me how to punch, and I taught him how to kick," he said.

Commercial Appeal

As a young boy in Korea, Rhee was the runt of his class. One day when he was 6, a 5-year-old girl named Soonduck slapped him. He went home crying to his mother. She slapped him even harder and told him to stick up for himself. So began Rhee's interest in taekwondo.

It took him four years to earn a black belt, As a teenager, he got into a fight with the class bully. Rhee punched him in the eye and kicked him the throat. Nobody bothered him after that.

As a teenager, American films and their blond starlets nurtured Rhee's love for the United States. He dreamed of coming to America and marrying a pretty blonde like the ones he saw on the silver screen. He instead found love with a raven-haired Korean woman, Han Soon. They had four children.

Rhee first came to the United States in 1956 while in the Korean Army to train in aircraft maintenance and returned a year later to study engineering in Texas.

He moved to the Washington area in 1962 and opened his first school in the District. Taekwondo was still young in the United States, and students were hard to come by. Money was scarce.

The commercial changed everything.

In the well-known spots, the camera focuses first on his young daughter, Meme, and then his son, Chun. "Nobody bothers me!" Meme exclaims. "Nobody bothers me, either!" Chun says and winks, a cheesy bit of advertising that became part of local lexicon.

"The commercial did it," Rhee said. "We got 100 calls a day after it came out."

(Today, Chun Rhee, now 35, runs a Jhoon Rhee school in Falls Church.)

"People still come up to me and ask about that," Chun Rhee said. "A lot of the parents who bring their kids in still remember and talk about that commercial."

The commercial cost Rhee a few hundred dollars; a student who worked as a cameraman for a local news station filmed it. "It just came to me," Rhee said. "What could be easier than 'Nobody bothers me?' "

There have been many martial arts champions in the past 30 years, and a number of them have been talented fighters and instructors. But perhaps no one has been as adept as Rhee in combining an art of the eastern world, taekwondo, with an art of the western world, marketing and self-promotion.

Rhee went on just about every television show that would take him to give demonstrations. He showed off his skills at Rotarian and Kiwanis club meetings. He gave his employees exacting instructions on how to handle customers.

"I told them you have to handle someone who calls gently -- like an egg," he said.

His students grew to include not only members of Congress, but also celebrities such as motivational speaker Tony Robbins and boxing legend Muhammad Ali, whom Rhee gave boxing tips to and accompanied to Korea. Among his black belt students are Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) and U.S. Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.).

Rhee soon began experimenting with taekwondo, choreographing routines to classical music and encouraging the use of protective gear. The moves drew grumbles from traditionalists. They called him "Jhoon Rhee, the martial arts prostitute" for decades, Rhee said. "Now they've finally started to come around."

But as Rhee's success grew, so did the stress. He decided he wanted out of the day-to-day business.

"I was a slave to my business," he said.

On the Hunt for Happiness

Rhee's emancipation came about the same time the Cold War began to thaw. He opened schools in the former Soviet Union and traveled there frequently to make speeches. He soon realized that he was tired of managing everything and let his instructors take over individual schools.

"There's nothing really more than happiness I'm looking for," he said.

Since then, he has spent his time working out and making personal appearances and giving speeches.

He still teaches legislators as well as those who come to his house for his early morning workouts -- at 6:30 a.m. His wife, Theresa, 56, often takes part, and sometimes a celebrity or politician will drop by. (Han Soon died of cancer in 1996.)

This asceticism, Rhee said, allows him to believe that his life is just beginning, that the twilight of his existence is still decades away. That is a good thing, he said. "I still have a lot to get done."

Among them is a desire to open up more Jhoon Rhee schools across the Washington area and the country. He is also making an hour-long exercise tape based on his workouts to sale as "RheeSHAPE."

In September, he will speak at the annual AARP convention.

As for his expansion, he has no firm plans or financing yet, but he isn't particularly worried.

"I know the money will come," he said.

It is his hope that the world will some day be as happy as he is, he said. He has even worked out a formula that shows it is not only possible, but a certainty. He calls his philosophy "Happyism" and frequently describes it during his speaking engagements.

One of its prime tenets goes this way: "The purpose of life is to be happy."

"Who doesn't want to be happy?" he asked.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company