Kwan Jang Michael Dunchok has been practicing martial arts for 35 years, having started at the age of 11 in 1989. From an even younger age, Master Dunchok was interested in learning in all its forms, and had an insatiable appetite to understand the world. His involvement in martial arts grew out of that fascination, as has his approach to teaching it.

Grandmaster Dunchok is currently enrolled at the University of Oxford in England, where he is pursuing a short master's degree in Late Antiquity. Simultaneously, he is pursuing ordination as a Zen monk under the Korean Buddhist martial arts lineage that his teacher, Huh Mon Gil, taught Kuk Sool to in the 1960s.

Master Dunchok holds 7th degree black belt certifications in the Kuk Sool Kwan of Hapkido as well as from the Korea Hapkido Federation, and has trained and graduated black belt students. He is licensed in California (LAc) and nationally (DiplOM) as an acupuncturist and herbalist, a longstanding requirement for Grandmastery of Kuk Sool Kwan, having graduated from Southern California University of Health Sciences summa cum laude as the valedictorian in April 2015. He is also licensed as a Certified Personal Trainer from the National Federation of Professional Trainers.

In fact, Master Dunchok is a scholar with multiple attainments. In addition to his graduate degree in Oriental Medicine and his upcoming Oxford degree, he has three other bachelor's degrees. The first two are in Classics and Religious Studies from UCI, both summa cum laude with the distinction of the UCI Humanities Award for Religious Studies. Before that, he attended Humboldt State University, where he majored in Theater Arts with a minor in Vocal Music. Master Dunchok trains operatic voice as a tenor, is a portrait artist, and a student of Chinese, Ancient Greek and Latin. He has also studied wushu and currently studies taijiquan. He has since been involved with acting on stage plays and musicals as well as doing martial arts stuntwork and fight scenes on film, television and as an influencer on social media.

When Master Dunchok was young in the early 1980s, martial arts seemed to be represented in popular culture as the one thing that offered legitimate hidden knowledge, and at the same time seemed to be about the individual quest for self-perfection. After looking around at all the martial arts schools in the area with his father, he found his teacher Grandmaster Huh's school, and was impressed immediately. Grandmaster Huh's studio lacked the fancy trappings of the other dojos in the area, but Master Dunchok and his father both agreed that Master Huh's presence was overwhelming. He began practicing for several hours everyday, and would sometimes go to the studio directly after school. After a performance at his blue belt test which impressed Grandmaster Huh's visiting colleagues, Master Dunchok was instructed personally by Grandmaster Huh with private training to receive his first degree black belt. Master Dunchok was very active with Master Huh's studio throughout his high school years as well, continuing the same habits of hard practice with which he began his martial arts training.

He opened the Kuk Sool Kwan dojang in Orange County out of a desire to preserve the unique martial heritage of Kuk Sool Kwan and to afford himself the lifestyle and practice time to take his martial arts skill to the grandmaster level and beyond, a level he reached quite recently with the attainment of the 7th dan in 2021.

Jo Kyo Nym Gabriel Ruan was born on August 29, 1995 in Orange County California. Throughout his childhood years he loved watching martial arts movies with his father and trying to reenact the fight scenes. For years he watched Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee movies along with cartoons like Shaolin Showdown and Avatar: The Last Airbender which were heavily influenced by the martial arts. Seeing characters in these films that portrayed such martial skill as well as the uniqueness and mystique that he was drawn to at the time sparked a desire for Gabriel to find a martial arts school.

In the summer of 2006 Gabriel was enrolled in the Kuk Sool Kwan Dojang school at age 11. He fell in love with Kuk Sool and trained there consistently for many years. He loved every aspect of Kuk Sool from the impressive powerful kicks and weapons to the philosophy and mysticism taught in the art. In 2011 Gabriel ventured out of his comfort zone and explored other art forms like boxing, kickboxing, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at the martial arts gym in Costa Mesa South Coast Martial Arts. There he learned boxing and kickboxing from coach Thourn Heng and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu from coach Borna Baktiari. He was able to add the skills he learned from these teachers to his overall arsenal of martial technique as well as his coaching.

In 2012 Gabriel started teaching a group of friends from his high school every Friday at South Coast Martial Arts. This eventually lead to him creating his own team that he taught. He continues to train these young men today in martial arts passing on the knowledge he learned from his teachers. In summer 2014 Gabriel returned to the Kuk Sool Kwan Dojang to start his training as a black belt candidate. He trained intensely for close to a year with longtime friend and training partner Daniel Bukaty and on April 24th, 2015 received his 1st degree black belt. Gabe is still training at the Kuk Sool Dojang and plans on getting his 2nd degree black belt. He is also training with the EMC Monkey stunt team in Santa Fe springs with plans of eventually becoming a stuntman.

Gabriel is currently employed as a kickboxing coach and class instructor at Team Oyama MMA in Irvine, where he teaches the Kyeok Too Ki kickboxing he learned as a black belt in Kuk Sool Kwan. He continues to work in the martial arts film industry and has appeared as an actor, stuntman and stunt choreographer for such projects as "Hanuman Shadow Master", "Dark Feathers" and "Serpentine."

In addition to being a Kuk Sool Kwan Black Belt Candidate, Don Nguyen is a Tae Kwon Do Black Belt with over 10 years of experience. He competed at the collegiate level in both sparring and forms. Post graduation, he discovered Kuk Sool Kwan and has been with the dojang ever since. Appreciating the holistic curriculum of the art has kept him motivated to continue his studies and training, with a special affinity for forms.

His experience at being a manager at work in the business field, coupled with being a former piano teacher for children provides unique skills in teaching, coaching, and development. He enjoys seeing others progress and meet their goals through dedication and discipline.

Eric Seavey has been practicing martial arts for over two decades, initially focusing on internal martial arts. He further solidified his commitment to martial arts during his training in Kuk Sool Kwan for the last eight years, where he expanded his skill set to a more broad and advanced level.

Outside of martial arts, Eric has a diverse range of interests. He has been actively engaged in both swing and blues dancing for over two decades. He has also been dedicated to photography for 25 years, capturing a wide range of subjects. Musically, he is proficient in playing the guitar, bass guitar, and chromatic harmonica, and has been a lead singer in a band.

His adventurous spirit is evident in his love for sailing as a certified sailor. Eric's curiosity about the cosmos has driven him to delve into astronomy over the past decade, exploring the vast expanse of the universe. On a professional front, he's a respected acoustical consultant, earning recognition at a national level. His commitment to personal development and mentoring is further highlighted by his certification as an NLP Master Practitioner Coach. Overall, Eric Seavey's life is characterized by a profound dedication to martial arts, complemented by a wide array of interests and expertise.

Harold Tan began his martial arts journey around the age of eight. Over the years, he has achieved a black belt in Northern Shaolin Praying Mantis Kung Fu and has earned rankings in Tai Chi, Ba Gua, Kempo, and Capoeira. For the past four years, he studied Kuk Sool Kwan under the instruction of Master Mike Dunchok.

For Harold, martial arts is more than just a physical pursuit; it's a path to self-discovery and self-mastery and a way to connect deeply with his mind and body. He has found martial arts to be an anchor in his life and plans for its studies to be a life long pursuit.

Beyond studying in the dojo, Harold holds a Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Science and Mathematics with a specialization in computing from UCLA. He further expanded his academic horizon with graduate studies at the UCLA Anderson School of Business and information systems at Harvard University.

Professionally, Harold works to drive innovation and sustainability as a partner at GoGreenSolar.com, supporting the transition to renewable energy solutions for homes. In addition, he educates on Bitcoin and its disruptive potential. Recognized for his business and technology expertise, Harold teaches at Santiago Canyon College and is a guest lecturer at UCI's Merage School of Business and the Beall Center for Applied Innovation. His thoughts and ideas have been featured on the TEDx stage.

When he's not training, working, or teaching, Harold's passions take him around the globe. He's explored over 40 countries, immersing himself in diverse cultures and experiences. A biohacker at heart, he constantly experiments to optimize his wellbeing and has sat several 10 day silent meditation retreats to explore the nature of consciousness. He dives deep into philosophy and technology, plays guitar and piano, and is a regular attendee of the transformative Burning Man event.

Master Ho formally named "Wuji Qigong Taijiquan" in 2003, after years of researching original taijiquan philosophy. He divides his time between teaching in Irvine, Taiwan, and Shanghai.

Exceptional in physical size and strength, Master Ho showed athletic ability at an early age. As a teenager in Shanghai, while studying both Northern and Southern styles of gongfu, he felt something was missing from external gongfu (Gongfu literally means "to spend time developing power."). Like those who pursue external gongfu, Master Ho had developed muscle and force rather than balance and speed. He recognized that the elements of balance and speed were missing, and were a very important part of gongfu.

Master Ho's search for a gongfu with structure and theory rather than rigid form and physical strength led him to study with a well-known teacher of Wu Style: Pei Tsu Ying.

Though Pei Tsu Ying had originally studied with Wu Chen Chuan, he didn't advertise his lineage. Pei Tsu Ying's fame was spread through word of mouth. Ying was described by his close friend, Ma Yuan Ling, son-in-law of first-generation Wu Chen Chuan, as having high level Tai Chi and as being a good person.