Historic

Master Nguyen Loc founded the Martial Arts Discipline of Vovinam-Viet Vo Dao in 1938.
He grew up in Son-Tay Province at the period in which Vietnam was still under the French colonial rule.
At that time, young men either were seduced by the French into the lusty lives or joined the revolutionary war against the French.
Master Nguyen Loc believed that the only way to free Vietnam from the colonial rule was to train the Vietnamese young men to have a strong, invincible will for liberty and independence. This willpower must be produced by a strong body and a rational mind. Carrying on that belief, he researched and practiced many Vietnamese traditional martial arts as well as many foreign martial arts. After his research, he founded a new discipline of martial arts, which he named “VOVINAM”, understood as the “MARTIAL ARTS OF VIETNAM.” Since 1964, the new title “VIET VO DAO” (“THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIETNAMESE MARTIAL ARTS”) was added to become “VOVINAM-VIET VO DAO.” In 1960, before passing away, Founder promoted his most senior student, Master Le Sang, to become the Grand Master. Since then, under the leadership of Grand Master Le Sang, Vovinam-Viet Vo Dao becomes international martial arts with more than one million practitioners around the world.