The meaning behind the school symbol: self defense, history, balance, knowledge, power, and harmony.
The logo represents our direction, which is to teach the original techniques and applications as they may have been in the past, or at least as close as we can since much of this information is lost.
Emphasis in this school has been and always will be self defense. It is my belief that if you focus only on sport applications, that it will not translate well on the street because you cannot incorporate something that you do not know. However, if you focus on street applications, you can tone it down in the sparring ring.
The logo is rich with symbolism. Both Chinese and Korean writings are used to represent the link between the past and the present. Koreans used to write in Chinese, which has been referred to as the ancient or old writing method.
The symbols in the outer circle are current Korean characters representing the five elements. The symbol at the top of the logo represents fire and, going clockwise, the next symbol is earth, then metal, then water, and finally wood.
These five elements illustrate something referred to as the creative and destructive cycles. The two Chinese characters in the yin/yang represent THE WAY, which is to use your knowledge and power to create harmony in everything that you do.
The top character in black is knowledge, the bottom white character is power, and harmony is represented by the yin yang. You could study the philosophies behind the various elements of the logo for a very long time and never come to a conclusion.