Mile High Karate descends from Grand Master Jhoon Rhee, the “Father of American Tae Kwon Do,” who began teaching in the United States in 1956. Stephen Oliver trained from 1969 under Jhoon Rhee Institute Black Belts in Tulsa, earned his Black Belt from Jhoon Rhee in 1978, and founded Mile High Karate in 1983; Jhoon Rhee’s champion Jeff Smith is Mile High Karate’s Chief of Instruction.

The line of instruction

  1. Won Kook Lee — taught the Chung Do Kwan system in Seoul, Korea; Jhoon Rhee’s original teacher.
  2. Grand Master Jhoon Rhee — began teaching in Texas in 1956, the first Korean instructor to teach Korean martial arts professionally in the United States; moved to Washington, DC in 1962 to found the Jhoon Rhee Institute of Tae Kwon Do.
  3. The Texas and Oklahoma line — Jhoon Rhee’s first two Black Belts, Allen Steen and Pat Burleson, and the schools descended from them, which produced Pat Worley, Jeff Smith, Larry Carnahan, Gran Moulder and Bob Olinghouse.
  4. Bob Olinghouse and Gran Moulder — Jhoon Rhee Institute Black Belts who became Stephen Oliver’s instructors in Tulsa in 1969.
  5. Grand Master Stephen Oliver — Black Belt from Jhoon Rhee in 1978; ranks through 6th Degree from Jhoon Rhee; founded Mile High Karate in 1983; 10th Degree, April 2026.
  6. Mile High Karate — more than 1,000 Black Belts, ages 5 to 76.

Grand Master Jeff Smith — Jhoon Rhee Black Belt, PKA World Light-Heavyweight Champion, and Stephen Oliver’s training partner at Jhoon Rhee headquarters in 1976 and 1978 — later promoted Oliver from 7th to 10th Degree and serves as Mile High Karate’s Chief of Instruction.

How the style evolved

Jhoon Rhee first called his art Tang Soo Do and karate. After 1957, when the South Korean government adopted the name Tae Kwon Do for Korean styles, he and others in the United States took up that term. Through his friendship with Bruce Lee from the mid-1960s and the many sport and full-contact champions trained at the Jhoon Rhee Institute, the style moved toward what Mile High Karate calls American Freestyle.

Jhoon Rhee built his curriculum on three elements: practical self-defense without impractical tradition; personal development through self-esteem, goal setting and discipline; and artistic content through musical forms. In the early 1970s he developed padded sparring equipment that made realistic practice safe and helped create both point and full-contact competition.

Mile High Karate kept that foundation and restored the traditional forms (Chon-Ji through Choong-Moo below Black Belt) that Jhoon Rhee’s own schools had gradually dropped, while adding a structured character curriculum built on the nine qualities of a Black Belt and goal setting. At advanced levels the curriculum adds Filipino weaponry, traditional Okinawan weapons, boxing and kickboxing basics, and grappling from jujitsu and judo.

Related