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| Kata competition at the 2025 Central – Central Highlands Nghia Dung Karate-Do Clubs Championship |
The 1st Central–Central Highlands Nghia Dung Karate-Do Clubs Championship 2025 was among the twelve activities of the “Hue Sports Festival 2025” – a sports event for community health.
Making its debut at the Hue Sports Festival, the tournament brought together nearly 1,000 martial arts students from 86 clubs across the country. This striking figure is partly a testament to the steady growth of Nghia Dung Karate-Do over time.
The Nghia Dung Karate-Do school was founded in 1978 by Master Nguyen Van Dung, with its original dojo located on Truong Dinh Street in Hue City. It is currently led by Head Master Nguyen Dung Chinh.
With more than 50 branches across Vietnam and over 10 overseas, Nghia Dung Karate-Do now counts tens of thousands of practitioners. In addition to the Central–Highlands Clubs Championship, which operates under its own competition system, the school also organizes annual tournaments at the provincial and city levels, as well as regional events in both northern and southern Vietnam. Every four years, it holds the International Nghia Dung Karate-Do Championship — most recently the 4th edition in Hue in 2023.
According to Master Nguyen Dung Chinh, the core principle of Nghia Dung Karate-Do is to preserve tradition while embracing the essence of modern international Karate. While the school's training program includes competitive elements, its purpose is not to chase medals, but to foster exchange, learning, self-assessment, and the discovery of Karate talent for national sports.
Beyond contributing talent and achievements to Vietnamese Karate across various arenas, Nghia Dung Karate-Do is also renowned as a place where moral cultivation, self-discipline, and character development are held paramount. “At Nghia Dung Karate-Do, alongside martial arts training, we are taught to live by what is right — not merely through words or textbook quotes, but through the very actions and moral character of our instructors,” shared Nguyen Tat Thang, a practitioner at Nghia Dung Karate-Do.
Earlier this July, over 260 Nghia Dung Karate-Do practitioners in Hue, in preparation for their black belt promotion, embarked on a three-day, two-night trek up Bach Ma Mountain — covering nearly 50 kilometers of forest trails with 10–15 kg backpacks.
After enduring a challenge that even Master Nguyen Dung Chinh once remarked, “Three years of martial arts training cannot compare to three days on Bach Ma Mountain,” the practitioners were required to write a reflective essay on their three years of Karate-Do training, their accomplishments, and their impressions of the journey — as a means of self-reflection.
Only after completing their reflective essays were the practitioners allowed to participate in the black belt promotion ceremony — marking a new chapter in their journey of self-improvement. “This is a long-standing tradition of Nghia Dung Karate-Do. Beyond cultivating a love for nature, the trek is designed to test one’s resolve, and serves as a lesson in perseverance, discipline, and moral conduct — the foundations of the martial art that we have upheld for decades,” said Master Nguyen Dung Chinh.
Not only unwavering in their pursuit of core values — physical and mental discipline, moral integrity, patriotism, filial piety, loyalty to teachers and friends, and compassion for others — Nghia Dung Karate-Do practitioners also embark on journeys into nature, engage in outreach to the poor, and participate in various community activities.
Aside from forming “task forces” to assist communities during natural disasters, Nghia Dung Karate-Do clubs regularly encourage their members to donate rice and warm clothing to the poor. They also join hands in building schools and bridges, donating bookshelves and scholarships to schools in remote and mountainous areas, and taking part in tree planting, trash collection, and park and street cleanups.
These contributions are of educational significance, awakening compassion, empathy, a spirit of sharing, and a sense of responsibility toward the community in each practitioner. They also embody the unique identity of Nghia Dung Karate-Do.