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Ko-Dang was the eighteenth hyung of the Chang-Hon School of Taekwondo. The original Chang-hon pattern set had 20 patterns, but General Choi Hong Hi  of the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) dropped Ko-Dang and added Eui-Am, Moon-Moo, Ju-Che, So-San, and Yon-Gae. Some organizations, such as Taekwondo America, still use Ko-Dang.

Ko-Dang is the pseudonym of the patriot Cho Man-Sik who dedicated his life to the independence movement and education of Korea.

Cho Man-sik (1 February 1883 – October? 1950) was an activist in Korea's independence movement. He became involved in the power struggle that enveloped Korea in the months following the Japanese surrender after World War II, but was eventually forced from power by the Soviet-backed communists in the north. Placed under house arrest in 1946, he later disappeared into the North Korean prison system, where he is generally believed to have been executed.

Cho was born in Kangsŏ-gun, South P'yŏngan Province, now in North Korea. In his youth he was an activist within Korea's Christian community, but after Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910, he became increasingly involved with his country's independence movement. His participation in the 1919 Sam-Il protest marches led to his arrest and detention, along with tens of thousands of other Koreans. After his release, he dedicated himself to non-violent resistance to the occupation, a stance which earned him the epithet "The Gandhi of Korea." He advocated a principle of self-sufficiency for the nation, and formed the Korean Products Promotion Society, intended to encourage Koreans to buy home-produced goods and so instill a sense of nationalism.

In August 1945, with Japanese surrender imminent, Cho was approached by the Japanese governor of Pyongyang and asked to organize a committee to maintain stability in the power vacuum that would inevitably follow. He agreed to co-operate and formed governing councils throughout the north, which were generally composed of right-wing nationalists opposed to communism. The Soviet Union arrived in Pyongyang in the days following the Japanese surrender, bringing with them the Korean communist Kim Il-sung, who had trained in the Soviet army for ten years, rising to the rank of captain. Under Soviet pressure, Cho was obliged to reorganize his party, and accept more communists onto the councils.

The opposing ideologies of Kim and Cho led to a clash between the two men, and the forced power sharing failed to sit well with either of them. The 1945 Moscow Conference between the victorious Allied powers discussed the statehood of Korea, proposing a four-power trusteeship for a period of five years, after which Korea would become an independent state. For Cho, this would result in excessive foreign, and particularly communist, influence over his country, and he refused to cooperate.

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