Our Lineage and History
Triad Martial Arts' ministry was formally launched in 2004.  But the seeds of that launch go back to Korea in the 1950s and the original military applications of what is now called Tae Kwon Do.  Stanley Drayton was an African-American born in 1931.  He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1948, won some boxing tournaments early in his Army career, and eventually was stationed at Incheon during the Korean War.  Here he began studying Chang Hon Taekwondo.  After years of study, Stanley Drayton earned his black belt while stationed in Vietnam. Chang Hon Taekwondo had spread to Vietnam through the White Horse and Tiger Divisions of the Republic of Korea Army.  These divisions proved Chang Hon's effectiveness in real life, hand-to-hand combat.  The Tiger Division was especially famous.  In his final years in the military Stanley Drayton was stationed in the Washington, D.C. area. He taught Taekwondo in a small school in Arlington, where a teenager named Bill Eury first began studying martial arts.  So, from the beginning Bill was exposed to Chang Hon Taekwondo in its original, militaristic form.  It was this same real-life application that Bill always taught.
 
Bill Eury taught many people who eventually became black belts.  One of his black belts was named Jim Schwarm.  Jim wanted to use what he was given to serve his community and launched a "Karate for Christ" class in his local church, which is Grace Bible Church at 9920 Lanham Severn Road in Seabrook, Maryland.

In 2010, Jim turned that class over to  Conrad Smith.  Conrad developed the current name for the school (Triad Martial Arts) based on historical teachings reaching back to the Shaolin Temple and key virtues of life emphasized throughout the Christian Church and dating back to Aristotle.  In 2012 Triad Martial Arts joined the International Kong Soo Do Association.  In 2017, Conrad became a certified coach SPEAR System Personal Defense Readiness coach.