Hello everyone, this is 3gyupsal aka Jim Kruska from Funtimes in South East Korea. As many of you my know, I teach middle school English at a school in Gyeongsangnamdo Korea. I first came to Korea to practice martial arts, and I came back to teach English and further practice martial arts. In America I earned up to a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo and have some extensive training in Hapkido. After I arrived in Korea I took up Kumdo/Kendo.
The purpose of this blog is to reflect upon Taekwondo/Kumdo training and strategy from an introspective point of view. Some posts will focus on training aspects, some on sparring strategy, and some will be ideas on how athletes can find valuable training ideas when they don't feel that they are being challenged enough. All of the posts on this blog are simply my opinions on matters and may or may not be of any help to anyone. Mostly it is an avenue to get my ideas out there and for me to explore some things that I have been thinking about on my bus rides to and from work. The inspiration for me to keep a blog like this comes from a youtube video that I watched one time about the Japanese Kendo 8th degree black belt test.
Kumdo/Kendo is an extremely mental martial art. There are really only about eight techniques in the whole martial art. (Sword skills that is, there are many different names for things that people can do with their feet and the direction that they are going, and the situation in which an attack or defense may occur, but there aren't really too many different things that you actually do with the sword) For this reason the Kumdo/Kendo practitioner focuses on improving each of the individual skills and uses the various duels that they participate in as ways of reading opponents and trying to determine an opponents intentions before they attack or defend. For this reason Kumdo/Kendo practitioners try to improve their thinking skills as well as their physical skills. In the National Geographic video that I mentioned before, I remember one of the test applicants talking about how he not only trains Kendo, but also keeps a journal about finding the right state of mind that one should have when practicing Kendo. That is that the practitioner should be emotionally detached from the outcome of the battle, but have enough invested so as to make the best decisions when in combat.
This blog aims to explore states of mind and training techniques to help not only myself but others grow as martial artists. Any comments are certainly welcome, and if this blog attracts any readers who can comment and share their own experiences or make any noodle baking comments that can alter epistomologies then that would be great.
I ended up in my Gumdo class sort of by accident. I was working in Masan, taking Taekwondo and still had time on my hands. I asked the receptionist at my school if she could look into gumdo schools nearby and she listed four and recommended one because it was closest.
ReplyDeleteIn this way, I took up Hae Dong Gum Do, and I did fairly well at it. I actually wanted gum do to help improve my reflex speed and coordination as I am terribly slow and uncoordinated. I don't know if my speed did improve as there were no duels in HDGD.
My balance definitely improved from controlling my position during all those spins, but HDGD is more like dancing than fighting- it uses hardwood, dull metal and sharp steel swords and there is no combat. Well, that was 12 years ago - things are likely to have changed.
I will come back(to the blog) and see how you're doing.
Hey Gangwondobrian, thanks for the comment. I am interested in doing Haedong Gumdo as well, but there is a time and money factor. (I have niether) Back in the states, my TKD school hosted some guy to come and teach a Haedong Gumdo class for one session. It was pretty intersting. But you are right I do the Gumdo/Kendo one. This is called Daehan Gumdo in Korean. Besides one Korean form (Kata) in Daehan Gumdo, it is pretty much the same as Japanses Kendo. In Haedong Gumdo they do some pretty cool demonstrations with real swords and paper cutting. I'd like to play with a real sword sometime.
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