Kumdo Test Day

Today I took my first Kumdo test to hopefully move from white belt to yellow belt. I was the last person to get there and everyone was looking at me. I took my place at the front, kneeling along with the other 40 or so students who seemed to range in ages from 5 to 12 years old. The students were more interested in me than in the testing. I had students petting my arm hair, comparing the size of my hands to theirs and asking me questions such as, "What's your name?", "Do you like apples?" and "What is your favourite fruit?" I'm not sure why but fruit seemed to be the topic of the day.

The testing started and I began to relax a little. The kumdo master would shout out commands (in Korean) and 6 students at once would have to obey his command. The children were pretty wobbly with their wooden swords and often missed a command but then they were all white belts so I knew I couldn't feel too confident about my ability.

I was called up along with the third set of students to be tested. I was nervous and made a couple of mistakes but felt ok. When we were finished, the master would ask each student to either introduce himself, sing a song, or recall a memorized poem or chant. When it was my turn, the master told everyone that my Korean was not good so I didn't have to do it...but then there was such a ruckus! All the students wanted to hear me say something or sing a song but the master stood his ground and from what I understand he said, "Next time." When I took my seat again next to the masses of little kids, one of the boys said, "Wow...you good job!" so I felt pretty good. I won't know until next week if I advanced to the next level or not as the three judges have to work out the scores for all the students first.

After the students all tested, then 2 students with black belts were called up and put on helmets and were armed with sponge-covered plastic swords. They fought against each other with full force blows and it was interesting to see how our practicing would work in a real sword fight. I was very interested in this part of the event, however the students sitting around me kept asking me more questions, "Do you like chicken?", "Where are you from?", "My name is Kim Do-Hyun, pleased to meet you."

After the sparring, one of the judges stood up and set up bundles of straw (about 4 feet high)upright around the room. He put a real sword into his belt and bowed. He then proceeded to cut each bundle of straw several times, moving from one bundle to the next. He dispatched 5 straw warriors in about 10 seconds which was pretty impressive. My master then did the same with 8 foot lengths of bamboo, although he did miss one cut, not completely cutting the bamboo. The last strike was through 2 lengths of bamboo at once. My wife explained to me later that the straw is similar to skin and the bamboo to bone. If you can cut through a piece of bamboo, then you should be able to cut through a bone (thus dismembering an opponent) the same size as the bamboo. If this is really true then it is impressive that my kumdo master has cut through 6 bamboo shafts with one stroke (there is a picture at the school of him performing this task). I don't think the opportunity comes up very often to dismember a 6 limbed opponent but I'm sure it's nice to know that you can.

Sword Fighting and the Competetive Spirit

Two weeks ago I felt like I needed a change, something new to do with my time. My wife suggested kumdo (Korean sword fighting/martial art). I've always wanted to take up kumdo but I thought my lack of Korean would be a problem...but the next day we went to a local kumdo school and signed me up for a month. Now I go to practice every weekday at 11:00 and it's a lot of fun and good exercise. Kumdo is a lot like the Japanese sport, kendo, although in my school we don't fight each other but just practice stances, strikes and movement.

It seems that I've been learning pretty well the last 2 weeks as I'm the only student in my class so I get a lot of attention. The instructor's English is just good enough that he can teach me the basics. This week he told me that I have to come next weekend for a test to get my yellow belt...the first step of many towards a black belt. I'm quite nervous about it as there will be many students there, mostly children, who will watch. There will be 3 kumdo instructors evaluating my performance as well. It's not just the fact that I will be tested in front of an audience but also how different I will be compared to other students and I'm sure I will get a lot of stares and snickers because I'll be the only big, hairy white man in a group of 20 little Korean kids, each of us waiting for our turn to be tested. As I am taking my first test, I will be behind almost all of the children in my training. My instructor says it takes about a year of daily practice to attain the level of blackbelt in kumdo.

I have lost 6 kg in 2.5 months by going to the gym as well as going to kumdo. My instructor keeps telling me though to lose weight. It's understandable as he's my instructor but I also hear that at least once per week from my students or just any odd stranger I happen to meet. Sometimes it gets on my nerves as in Canada it's not something you usually talk about but my students here seem to have no problem with saying "Teacha, you fat. Dietuh." I'm not sure what to think about it as there are definitely more overweight people in Canada per capita than in Korea which is not good, but usually people are polite about the subject. In Korea, most people are quite thin (although weight is quickly becoming a problem in the younger generation) but if one of my students is just a little bigger than average, the other students will call him/her terrible names.

Yesterday I asked one class, "Who is your social science teacher?" One of the girls said, "The fat man". I couldn't think of a fat teacher in the school...but then I thought it must be the short, stocky teacher. He's got a little bit of a gut but he's not fat. Sometimes I think it's because of the language barrier that students use the word "fat" when they really mean "stocky" or another word but it does seem that when they use the word "fat" there is a certain tone they use...the tone of someone who looks down on another. I see this attitude often from my students in different ways too such as in academics. If one student isn't as quick as the others, they let him/her know. There seems to be a competetive quality to Koreans that causes them to constantly compare themselves to others. Students are taught from an early age that their grades are very important and they compete with each other through school and then university and then for jobs. Maybe this competitive attitude helps them in school or business (many of my middle school students alread know what career they want to pursue, while I still don't) but sometimes I wish my students could turn it off their desire to get an edge or one-up their classmates (and teachers) and just be children who are happy with who they are.