Hankumdo!
 

As it seems the latest in korean swordmanship has yet to be treated in this forum. So here goes Hankumdo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drCP8_9NUco
hankumdo exams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7j_o72BqXA
hankumdo warming-up

Hankumdo is a Korean sword-art where the basic techniques are based on the letters of the Korean alphabet, Hangul.
[...]
This art was developed by the late Myung Jae Nam, the first plans to teach his sword techniques as a separate art emerged in 1986. Hankumdo was first made public during the 3rd International H.K.D Games in 1997.
Master Myung wanted to develop a sword-art that would be truly Korean and easy to learn by everyone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hankumdo

This guy also created Hankido.

Hankido is a relatively new hapkido style, developed by the late Myung Jae Nam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hankido

The hankumdo article will have to be checked for neutrality issues. It sounds like a Pamphlet for said art.

This thread depresses me. Not because of the style, but it seems I've become jaded by the whole "I've got a new deadly sword style I just made up" types. This one honestly doesn't look too bad to me. It looks like a highly Mc Dojoised form of kenjutsu mixed with interpretive dance and it saddens me when my first thought is "aside from the 14 year old viking-pirate-ninja, this could be so much worse".

It doesn't seem to be denying its very recent origins, or the fact that it's based off of writing hangul (the alphabet) with a sword. If people know that and still want to practice... where's the harm? It's not like anyone's getting in swordfights, these days.

I agree with b8amack, it seems like they're upfront with the fact that it's relatively new and are rather clear about their origins and purpose. If people want to learn it despite all of that then that's their choice. Not my cup of tea but as long as they're clear that it is made up and not traditional then I don't have a problem with it.

I realized something, it's all kids. As we all know, kids believe anything. If you tell them they train Korean sword fighting, they'll believe it. It is sad that parents expose kids to this made up stuff.

What surprises me the most is that these folks are located in Urk (first vid). For you non Dutch, Urk is an extremely conservative Christian town in the Bible belt, who are rather xenophobe towards anything non Christian (surprise, surprise).

The kids are pretty clearly writing and learning the Korean alphabet as part of their geup (kyu) tests in the first video; so I'd say it's a safe bet they know what they're being taught. I've never done hankumdo nor seen a dojang of it, so I could be wrong, but I'm betting part of the impetus behind it is more to spread some Korean culture around, than trying to displace koryu or corrupt the youth of the world.

I'm not sure where the non-Christian comes in, however. Have you been here? Church steeples are like punch buggies in the 70's.

Darn, 'cause I have to say if it were for corrupting the youth of the world I'd be all over that ;-)

You could always make a video game of it. Problem solved!

There are plenty of fake/Mcdojo styles in/from any country, but you gotta admit that the Koreans know how to market them.

Hmmm, that didn't come out the way I meant it. The town of Urk isn't known for it's progressive behaviour. I'm just surprised that Mcdojo has entered this rather closed community, they don't even have a McDonald's http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/laugh.gif