| I recently had a couple of students in my Wing Chun | | | | of obvious similarities. You use a split bamboo |
| class ask for training in swordsmanship. Now, Kung Fu | | | | practice sword (called a shinai in Kendo, and a jukdo |
| has a lot of weapons forms, but they tend to be | | | | in kumdo), and wear rigid practice armor (called a |
| stylized, rather than sparring formats. I originally | | | | bogu in kendo and a hogu in kumdo.) The two arts |
| thought of teaching them Kendo, on the Japanese | | | | have been diverging slowly since 1945, though the |
| forms, but having just taken some Tae Kwon Do | | | | basic forms are nearly identical from what I've been |
| classes of my own, I decided to look a little further | | | | looking up. The Korean protective gear is a bit more |
| afield. I found the Korean cognate of Kendo, called | | | | modern and practical in design, being a bit less tied to |
| kumdo. | | | | tradition than the kendo gear. It is kind of nice to be |
| While there are a lot of practitioners of kumdo who | | | | able to use kendo gear for it, or mix and match. (We |
| claim that their techniques are passed down over the | | | | have some gear left over from when a prior |
| centuries in secret rituals, a little bit of digging | | | | instructor at the school tried to teach Kendo. It didn't |
| showed that it's incredibly unlikely that this is the | | | | go over well, but the gear is still here at the school.) |
| case. When the Imperial Army of Japan occupied | | | | Kumdo and Kendo are close enough in form that |
| Chosun (now Korea) in the early 20th century, they | | | | Kumdo teams participate in the World Kendo |
| brought kendo with them. Prior to that, because of | | | | Championships. While there are some differences |
| the Confucian influences from China, and a Korean | | | | (Kumdo focuses a bit more on point strikes than |
| superstition about sharp objects, the art of the | | | | power and speed), the kumdo teams do respectably. |
| sword in Korea had been withering on the vine for | | | | Overall, it looks like a good fit with what my students |
| going on three hundred years. The Koreans, like any | | | | are asking for, which is more an overview of |
| culture that adopts guns, had relegated the sword to | | | | swordsmanship techniques, and as there's a strong |
| a secondary, and eventually tertiary weapon for | | | | Korean community in Las Vegas, I may be able to |
| military training, and Confucianism put a stronger | | | | set up classes with a wider audience. Kumdo is the |
| emphasis on scholarship than martial arts. | | | | second most popular sport in Korea, so it may have |
| So, kumdo sort of grew from Kendo, and it has a lot | | | | some traction here. |