Anybody do this martial art? I practice primarily tang soo do, but I take sword as an incredible strength cross training martial art. I recently tested on my first belt, it's a slow process just because karate has always been my first love so I can only fit so much in a week.

Figured I'd just see how many practitioners are on the forum. Take care!

Edited May 30, 201511 yr by Luther unleashed

Nobody? We'll here's a quick video, this happens to be my master, he is my master in karate AND haidong gumdo. Posting a video so people who may have never heard of it can see what it is. http://youtu.be/f8iKUvLEM1w

It looks spectacular; but I must admit, this is the first time I have heard of it.

Yeah it's not the most known martial art that's for sure! It comes from a Japanese sword art. Most Korean martial arts are derivatives of Japanese arts. Tang soo do as an example is primarily what I practice outside of sword. Obviously it's almost identical to shotokan!

I never cared for sword but I tried it and got hooked. Although it looks easy I would describe it as twice as hard as my karate training. If you ever have the opportunity you should see a demonstration. It's really fun to watch!

It's essentially a rebrand of japanese Kendo.

Gumbo is said to be an ancient Korean sword arts, but that's not historically true.

This happens a lot with Korean arts. The creators say it's ancient Korean art, but the only link there seems to exist with previous martial arts are to Japanese arts that had been introduced to Korea during the Japanese occupation.

During the occupation, most of Korean culture was lost. After WWII, many Koreans didn't want to acknowledge they were practicing Japanese martial arts, so a lot of new Korean martial arts were created that were initially nothing more than Japanese martial arts, renamed and passed along as "native Korean martial art". Tang Soo Do (later Taekwondo), Gumbo and Hapkido are such examples.

One notable exception of a true native Korean art however, is Taekkyon which disappeared during Japanese occupation only to be recovered afterwards.

It looks spectacular; but I must admit, this is the first time I have heard of it.

Ditto !!

Our second-highest ranking member from our school recently broke off to start his own school. He was talking about getting certified in Haidong Gumdo so he could teach it. It sounded neat, but I'm not sure how one can become certified to teach it in short order. Like any other martial art, it seems like it should take at least several years to reach the level to where you can teach.

Our second-highest ranking member from our school recently broke off to start his own school. He was talking about getting certified in Haidong Gumdo so he could teach it. It sounded neat, but I'm not sure how one can become certified to teach it in short order. Like any other martial art, it seems like it should take at least several years to reach the level to where you can teach.

Typically it's about two years to black belt. At this point should be considered respectable to teach. At least the school I came out of viewed black belts as the standard of minimum requirement to teach. Some schools may feel you need to be a 3rd degree or 4th degree who knows but I personally think any black belt should be able to teach.

Whether somebody is or is not a good teacher has very little to do with the exact rank they are but I think the minimum standard should always be that you have gone through all of the colored belts, that's just my opinion.

I started teaching at yellow belt but I did not teach on my own until black.

There are a lot of schools that teach Korean martial arts that incorporate this heart into their school and it tends to do pretty well. And I stopped at orange belt because I was training heavy and other arts and it was a bit much for my knees because of the incredibly low stances you had to perform. Recently however I have thought about taking it back up but only time will tell