In Haidong Gumdo (Korean Sword Art), most of the training is done with a Mok Gum, a double handed hard wood sword – like Spot and Freckles – our practise swords, the ones you can see in the picture below.

Mok Gum are used for:

• practising basic cuts (Begi) and stances (Se)
• two-handed sword forms (Ssang-Soo Gumbub)
• codified sparring (Kyuk Gum)
• snuffing candles (Chot-Bul Kkugi)

For cutting paper (Jong-I Begi), a Bamboo sword is used.

At Blue Belt level and up, students are allowed to use a blunt metal sword (Ka Gun).

Black belt students are allowed to purchase a real (sharp) sword (Jin Gum) for cutting Bamboo (Dae-Na-Mu Begi) and Straw (Jip-Dan Begi) – representing cutting through bones and muscles respectively.

Haidong!