This weekend Mr E and I were lucky enough to participate in our very first Haidong Gumdo (Korean Sword Art) Geup/Kup (Coloured Belt) test, held in Cologne, Germany.

It was an interesting, tiring, yet uplifting, exciting and deeply enriching day.

The testing itself was preceded by an in-depth 3-hour seminar by ‘our’ GrandMaster Seung-Eun Chae.

We got to dive deeply into the basic priciples of Korean sword art, and were lucky enough to have several black belt masters/instructors assisting, each offering us white belt-ees a wealth of generous feedback and fascinating bonus back stories on the sword techniques that we practised that day.

We worked on the principles of directional changes, using the breath to transition smoothly and with balanced energy, a concept that translates to dancing (and life!) very well.

A list of the disciplines we were tested on for our 10th to 8th kup (white to full yellow belt) test:

• Basic Stances and Techniques
• First Sword Form (Ssang-Soo Gumbub ilbon)
• Drawing/Sheathing the Sword
• One-Step Sparring
• Paper Cutting (horizontal cut)
• Putting out Candles (one candle)