PDA

View Full Version : Korea/Japan Kendo Fashion



elfboy
25th September 2003, 04:07 AM
For a while, I've wondered about the clothing aspect of both Kumdo and Kendo. Whereas the basic Kendo uniform is the keikogi and hakama, which was worn as typical clothing way back when, Kumdo seems to have something completely different, the white uniform with the black embroidery or something like that. After looking around Mingshi's excellent 12th WKC picture site, I saw this picture of what appeared to be an official on the Korean delegation with an interesting uniform variant. http://www.geocities.com/wkc12pic/prep02.jpg

I'm talking about the man on the left, bending over to inspect the boxes of Kendo equipment to the left of the picture. He seems to be part of the Korean team, but he's wearing a dark green keikogi with what seems to be a Korean flag pinned on and a white hakama. Hm... never seen this before! Seeing as I don't know too much about kumdo, what is the significance of this outfit? I would be curious to know as to what extent the differences in fashion is between Kendo and Kumdo. And in the future, will Kumdo retain its Japanese influence right down to its uniforms or has traditional Korean design, such as the dobok worn on chusok, the Korean thanksgiving, start to influence it?

Just a silly thought. When Korean thanksgiving comes this time of year, I can't help but think of kimchi :D. Happy chusok to you all!

swrdply400mrela
25th September 2003, 04:27 AM
I don't think there are differences. I'm part of a Kumdo dojang and all of us have the blue keikogi and hakama except for one guy that has the white ones.

Neil Gendzwill
25th September 2003, 05:59 AM
I don't think there are differences. I'm part of a Kumdo dojang and all of us have the blue keikogi and hakama except for one guy that has the white ones.

The kumdo guys I've seen all have the white with black racing stripes velcro deal. Just another Korea v. Japan thing I think, like streamlining the etiquette.

slidercrank
25th September 2003, 02:38 PM
I'm talking about the man on the left, bending over to inspect the boxes of Kendo equipment to the left of the picture... .he's wearing a dark green keikogi with what seems to be a Korean flag pinned on and a white hakama.

The green top is a jacket, which is worn over his white gi.