Speculations on Virtue in Haidong Gumdo

__________________________________by Anthony Boyd_____________________________________

Much has been written about the nature of martial arts and its role in our lives as martial artists.
In these writings we are shown that there is a better way to live and that the wisdom of the past can be
applied directly to the problems of the present. We are told that the mysteries of the East are the secret to
living full and healthy lives. In our North American lives, where cultures have merged into a bland
mixture, the allure of the exotic and the ancient holds a tremendous appeal. That appeal leads us to
ascribe great value to the Asian culture being preserved and transmitted by the martial arts, but what of
our own cultures? Can we really embrace all the lessons our instructors desire to teach if we shift our
focus entirely to the East?

As students of Haidong Gumdo we are presented with a code of behaviour that in its complete
form is made of six virtues: sincerity, devotion, courtesy, justice, reliability and knowledge. A
transliteration of the Korean words for these ideas is as follows: sincerity is choong, filial piety is hyo,
courtesy is yae, justice is eui, reliability is in, and knowledge is ji. Depending on the exact lineage of
your instructor you might find all or some of these virtues stressed in class. One that is always present is
devotion, often translated as filial piety. I find that the term filial piety does not resonate very strongly
with students from western backgrounds so I try to think of it in terms of devotion. That is something we
are well equipped to understand. Total respect and devotion to one's parents is of extreme importance in
Korean culture and the strictness of this is felt in daily life in Korea. For those of us who are not Korean
and not familiar with this way of life, the system can be almost incomprehensible. We can come to
understand it intellectually but that understanding is still a far cry from true understanding. Where we
can get into trouble with this virtue is that it can lead us to sacrifice our own heritage and our parents'
way of life in favour of a strictly Korean interpretation of "The Way." To do so is to not fully honour our
parents and our ancestors. Replacing our ancestors with surrogate parents, no matter how extraordinary
they might be and no matter how disappointing our predecessors might have been, is to not fully acting in
accordance with the virtue of devotion. If humans were more than we are this might be fine, but sadly
we must own up to being only human. People make mistakes and people lie. People seek advantage over
others and live life between the cracks rather than in the full light. From the point of view of Haidong
Gumdo, the very name of which speaks of light, this sort of shadowed life is unacceptable. We must
each accept responsibility for our way of life. Our membership in this art does not make us virtuous and
neither does our association with virtuous people. Only by striving for virtue ourselves can we hope to
become virtuous. The only way to do that is to begin from a totally secure and honest foundation.
Before we can embrace the new we have to deal with the old. We also need to ensure that we are
prepared to live these virtues in all areas of life, not just in the dojang. If we swear to a life of integrity
and then go home and pirate copyrighted material, drive recklessly, threaten someone weaker than
ourselves, or any one of a thousand everyday sins what does that state about the worth of our word? The
virtues transmitted by the study of many traditional martial arts are intended to help us build that
foundation for self-improvement.

Let us first look at the virtue of sincerity. To be sincere is to be honest and committed to our
endeavours; nothing held back and no preconceptions. It means to do what we say we will do. As a
student, it means to be open to instruction no matter how bizarre or incomprehensible it might seem at
the beginning. It means that we will do the repetitions and practice what is required of us with the
passion of our whole heart. A sincere student doesn't just fill in time waiting for the next belt test, hoping
that a promotion will be granted. A sincere student doesn't describe their level as how far they are from
the next belt or what rank they will be by a certain date. Sincere students dedicate themselves to learning
the lessons of the day. Sincere instructors dedicate themselves to learning as much as they can in order to
provide their students with the best possible instruction, holding nothing back. A sincere instructor seeks
to provide the student with the means to surpass them. The instructor who allows ego to weaken
instruction is failing to teach sincerely and fails in their commitment to the art itself. Sincere instruction
leads to the betterment of the art and ensures its future. True sincerity in instruction means that the
teacher learns to present the material so that the student can learn it, not forcing the student to learn in the
style in which the teacher feels most comfortable. It leads the instructor to ensure the safety and
effectiveness of the training regimen so that the long-term health and welfare of the student is assured.
True sincerity in the student means that they will open themselves fully to instruction and not presume to
dictate to the instructor what will be taught. Sincerity in equal measure by both student and instructor are
absolutely essential to a real relationship in the art. An unfortunate fact of the human condition is that
those in lower positions on the path can lose resolve in their decision to be sincere and become resentful
of the leaders or prideful of their own position above others. Those in higher positions can grow
enamoured of the attention and service paid to them and forget that we must always struggle to be worthy
of this dedication and that nothing in life is owed to us. To demand loyalty is to fail to understand the
true meaning of this virtue. The virtues enshrined in the martial traditions of the world are honoured for
a reason and they must never be forgotten, no matter what heights we rise to or how we are reviled due to
our own failures in commitment.

It is only once we are committed to the virtue of sincerity that we can even begin to approach
the virtue of devotion - filial piety. This virtue is more challenging than it seems at first. On the surface
it requires us to submit fully to the service of our parents and elders. In the martial arts the instructor
often assumes the role of an additional parent and the student is expected to offer them respect
accordingly. The student must obey. It is only when we consider the totality of this simple statement for
a moment that we can get a glimmer of what it really means over the course of your life. Of all the
virtues the necessity for its burden to be shared equally by both instructor and student is paramount.
While the duty of the student is to obey, the duty of the instructor must be to know their place and not
take advantage. Sadly, we are weak and as we age we can come to feel we deserve special treatment
rather than remembering that respect is earned. We fail to honour those who provided the means for us
to live if we do not always seek to be our best. It is the duty of those below to respect the achievements
and examples of those above but it is equally the duty of those above to constantly provide that example.
We cannot do so by demanding respect. In the west, respect can only be earned. It is not to be given
freely. To demand respect is to lose it - forever. We are not true to ourselves and to the sacrifices of our
ancestors if we forget this. We are not true to our future descendants if we allow our standards for
respect to slide into mediocrity. I see this as the real challenge of the virtue of devotion. We must be
devoted to each other and to the art. We must be devoted to the past and to the present - selflessly.
Those who come after us will protect us if we remember to do our duty and be worthy of that protection.
We are not building a pyramid where we will be the eventual peak; we are building a chain which stems
from the first link hopefully onward into infinity.

It quickly becomes apparent that to live a life of real devotion we need to learn how to behave.
We need to understand the virtue of courtesy. As sincerity brings us to devotion so too does devotion
bring us to courtesy. When I first began my training in Haidong Gumdo, I was a student under the care
of Master Kim Jin-Ho in the city of Uijongbu in Gyeonggi Province in the Republic of Korea. One of the
earliest lessons he taught me was to forget about learning mu-sul (military techniques), and to forget
about mu-do (the principles of a warrior's life) - these things will come he said. He impressed upon me
that my first priority as a student of Korean martial arts was to learn mu-yae (the proper way to act as a
martial artist). If I were to do that, then I would truly learn. I thought I understood then, but really I did
not. If I am to honour my decision to be sincere then I cannot say that I am certain I understand it truly
even now. Understanding can sometimes be fleeting and what we grasp fully one day we can lose the
next; one step forward and two steps back. Too often courtesy is used as a form of social grease, a means
to get what we want when we want it. It is pretence. When those who lead us are also lost, having
forgotten their own pursuit of virtue, we become mired in politics and manipulation. True courtesy is
abandoned. This leads to deceit and that violates the first virtue: sincerity. It is impossible to take a
journey if we never truly take the first step. Martial arts really can be a journey of self-improvement and
discovery if we allow ourselves the opportunity. The means to access this opportunity resides in the
virtues by which the art is framed by its founders. With this in mind, courtesy takes on a more weighty
meaning than we often give it. To be truly courteous is to regard others as we would like them to regard
ourselves. We should not treat the newest student with any less courtesy than the most senior student.
This virtue is held out as separate from devotion and there is good reason for it. This division helps us to
retain awareness of our need to earn the service of those behind us on the way. We must lead by example.
We cannot teach courtesy if we reserve it only for certain people. The merit of a person’s courtesy is to
be found in how they treat people below, and not above them in the hierarchy. True courtesy is not based
on the perceived merit of the recipient but on the giver's capacity to love. Without sincerity and without
devotion, true courtesy must surely be impossible.

Next in the chain of virtue comes justice. This marks the end of the standard four virtues
reinforced in most modern Haidong Gumdo classes. I see this virtue as the test for those who believe
they have begun to abide by the previous three virtues. Can you really make justice, true justice, a virtue
in your life without first grasping sincerity, devotion and courtesy? Justice is both the undertaking of
‘right action’ in life but also the willingness to battle greed in our own thoughts. It is not enough to ‘do
no harm’. We must strive to cut ourselves off from the desire to acquire beyond our merit. We cannot
simply hide from what makes us uncomfortable. Easier said than done. This virtue touches all that we
do, and without the honest support of those who follow us I am not convinced that it is truly possible.
How can we be just when our students try to sway us with flattery rather than showing courtesy? How
can we be just when our students are loyal for their own benefit? True justice is a co-operative effort and
it is an exceedingly fragile thing. To be just we must learn to really see our fellows with open eyes. We
must learn to see them as they truly are, not as we believe them to be or even as we would have them be.
We must employ fairness in all our decisions. That fairness must also be controlled with consistency.
We must define and hold one standard and employ it with the full understanding of all of our virtues.
This path becomes more difficult the farther we walk but each step can provide us the tools to keep
walking. Perhaps the hardest part about undertaking the virtue of justice is the surrendering of illusions,
both personal and external. We must face our own flaws and strengths but we must also come to
understand the flaws and strengths of our heroes and mentors. Sometimes it is that external examination
which causes us the most pain.

In my training, my master chose to focus on five virtues in class. The fifth virtue was reliability.
I had to ponder for a long time before I could understand why this virtue would be separated out from the
others when it seems to be implied by each one separately and most certainly the group of four as a
whole. Like many things, the answer may have been hidden right in front of me. I now believe that this
virtue is included because of the very human weakness that I have mentioned in each of the preceding
descriptions of the virtues. What we strive for and achieve can be lost much more easily than attained and
in the case of intangible things like virtues or attitudes, the loss can go unnoticed until it is too late.
Physical habits take much pain, effort and dedication to change but are nothing compared to the
resilience of mental habits. We must be reliable, we must be consistent in our pursuit of virtue or else
our pursuit will ultimately be in vain. Like the four previous virtues of sincerity, devotion, courtesy and
justice, the virtue of reliability is intended to permeate our entire lives. We must remember to always
navigate our passage carefully along the way, never relaxing on our quest for improvement. A friend of
mine and fellow student of our art, Ron Mottern, told me once that one of the rules which he lives and
trains by is, ‘perfection is attainable’. I think he was referring to this virtue. We have it within ourselves
to improve. In the beginning this is easy as we know nothing and every increase in knowledge is
significant. Eventually, with effort, we will reach a point where it once appeared to be perfect skill to our
formerly uneducated eyes. That point will not seem to be perfection when we reach it. Our greater
experience will show us that perfection still lies ahead. We can always improve and we can always meet
new goals but the journey has no end. Thankfully it has no end! How sad it would be to reach the end
and have nothing left to pursue. This is the virtue of reliability, in my opinion. We must continue to do
what we set out to do. We must show in our simplest and most mundane actions that we are students of
the way seeking to attain the attainable yet ever-evolving goal of perfection. We must perform our duties
with the same zeal we did when our first belt was tied about us and maintain that zeal until the end of our
days.

The final virtue on the full list under which our art was founded is knowledge and it, like
reliability, is touched on by the first four. As both students and teachers we must strive to perfect and
expand our knowledge. We must keep our knowledge pure and be honest about where and how we
attained such knowledge. We must share and preserve our knowledge for the future, out of respect for the
past. The virtue of knowledge encourages us to not rest in our pursuit but to constantly seek to expand
our understanding of what we know. We must know ourselves, we must know our effect on the world and
we must know the world's effect on us. The modern purpose of the martial arts is to provide a way for the
modern person to challenge himself or herself to the trial of real growth. This journey is impossible
without self-knowledge but it is also impossible without knowledge of the realities of life, and quite
frankly without the knowledge of those who have struggled with our questions before us. To proceed
properly on our pursuit the other virtues must guide us, for knowledge without understanding can lead to
unhappiness and confusion. I believe this is may be why the virtue of knowledge is placed last on the
list. We must become prepared for new knowledge in stages or we cannot grasp it. The clearest example
of this that I can think of is the center cut. (chun myun begi) So simple and elegant, and yet most of us
will practice it for the rest of our lives and be found wanting in this most basic of techniques. This in a
nutshell is the virtue of knowledge. Learn all that you can so that you can be ready to learn more about
what you already know.

At this place and time, this is my understanding of the virtues that should underpin conscientious
study of Haidong Gumdo. I have mixed feelings as I write this conclusion. Firstly, I look forward to how
I will regard this article when I come to read it again in the future. Secondly, I am concerned that
something that I have written might inadvertently lead someone astray or cause problems. Still, this
article is what it is: the speculation and opinion of one student regarding an art that we all love. Please
consider it in the spirit in which it was written; a means to better understand the pursuit of virtue.

- Anthony Boyd, January 31, 2003, Seoul, Korea