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What Does ‘Keumgang’ Mean?
(And how do you pronounce it???}
It’s more than just a pretty face...
The official name of our school is Keumgang Taekwondo/Hapkido Institute – that’s pronounced: Koom’gahng - Teh kwon’doh - Hop key’ doh. We also refer to it as KTI. We derive our name from the fierce mythic warrior depicted here, known as the Warrior Keumgang. You’ll find a caricature of this ancient, legendary fighter on the backs of the uniforms of all KTI (taekwondo) students dobok’s (uniforms). This caricature has become our school logo.
Grandmaster Delavan’s Master Instructor, 9th Dan Grandmaster Yun, Nam Ku, originally used this caricature of the Warrior Keumgang on the back of his and his student’s doboks in Korea. They proudly wore this into competition. The caricature you see today was originally drawn by an artist at Camp Page, Korea for Grandmaster Yun. When Grandmaster Delavan opened his own Taekwondo/Hapkido Dojang, Grandmaster Yun passed the logo and Dojang name along to him to carry on the Keumgang tradition of excellence. Master Delavan and his students are proud and honored to carry on this tradition.
Like many words, Keumgang has several shades of meaning. Primarily it means too strong to be broken and when combined with the word Seok (Keumgang-seok) is the word for a diamond, the hardest known natural mineral. Keumgang is also the name of what is considered to be the most beautiful mountain in Korea. Further, it is used to refer to that state of mind which combines wisdom and virtue to become totally serene. In Taekwondo, Keumgang represents movement based on spiritual or inner strength, serene and majestic as the Keumgang Mountain with the strength and clarity of the diamond.
The poomsae, or form, which is performed by 2nd Dan (degree) Black Belts, is also called Keumgang. It is a form of great power and the line of this poomsae draws the Chinese character which represents the word "mountain."
(The ancient Koreans used Chinese characters for their written language until the 1400's when King Seajong ordered the creation of the current written form of the Korean language known as Hangul. Hangul utilizes a phonetic "alphabet" composed of simple characters that when combined make words.)
