After master Luiz Miele and his students visited the Hankimuye headquarters in Korea earlier this year, it was now time for Klaas Barends to pay a visit to Brazil. At the invitation of Luiz and his students Klaas spent twelve days in São Paulo. His main mission was to teach hankumdo.
History
Luiz and Klaas met each other fifteen years ago in Korea when they both trained with master Ko Baek-yong. According to master Ko both gentlemen were so similar in appearance, he declared them cousins. In the following years these cousins stayed in touch and often collaborated on HKD projects.
Hankumdo in Brazil
During his stay Klaas mostly taught private lessons to Luiz and his close students. An open seminar took place on Saturday September 19. Visits were made to schools in the nearby city of Valinhos. The goal of Klaas’ visit was to teach hankumdo. A lot of progress was made because the students in Brazil had practiced the basic strikes a lot. This enabled Klaas to teach all 24 letters of the Korean writing system and several forms as well as the hankumdo warming-up techniques.
Of course there was also time to practice hankido and traditional self defense.
Future plans
Klaas stayed both with Luiz and his student Luis Magalhaes. Both gentlemen proved themselves to be perfect hosts. Plans were made to have these kind of exchanges more often in the future.
