"Hoi!" Performances by Martial Art Masters

`Silat` `Nakbabuka` `Capoeira`….

These are martial arts of the world, which are hard to even pronounce the name. The experts of these martial arts have come to Korea. At the Fifth World Martial Art Festival, which opened on Sep 30 in Chungju of north Chungchung Province, around 800 martial art masters from 35 countries had gathered together.

At the festival, which will be held till Oct 6, not only the Korean martial arts such as Hap Ki Do Taek Gyeon but also those from all countries of the world including China, Japan, Vietnam, Africa, America, Australia and New Zealand, will be performed.

We can see various martial arts including Chinese martial art that we see often in the movies. Traditional martial arts such as the one that African slaves who were taken to the American Continent practiced mostly using their feet with their hands tied back, and those developed by the intelligence corps of the former Soviet union for actual battles and some modern martial arts will be shown to the public.

In this festival 35 Korean martial art organizations and 20 foreign martial art groups participate. The contents of the festival can be largely divided into `Martial Art Demonstration` `Martial Art Experience` and `Martial Art Exhibition`. Various Korean traditional music and cultural festivals will accompany it.

The main event of the festival, `Martial Art Demonstration`, will be performed on the main stage set up at a public square in front of Chungju Gymnasium from 11am to 6 pm during the event period. Each group will show their martial arts for around 20mins. In the interim of the demonstration, there will be some folk performances of participating countries.

With schedules of major events each day and other side events, you can enjoy the festival even more. Reference Chungju Municipal Website (http://chungju.chungbuk.kr), Call 850-5171∼4