SEOUL, South Korea — A BYU student won a gold medal in August in the 2006 Haidong Gumdo World Championships.
Lina Ferreira has been training in martial arts including tae kwon do, judo, aikido and kung fu since she was 7 years old, and has been training in haidong gumdo since last spring. She is the daughter of Jaime Ferreira, an Area Seventy, and Vilma Ferreira, and is an English major at BYU.
Gumdo, a Korean word, can be split into "gum," which means sword, and "do," which means way or school. Literally, the word is translated to mean "the way of the sword" and uses a philosophy called "shimgum," which is characterized by a unification of the mind, body and spirit, and transcends technical accuracy.
The championships were held July 23-Aug. 1 and take place every two years.